“No!” Selena paced toward the window. “When we were last here, when Martin proposed, I was excited. I was in love with him. But I was—” She whirled around. “Beatrice, I was so very scared.”
“Of what? A happy future? Belonging somewhere? Living with someone who loves you, wants you?” A hole existed inside Beatrice where those things had never been, a deep, aching longing that she knew would never be sated. She’d thought she might appease it at one point. With Richard. But he’d proven himself a cad. He’d hurt Selena.
But… he hadn’t…
“I don’t understand,” Beatrice said, voice flat.
“I was young, and Daniel wasexciting. So much more than Martin. He was a rake and Martin a scholar, and I did not value the life Martin was offering. It seemed too quiet, too tame. Oh, I wanted that. But not right away. Then he proposed and I said yes, and then… there was Daniel… alone with me one day in the garden. He’d had too much to drink the night before, and I was teasing him about his megrim.” She closed her eyes. “He was sitting on a bench, back against a tree, eyes closed, one leg stretched out. ‘Stop teasing, little bird, or I’ll kiss you,’ he said.” She covered her face with her hands, then dropped her arms to her sides. “And I said, ‘Please do.’ Then, he opened his eyes and told me I wasn’t brave enough. I proved it to him. I kissed him. A short, small thing first. He kept it rather chaste. Afraid, I think, of being caught by his mother or one of the guests. But I wanted more, and I kissed him back. Longer. Harder. And… Richard saw it all.”
Richard saw it all.
A buzzing in Beatrice’s ears almost blocked out her cousin’s story. “I… I asked you what happened. You wouldn’t tell me.” She’d accepted it. Thought it best not to press her dear cousin on an issue so clearly painful to her. “And Richard refused to tell me.”
“I made him swear not to. He promised me.”
“He kept that promise.” But at what cost? Sorrow hit like an angry ocean wave.
“I did not want you to think the worst of me. I did not want to disappoint you. You are a sister to me. I admire you. I am glad you know. I have long carried this guilt, and— Where are you going?”
Beatrice was standing, making her way to the door. “I need to walk.” She’d thought him wrong, rejected him, loathed him.
But she’d been wrong the entire time.
Selena had known, had let her think…
Her hand on the door, she whipped back around. “Why are you telling me this now? After years of lying.”
“Because I’m selfish. Because I’ve been ashamed. I knew I’d hurt Martin, but I did not regret my kiss with Daniel. Why should women be denied the same experiences men have? It is dangerous, I know. Our bodies betray our experiences if we are not careful”—her hand fluttered briefly to her belly—“and the whole of society casts us out. Do you hate me?”
“No.” She understood. She was in search of a lover herself, an avenue to an experience she’d never otherwise have.
A shiver of relief rippled through Selena, and she said, “Mr. Clark is… he is a gentleman. And if Evie is correct, and he has… he has loved you”—tears made her voice tight and halting—“then my selfishness has cost you more than it has ever cost me.”
Yes. Yes. Possibly so.
She stood on a rocking plank above a choppy river, the world unsteady beneath her. She stood alone, the salt in her nose and the wind tangling her hair, stealing her little girl’s ribbons.
Nothing but boats and water and crowded buildings and people like ants, unfamiliar faces, as far as the eye could see.
No mother.
No father.
No cousin.
No one.
“I… I… I must go. I cannot breathe.” She could notthink.
Selena came to her side. “We’ll walk in the garden and talk more, and?—”
“No. I wish to be alone.” She left the house, and Selena did not follow.
But Beatrice did not know where to go. No matter what direction she fled, she’d take her mind with her, take her doubts, and take her guilt. So when she finally looked up, she should not have been surprised where guilt had dragged her.
Right to Richard’s woodshop. She’d avoided every thought of it. Yet returned to it during sleep every night. She’d paid no attention to it the last time she’d entered, too angry with the man she pursued to notice any detail. It was a small stone cottage with a thatched roof and smoke curling out of the chimney. There was a single window on the same side as the door, and she stepped toward it, peeked through it. Where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there might be a man.
Yes. She’d found Richard.
