She’d never felt less renewed. She felt drained, empty.
She reached the top of the hill and breathed in the clean, cold, bracing air. Her options were spread out before her. In one direction was the village, in the other Whitethorn Manor, and far away, to the northeast, lay Fyfield Place . . . Fyfield Place and Mr. Hulme.
Oh, Grand-mère, I’ve made such a mess of everything.
She would have to leave the village. Perhaps it was weak of her, but she couldn’t bear to be scorned and whispered about, to have her new-found friends turn their backs on her. She’d never had friends before, not like this. In France they’d kept their distance.
The children, too, would suffer from her ruined reputation. She couldn’t stay.
She had fifteen pounds. Not enough to start again. The only reason they’d survived before was Sir Jasper’s peppercorn rent on the cottage. And while she had no doubt Nash would honor the agreement, she couldn’t stay on. A token rent would only fuel the rumor mill.
Sick at heart, she contemplated the view and shivered. There was only one option . . .
Nash cursed himself. His blasted temper. After all they’d done to avoid compromising her . . . And with Harris of all people. Worse was the look in her eyes when she realized he’d regained his memory and not told her. He hadn’t even considered her feelings. All he’d thought about was how to remain here, in the cottage, how to protect her from the Bloody Abbot. He’d hurt her. Badly, from the look of it. Damn and blast! And by protecting her from Harris, he’d got her into a worse pickle. What the hell was he going to do?
He’d caused the scandal, he would fix it. But how?
The usual solution to compromised virtue was marriage. His body hummed approval. Nash’s gaze drifted to the line of worn, faded dresses on the hooks in the alcove, to the little collection of homemade books, to the pot of soup, simmering gently over the fire . . .
Maddy was an unsophisticated little soul. A keeper of bees and chickens and children. Beauty, but no training and a basic education. Apart from a short period in her gentleman father’s home, she’d spent most of her life in cottages growing vegetables.
Could Maddy live the life he lived, mixing with la crème de la crème of international society? The men would appreciate her beauty, but the women . . . They’d have her for breakfast, he thought. They’d sniff out her background—they always did—and peck her to pieces.
No, it would be selfish and cruel of him to drag Maddy into that world. She might leap at the idea, but she wouldn’t know the implications. And he would have to watch as the people of his world crushed her bright spirit. And that he couldn’t bear.
He hadn’t taken her virginity, only compromised her reputation, and to a man who bore them both a grudge.
All she really needed was new place to live, to escape the gossip, and an income, he reminded himself. And protection.
A cottage on his brother’s estate would do perfectly. Nash would settle an income on her and the children, and Marcus would ensure they didn’t come to any harm.
It was an adequate solution. But the guilt remained.
“Iwant you to leave.” Maddy hung her cloak on the hook. The children would be back soon. She needed to make supper.
He gave her a startled look. “What? Now?”
“As soon as possible.” She was pleased he’d recovered his memory, she really was, but right now she just felt . . . beaten. Trying to muster the courage to do what she knew she would have to do. Marry Mr. Hulme.
The only way to cope, when your life was turned upside down, was to put one step in front of the other and do whatever came next. Which was making the pancakes she’d promised the children for supper.
The ten-pound note still sat on the table where she’d left it, the five pounds in change piled neatly on top of it. She put it in the tin. At least they could afford to take the stagecoach back to Leicestershire. She knotted a cloth high around her middle to protect her from splatters and fetched a basket of eggs, a basin, and a fork.
He watched her somberly. “I didn’t—” he began, then stopped. He could see how serious she was. “Very well, I’ll leave, but I’ll wait until the children return. I’d want to say good-bye.”
She nodded. The children would be upset. They liked him. So did she, for that matter, and if she liked him too much for her own peace of mind, it was her secret. But they all knew he would leave one day. And today was the day.
She cracked eggs into the basin and whisked them briskly with a fork. Unanswered questions flew round and round in her head. Why had he really kept it a secret? She didn’t believe his excuse about catching Harris. That didn’t require him sleeping on her floor. Did he think she couldn’t be trusted? Or worse, did he fear she’d try to—to encroach . . .
It was the last thing she’d do.
She’d always known there could be nothing between them. Once it might have been possible, if only Nash was not the heir to an earldom . . . if only Papa had not lost all his money . . . if only she’d had a normal upbringing and an education to equip her for her station in life and she’d made her come-out like other girls of her station. If she didn’t have five little brothers and sisters to bring up, if she wasn’t his tenant, living on his uncle’s charity.
If only . . .
But if onlys buttered no parsnips, as Lizzie often said, and there was no use in trying to cling to past glories. Maddy had learned that from Grand-mère.
As she’d aged and become forgetful, Grand-mère had clung more and more to her airs and graces, refusing to admit what she’d lost. Most of the locals laughed at her, albeit behind her back. She had too much innate dignity for them to do it to her face, but Maddy knew.
