“Marry me.”
She nearly laughed, but his solemn face gave her pause. Was he in earnest? After all she had done to discourage him, was he so foolish as to risk his pride on yet another rejection?
“Your hesitation feeds my hope.”
“I am only surprised, my lord.” She nodded a greeting to Colonel Nagel as he passed. “I would have imagined my answer would now be clear to you.”
“Then you are …” His forehead tightened. “You are declining my proposal of marriage.”
“Yes.”
“That is all I wished to know. Good evening, Miss Gresham.” With a stiff bow and a perspiring but unaffected face, he weaved his way back through the maze of turbans and feather plumes and curls.
Isabella searched the room for Father. He stood by the yellow ottoman along the back wall, engrossed in deep conversation with a gentleman she was certain she’d seen in London. Likely a man of Parliament. Funny how they all possessed the same beady, intelligent eyes and long faces—so similar to the unpleasant ancestral paintings she used to laugh at in younger years.
She could not laugh at such faces now. She could not laugh at anything.
Not even Lord Livingstone’s absurd proposal.
Fleeing the ballroom, she hurried outside and kept to the deep shadows of the manor. Her heart fluttered faster as she drew closer to the garden. How strange and quiet and still it all seemed this time of night, especially after the overwhelming music and voices within the ballroom.
She slipped through the rows with growing anticipation. Perspiration dampened her gloves. Moonlight tinted all the flowers, bushes, and leaves a darkened shade of blue.
At the small garden bench, in the center of the garden, she drew in air. Tears burned and streamed to her lips so fast she tasted salt and anguish.
He had not come.
Now that he could see her, it was more difficult to pull himself away. William leaned farther behind the boxwood, hands curled in his pockets, as Isabella sank to the white bench and covered her face.
He would remember tonight. The way she looked. Young, willowy, in a light blue dress that glimmered with moonlight. That small tiara hair comb decked her hair. The one they’d found together. Her soft sobs lifted into the air, like a song of lament.
She cried for him. Hadn’t she done that before?
Yes. Once, when he’d been broken and mangled. Then again the other night, in the dark harness room, when she’d begged him not to speak the wordgoodbye.
He was answering her plea now. He was sparing her.
He was sparing himself.
But he was weaker than he realized. Instead of turning away as he’d planned, he stepped out from behind the boxwood and approached her. How many kinds of fool was he? Why had he come, despite every entreaty within himself not to?
At the sight of him, she hurried back to her feet. “William.” She swept against him too quickly and he embraced her before he could stop himself.
“I thought you would not come.”
How right she felt, pressed against him this way. Like she belonged here. Like his arms were made to hold her.
“Father is so angry. He says I am …” Her whisper faded into his shirt. “I do not know if it is wrong or right, but at every thought of never seeing you again, I cannot bear it.”
He pulled her back from him, an arm’s length away. His heartbeat ticked away the seconds.
“I never wish to be parted from you.” More tears. “Please, I cannot endure it.”
We must.
“It matters not what Father says.”
He is right.
