He belonged to the woman in the drawing.
But would it have been enough, perhaps, to have nothing more than looks and touches, scattered and scarce throughout the rest of her existence? A soft look. A tender squeeze to her hand as he helped her into a carriage. Things that said, without words, that he loved her.
Like the kiss.
Could she have been happy with such a fate? Would she have been satisfied the rest of her life with loving him and pretending he loved her back?
None of it mattered now.
He was doing what he had already done once.
Leaving.
On the afternoon of the third day, Nellie slipped open Georgina’s bedchamber door without knocking. “Miss Whitmore?” Her eyes twitched in uneasiness. “Um, someone would like to see you. I told them you were…still resting.”
From her chair, Georgina blinked hard, setting aside the embroidery. “Send them in.” Simon was too weak to see her. No one else mattered.
But when the door opened a second time, a face she had not expected stared back at her.
“Agnes.” Georgina swallowed.
Dressed in a soiled dark-blue dress, with a knitted shawl about her shoulders and a flowerless bonnet on her head, Agnes shuffled forward with one hand on her swollen belly. She was plainer than she had ever been. Her face whiter. Hair limper. Eyes sadder. “Do not get up,” she said, even though Georgina stood. “I shall only bother you a moment.”
“You did not write.” Georgina was not certain why she felt the need to express such a thing, as if that was the greatest of Agnes’ offenses.
“I did not have the funds to post a letter.”
“I am certain the Gilchrists would have provided a penny.”
“I am certain they would have, only”—Agnes licked her dry lip—“I told them the truth. About your Mr. Fancourt. About everything.”
Your Mr. Fancourt.The words lashed at Georgina, and she gripped the chair in a death grip.
“I was on the streets for nearly a fortnight. I slept in alleyways and under the arched bridge on Everill Street. I even sheltered in the mew back of the town house once when it was raining.”
“You should have come in.”
“I could not face you.”
“But the baby—”
“I cared as little for this baby as I cared for myself.” Shame mottled her face. “Six days ago, I knocked on the door of a relief society for…unwed women in my condition. The gentleman in charge wrote a letter of reference to his friend. He is a farmer in Shropshire. He is widowed with four children, is known to be religious, and is willing to forgive an unscrupulous past for a hardworking mother to his little ones.”
“Agnes.” Faint memories tried to push their way into Georgina’s head. Two young girls, giggling in the same bed, with dreams and imaginations of some glorious true love.
They would not have dreamed if they knew how all of it would end.
“I leave tomorrow. I wanted to say goodbye.”
Strange, that you could know someone that long, love them that much, then part with one word.
Georgina sank back to the chair by the window. She took the embroidery in her hands. She ought to say something, echo the words back, but she had not the heart.
Then Agnes was next to her, kneeling by her chair in that same old way she always had before. “Dear, what is wrong?”
Something sharp and bulging lodged in Georgina’s throat. The numbness thawed too fast. “Simon is leaving,” she choked. “Again.” Deep inside, a dam crumbled and the broken pieces flooded her. She turned away, tried to hide her face, silence the noises, because she did not want to need someone who had already betrayed her.
But Agnes reached out like before. She pulled Georgina into her arms, rubbed her hair, and cooed in that sisterly, motherly tone. “I think you knew he would leave again all along, dear.”
