The corridors were too short, the journey to the courtyard over too fast. For several minutes, she stood concealed in the shadows of the cloisters, watching the folly, while a garden-scented breeze rustled her dress.
Then he saw her.
He rose from the bench, lifting an ornate hardback as if somehow beckoning. When she joined him at the entrance to the folly, he tugged her to the bench. “I shall have you know I debated the last three days if I should bring my poems to your chamber. I decided against it, in the event such trifling pleasures should dissuade you from rest.”
She glanced at her hands, twisted and wringing in her lap.
Silence.
The dog slept at Lord Cunningham’s feet, his soft snoring lazy and soothing in the tension-charged space.
“My lord, there are things I must tell you.”
“I wish to leave them unsaid.”
“They concern your father.”
Lord Cunningham leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “It is strange, is it not? Often, matters that affect us most directly have a way of finding us too late.” He nodded. “You need not pain yourself with delivering the minutiae of my father’s death. Shortly after I married, I found the note.”
“Then you knew.”
“Yes. My father was very clear in his reasonings, and I respected him enough then—and now—to leave the details undiscovered. The demise was his own choice. I am just fainthearted enough to believe it renders less pain if left in obscurity.”
“That is …” A loss for words shook her. Relief stirred, as calming as his all-too-familiar scent of cinnamon and leather. “That is very brave, my lord.”
His eyes lifted to hers. He eased closer, but she sensed the movement had very little to do with her and more to do with whatever tightened the lines of his face. “I wish to God that were true.”
“My lord—”
“No, you cannot think well of me. You cannot be kind.” His brow distressed. “Not now. Not after the proverbial den of lions I allowed you to face alone.”
“I was not alone.” Tom had come. She’d known he’d come. “And I think it would be right, for both of our sakes, to say goodbye with nothing grievous between us.”
“Nothing grievous.” He repeated the words slowly, as if they inebriated him. “An insurmountable feat, as there is nothingbutgrief between us. Margaret, I am a coward. You must know that. All this time, you thought well of me for my generosity, and you were too angelic to see that is the deepest my virtues reach.”
“You are brave. If not always in action, then certainly in conviction.”
“Conviction is nothing without performance.”
“I disagree.”
“Only because you still do not know the truth.”
“What?”
Sallowness swept across his complexation. Something about his stance—the way he stood too fast, rushed his hands into his hair—caused alarm to ring through Meg’s temples.
“My lord, speak to me.”
“I cannot. I am a coward, even in this.”
Long, terrible seconds fluttered by. Birds cried melancholy tunes, their echoes bouncing back and forth between the vine-covered courtyard walls. When Lord Cunningham finally faced her again, a bulging vein of torture cut through his forehead. “Darling, I lied. Or rather altered the truth in such a way that it would garner your sympathy.”
“My sympathy?”
“Violet is not dying.”
A bolt of denial crackled through Meg. “You are mistaken. The doctor—”
