What William wanted to know at the moment was whether or not she was wearing her wedding ring. Unfortunately, he couldn’t decide what either its presence or its absence might signify. He also couldn’t decide which condition he’d personally prefer. Would the sight of her ringless hand fill him with pity, sympathy, satisfaction—or excitement? He felt all those things, imagining it … You couldn’t miss it: a thick gold band with an ovoid swelling cut with a deep crease, in which was embedded a large diamond, flanked by pearls and tiny beads of Persian turquoise.
He yawned, stretched, and relaxed, so far as was possible; the inn’s bed was Procrustean for someone of his height, and he was lying with his knees raised, a dark double hillock under the blankets. He’d have to find better quarters if …
If what?
What, indeed? It wasn’t in his orders to drag the woman back to Savannah. He needn’t hang about in order to try to convince her to go with him. But what about Trevor?
Uncle Hal’s message—which had been dictated by Lord John, who said that Hal’s normal style of correspondence would drive any sane woman to instant flight—made it clear that he regarded her as a daughter and that she would always find protection and succor under his roof, for herself and her son.
Is she sane, I wonder …？
He was growing sleepy, but felt a distant throb at the thought, which had brought her suggestion regarding his personal difficulties to mind …
“You might … just possibly enjoy it.”
He’d rolled sideways, his legs folded up, and now pulled the pillow over his head to muffle the sounds from the bar below, where the singing seemed to be accompanied by someone beating a bass drum.
“You might, too,” he murmured, and slept.
AT THREE O’CLOCK the next afternoon, he presented himself at the bookshop. Mr. Cowden was standing behind his desk, writing in a large ledger. He looked up at William’s entrance, regarded him with a beady eye, and then pulled out a shallow drawer, from which he removed a single golden guinea and placed it precisely in the center of the desk.
“She’s in the courtyard out back,” he said, and returned to his accounts. William picked up the guinea, bowed, and went out.
The so-called courtyard was a small, fenced plot of ground, but had been designed by someone—probably Mr. Cowden—with a fine eye for a garden and a diverse taste in plants. It took William a moment to spot Amaranthus, even though he was looking for her. She was seated on a stone bench in one corner overhung by a rose trellis—not blooming, but lushly leaved, the foliage tinged with red. A small stone fountain bubbled in front of her; that’s why he hadn’t seen her at once.
She wore black, which didn’t become her, and her hair was pinned up under a cap with a tiny bit of lace edging. She still wore her wedding ring, and he felt a small twinge of what might be disappointment. Then he saw that while she still wore the ring, she’d changed it from her left hand to her right.
He stopped just by the fountain and bowed to her.
“So you’re not afraid of anything, now?”
She looked him over, soberly, then lifted her eyes to meet his. Pale blue, translucent.
“I wouldn’t say that. But I’m certainly not afraid of you.” It might have been a challenge or a sneer, but it wasn’t. It was just a statement of fact and rather warmed him.
“Good,” he said. “Why did you run when I came yesterday, then?”
“I panicked,” she said frankly. “I’d put away all thought of—of Father Pardloe and Lord John and Savannah—”
“—and me?”
“And you,” she said evenly, “and after a bit, it all began to seem unreal, like the sort of fantasy you have when you’re reading a good book. So when you popped up like the Demon King in a pantomime—” She flicked a hand. After a moment’s pause, she asked, “Do you want to sit down?”
He sat beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her—it was a small bench, and William was a large young man. He wasn’t sure quite what to ask. Yet.
“You’re a widow, then?” he said at last, and picked up her hand, examining the ring.
“Yes, I am,” she said coldly.
“Really? Or only so far as your father—and Philadelphia—know?”
She gave him a narrow look, but she didn’t pull her hand away, and she didn’t reply at once, either.
“Because,” he said, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, “if Ben’s really dead now, you haven’t any reason for not coming back to Savannah with me, do you? Don’t you want to see Trevor? He misses his mama.”