She was wide-eyed and scarlet now. This was not the deferential Hugh Cassidy she recalled. “No, Hugh. I’m not. I just want to go home. I want to go home. And I am... sosorryfor everything.”
Sorry! Hugh was reminded once again of the inadequacies of the English language.
Amelia began to weep then, prettily but copiously. She was a fool, and she was exhausted. And hewasimmensely relieved she was alive and unharmed. Despite it all, his heart squeezed. He sighed, found a handkerchief in his pocket and handed it over, and while she buried her face in it, he sat for a moment in reflection.
The corn silk hair that spiraled around her jaw, the sweet round face and dark brows... she was indeed lovely. But he understood fully now that just as she’d never really known him, he’d never really known her. How could he? He hadn’t fully known himself, until Lillias turned him inside out.
But he was grateful to Amelia for being a grace note in his life when he’d sorely needed one. She’d been hope, when he’d had none, and nothing else to cling to. And for being the reason he was in England, where he had learned what it really meant to be in love.
By that definition, he supposed Amelia Woodley really was an angel.
“We’ll see about finding accommodation for you here and a chaperone for your crossing when we’re able to buy passage for you on a ship. Your fatherhas provided me with enough funds to make sure you get safely home,” he said gently.
Relief animated her at once. And then uncertainty flickered.
“But you... won’t you be going home to America now, too?”
“Yes.” He stood up. “But not with you.”
He had a quick private word with Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand, explaining in as few words as possible who Amelia was and why she was here, something he’d long kept private for Amelia’s sake. Stalwart women that they were, they didn’t even blink. They assured him they would find accommodations for her at the top of the stairs, give her some small bit of distracting work to do, and not let her out of their sight.
Mrs. Durand in particular had some experience with the foolish decisions young girls are inclined to make about men.
Shecouldtell Amelia that her life wasn’t over. That life was full of second and third and thousandth chances, that gambles and choices in fact happened every minute. That luck and faith were all most people had in the end, and that one day, after a number of twists and turns, she might end up happily running a boarding house by the docks with the most unlikely best friend, married to the last person on earth she’d ever thought she’d marry.
But she didn’t tell her any of that. Not yet. They fed her a scone and gave her potatoes to slice sothat she could be surrounded by the soothing, feminine camaraderie of the kitchen.
While Hugh shaved, got into his coat, grabbed his hat.
And operating on faith, he went out to take the biggest gamble of his life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Whether the haggard parents waiting up for Lillias believed them or not proved moot. Lillias let St. John do the talking. He repeated the story she’d given him with admirable accuracy. They maintained an impenetrably united front for two people in their respective conditions (one deflowered, sated, and distraught but hiding it well, one a little drunk and displeased to be out the five pounds that he’d lost at a gaming table, and hiding it well).
Her parents did what appeared to be a limb count, performed sweeping glances to determine if anything on them was bleeding or torn, and they were allowed to go straight to their bedrooms.
“Remember Giles will be here tomorrow at five o’clock, Lillias,” her father said. Probably thinking that madness like leaping out of carriages would end once she was good and married.
“It’s not something I wouldeverforget,” she said.
St. John paused to stare at her on the landing, eyebrows up around his hairline.
“Good night, St. John,” she said.
“Good luck, Lillias,” he said, wryly.
They went to their separate rooms.
There was a clock on the mantel in the sitting room down below, and from her room she could hear it softly bonging out the hours, the half hours, the quarter hours. Because she didn’t sleep. Or if she did, it was in scraps of time, minute as the silk a ruby-throated hummingbird might weave into her nest. Her thoughts were just as fragmented. She ached everywhere in ways she’d never ached before. She was sore between her legs. Her very soul was bruised. Like Persephone, she’d been yanked from the heights to the depths.
And she knew that no matter what he’d said, if Hugh were to climb into bed with her now, she would turn to him for more.
More. That’s what Giles had said. She was always a little “more.”
It occurred to her that he saw it as something to solve. Perhaps something torectify.
Hugh saw it as something to give her. To show her. To watch her become.