“I love you, Gabriel,” she said aloud, fervently. Willing her words to sail through the ether and to reach him, sink right into his heart, wherever he was tonight, lonely and missing her. “I love you I love you I love you.”
She retrieved from her reticule the heart-shaped stone she’d found outside the earl’s house and transferred it into a wooden box on her writing desk that held the others.
She gently stirred and sifted them through her fingers.
She looked out at the view she’d known and loved her entire life.
“Mama,” she said aloud. Her voice was graveled. “If you’re listening... we did it, Mama. Felicity and Fiona are getting married to lovely men. I did what you asked me to do. So I wonder, would you mind terribly if I asked for something for myself?” She paused to pull in a few breaths. “Because I’m in love with a man. His name is Gabriel Marchand. Oh, but you would like him. He’s the kind of handsome that stops your breath. He’s brilliant and strong and caring and competent and passionate and very funny. He loves me, too, more than his own life. And I know he’ll take care of me. Maybe you understand. Maybeyou loved papa that way, too. But Gabriel doesn’t have a title. He’s not even a gentleman. He owns a gaming establishment. Are you gasping right now? Are you appalled? I hope not. That would break my heart.” She cleared her throat. “But I may never be accepted into polite society ever again if I marry him. I should be very fair and tell you that Francis Balfort would like to marry me, too. And, as you know, he’s the third son of a duke.”
She paused.
“The thing is, Mama...” Her voice broke. “I do not think I can do without Gabriel. I do not think I could bear to go on. You know I’m not in the habit of saying such things. I go on, no matter what. It’s what I do. And it makes my heart ache not to fulfill all of your wishes. I know you want what is best for me. Butheis best for me. So if you could send me a sign to let me know that you approve, I should be so grateful.”
Exhaustion overcame her.
She could barely keep her eyes open as she splashed water from the basin on her face, plaited her hair, and threw a clean night rail over her head.
She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow, Marchand’s handkerchief clutched in her hand, held against her cheek.
Ginny was very proud of how Hogarth acquitted himself during the marriage settlement negotiations for his sisters, which, over a span of days, were accomplished with surprising thoroughness and efficiency in a room filled with solicitors, the prospective grooms, and their fathers. It was a processthat could take months, depending upon the estate, so the civility and speed with which it was all concluded delighted everyone.
She’d sat near Hogarth, mostly quietly—which was no mean feat, as she was very used to being in charge, and as she’d told Marchand, she quite liked it—while hard but cheerful bargains were driven about allowances and so forth for Felicity and Fiona.
Such an unsentimental yet ultimately loving thing to do, she supposed. It was meant to protect them, but it also enriched their husbands. There was no doubt about that.
A man who would pay any price for the privilege of being with her, Gabriel had said.
His voice was in her head throughout the entire process.
All parties parted happy and hopeful and excited about their futures.
A fortnight later, a radiant Felicity and Fiona were married in a joyful double ceremony in their parish church, which was packed with family and townspeople who had watched the Woodville siblings grow up and were pleased to see them at last successfully leaving the nest.
Francis had come for the wedding, too.
The sight of him amazed Ginny into breathlessness: How absurdly, dangerously gossamer their connection seemed to her now, and how flimsy the reasons to marry him. How on earth had she ever lightly contemplated committing the rest of her life to him?
The notion of lying sweaty and sated across his naked body seemed so inconceivable she could scarcely breathe for panic.
He was the same sweet, admiring young man he’d always been. If he noticed anything different about her, he didn’t remark upon it. This struck her as shocking, since her spirit felt so utterly transformed—or rather, her spirit had at last fully bloomed. He could see her only through the lens of the life he’d lived, which meant he could not know her heart.
It wasn’t his fault that her heart had chanced upon its own true mate.
And then the moment she’d dreaded occurred: He’d asked if he could call upon her and her brother in a week’s time at the Woodville house.
Her gut went cold.
“Yes,” she told him. Her voice shredded from nerves.
His eyes had gone meltingly soft. He’d been emboldened to take her hand. “Thank you, dear Ginny.”
Yet again she confronted, with dread, the ticking of a clock toward a decision.
She had not found a single stone heart in the three weeks since she’d been home.
Her eyes had been so frequently on the ground that she had crashed into a pillar, a tree, a settee, Mrs. Haddock, accidentally stepped on a cat, and collided with William.
In her time away from Gabriel her feelings had not ebbed or faded even a little; longing had cut a deep channel through her, and like a river, it flowed endlessly. His presence was nearly as vivid to her as if he stood at her side.