Page 81 of Everything But the Earl
“I doubt it.”
“I want you to live. It would kill me if they hanged you. And you don’t want to disappoint your mother. It’s safer for us both if you follow through with your promise.”
“I will miss you tremendously.”
Lark sniffed. “I will miss you as well. But this is for the best. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but—”
“I hate it when you’re right.”
Lark laughed softly, but it sounded like a sob. “Precisely. Lean into that hatred. It may be the only way to get through this.”
“What do we do if we run into each other at the club?”
“We say hello. We are polite to each other. But we cannot be together the way we were.”
Anthony hugged Lark again. “I will be miserable without you.”
“I shall feel the same, but I cannot find a way out of this.”
Anthony kissed Lark again, then gently withdrew. “All right. I willfollow your wishes for now. But this is not over, Larkin Woodville. Our story cannot end this way.”
“I don’t see how else it can end.”
Anthony felt tears sting his eyes, too. He rubbed at them. “Then good-bye for now, Lark. But not good-bye forever.”
Anthony had to take himself out of Lark’s house. Lark squeezed his hand, but then he let go, and Anthony knew this was the end of the conversation.
For now. As he walked out of Lark’s house and rubbed at his face so it didn’t look like he’d been upset, he vowed to find a way to balance all of the parts of his life. He had no idea how to be with Lark and also adhere to his mother’s wishes. Those two things were completely incompatible, but Anthony would figure out a way to make it all work. He had to.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grace’s remorse waspalpable.
It had Owen tangled in knots. At night, they still shared a bed—although it wasn’t unusual to find Grace asleep in the adjacent room, next to the baby, in the morning—but they avoided each other during the day. Partly, Grace was tired and wanted to stay near the baby, and partly, Owen had a lot of business away from the house, especially now that Grace was less able to run the estate. But there was a distance between them that Owen didn’t like and didn’t know how to close, an impasse Owen couldn’t figure out his way through.
On a warm morning, toward the end of the summer, they had breakfast together in the morning room, and Grace handed him a couple of envelopes.
“What are these?” Owen asked.
“The letters I wrote you that I could not post before Dafydd was born. I want you to read them.”
Owen stared at the envelopes. Each had his address in London neatly printed on them. “I will,” he said.
“The doctor is coming today to see about my recovery,” Grace said.
“Good.” Owen slid the letters into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I will read these later.”
“All right.”
Owen polished off his breakfast and left the room.
He decided to make himself scarce while Grace visited with her doctor. He had no particular business today, so he got on his horse, Glyndwr, and decided to ride out to the castle. On the way, he mulled over this tangle. On the one hand, he knew Grace was sorry. On the other, he didn’t know how he could trust her again. And he couldn’t figure out a way back from that.
After securing his horse in the stables near the castle, he found Morfudd overseeing some work on the exterior, where some old stones looked to be crumbling.
“Ah, Owen. What a pleasure to see you! I heard a rumor you had returned to our ancestral homeland.”
“I apologize for not coming to see you sooner,” he said, leaning over to give Morfudd a kiss on the cheek. “My wife did an admirable job with the estate in my absence, but I had some odds and ends to attend to. And, as I’m sure you know, she has not been feeling well.”
