Rory backed away, still shaking his head. “Is that your answer, then? You’re not coming? Just as well—I don’t need a wife who’ll preach at me, nag me night and day. Though if you think Henry’ll give you a chance, ruined as you are, you’re bound to be disappointed. He’s too high and mighty for that. He’ll want an innocent girl, if ever he settles down. You know that, right?”
She winced as if he’d struck her. “This isn’t about Ainsley.” It wasn’t—it was about her and her own failures. But she’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t like him. Didn’t wonder, now and again, whether someday . . . but she was in no place, mentally or emotionally, to even think about such things.
“Right.” Was it jealousy in his tone, or just derision? “I’ll find someone else for that second ticket. Don’t think I won’t.”
It pierced, the thought that he could replace her so quickly, so easily—that he had other girls even now just waiting for a chance to be Mrs. Smithfield. Lost dreams always stung. But she didn’t want a husband who valued her so little.
Though she would have to mourn quite a while yet that she’d given something so precious to someone unworthy.
“Good-bye, Rory. I’ll pray the Lord keeps His hand on you.”
Now he recoiled. “Don’t waste your breath. I’m done with lords for good, earthly and heavenly both.”
Strange—for as much trouble as he had caused her, as much pain and shame, as she watched him melt back into the night, it was pity that settled in her spirit. Pity that he couldn’t see the beauty of what mattered most.
She heard his footsteps setting pebbles skittering down the path, and then it was only the shush of the waves, the sigh of the wind.
Then more steps, hesitant ones, coming from the direction of the house. She knew even before he eased into view that it would be Ainsley. And that he’d no doubt heard every word.
She brushed a stray tear from her cheek and motioned him to join her as she took her seat again in the grass.
He would probably try to talk of serious matters—but she couldn’t, not just yet. She needed a moment first. “I’m still trying to reimagine my life, now that I know I’m a princess.” She aimed for a light tone, but it fell a bit flat.
Still, he chuckled. “I can imagine it easily enough. Give his lordship and Miss Tremayne long enough, and they’ll probably unearth a diadem or two for you ladies both to wear.”
Her laugh was little more than a breath. But it was welcome, nonetheless. “I can’t quite imagine you on excavations with him. All those places the two of you have mentioned! Do you help him dig, or just stand in the tent, clucking your tongue over all the dirt he’s collecting on his clothes?”
Ainsley chuckled and propped his elbows on his raised knees, his face toward the fairy-kissed water. “Whatever he needs me to do. Which is only occasionally digging—that’s the part he likes best. I organize his finds, mostly. Arrange transport and meals and lodging . . . that sort of thing.”
Far more in line with what she imagined of him. Senara touched the key again and drew in a long breath. “He won’t hurt her, will he? I mean . . . he isn’t like Rupert—quick to fall in love, with no qualms about moving on when the time comes.”
Ainsley turned his face toward her. And let a few seconds pass before he answered, proving he wasn’t just offering the first platitudes to spring to his tongue. “He has never looked at a young woman as he does your Beth. Never—it was why I was so worried for him. He’s never given his heart so fully nor so quickly to anyone else, and the thought of it coming between him and his sisters . . . I couldn’t bear it. But he wouldn’t have turned from Miss Tremayne, even had the ladies disapproved. He isn’t the sort. He would sooner take the hurt than give it, Senara—for anyone, but most especially for her.”
Senara sighed. “She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. Not exactly the same, I know. I always knew my family were the servants, even though the Tremaynes never made us feel that way. I knew she was more my charge than my sister. But even so.”
“I completely understand. I never meant to remain in service so long, you know.” He reached down and plucked a blade of grass, twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought I would take the position for a year or two, send some money home to my parents, and then move on to something more exciting.”
Her lips twitched at the thought of Ainsley wanting excitement. But then, a decade ago he would have been a young buck, eager to make his way in the world. Just like she had been. “Little did you know that you’d find all the excitement you could ever want with him.”
He chuckled. “I learned it quickly. And felt . . . he needed me. I joke about him being like a lad in the nursery, but there’s a bit of truth to it. He has an innocence to him, despite all the places he’s gone, all the people he’s met. Something no one has ever been able to rob him of—and I wanted to make sure no one ever could. It’s the same reason his sisters have never married, why they never just shipped him off to school or left him in the charge of a tutor and went their own way. There’s something bold and bright about him that deserves to be guarded. Your Beth is a lucky young lady to have won his heart. I know I’m biased, but it’s true.”
She nodded and let the wind and sea whisper for a moment. “They’ll be good for each other. And I’m glad of that. They both deserve such happiness, just as Ollie and Lady Elizabeth do.”
“They aren’t the only ones who deserve it.” He said it so softly, she nearly missed it over the shushing of the waves below.
She turned her face toward him, studied his silhouette in the moonlight. Elegance edged in silver. He spoke of her—because he was a kind man and a good man and one who had that same instinct to nurture and care for others that she had. But he’d just highlighted the difference between Sheridan and Senara. His lordship had an innocence about him—that was what drew people to him, what inspired such loyalty in Ainsley.
Innocence was the very thing Senara had given away.
She shook her head. “You’re a kind man, Ainsley. But you know what I’ve done. And while the Lord and my family may forgive me, that doesn’t mean . . .” She didn’t know quite how to say it, not in a way that he wouldn’t immediately argue against. Because he was good and kind and wanted to make her feel better.
But that couldn’t change facts.
He sat up, letting the blade of grass fly into the wind, then leaned back a bit so he could dig a hand into his pocket. She had no idea what he was about until he pulled something out and held it toward her on his open palm.
Even so, she still had no idea what he was about. She reached toward the white sphere glowing in the moonlight. “A . . . bead?” It was the size of one of the peas he’d helped her shuck that day when she’d first come home, and it looked like the sort of bead she used to save her pennies to buy so she could sew them into her shawls or onto her hats.
But this one had no hole bored through it. And it didn’t quite feel like the costume jewelry she knew.
“A pearl.”
She drew her hand back just before picking it up. “Are you quite serious? A real pearl? It must be worth a fortune!”