Oh God, if she was—
Breathe.
She was not with child. She’d had none of the symptoms that had gripped her as a girl—no illness in the mornings, no fainting, no fatigue.
And the only man she’d been with was Adam Anderson, and only once, and surely that small failure of their precautions had not been enough to—
No. Her menses would come in the next few days. She would not lose her head with worry over nothing. There was too much work to do.
She dressed and went downstairs to attend to her correspondence. She was hoping for a note from Elinor, letting her know how she was faring in the cottage they’d secured in Surrey. She found a few letters from readers she would answer later, a stack of bills she would leave for Tompkins. At the bottom of the pile was a letter in a hand she recognized.
She hated superstition, but her first thought was that her stepmother would have seen it and crossed herself and said it was a sign. Her fingers trembled as she ripped it open.
Dear Seraphina,
I read the first volume of your memoirs. They are deeply affecting, and to know you were in the midst of writing this story during our time together makes me grieve a bit that I was not able to share the burden with you.
I wish that I had fully known you.
Someday, when they are old enough, I will give this book to Adeline and Jasper, so that they may know that the kind woman with the beautiful dresses of their memory was a philosopher who made a call for what was right, however much it must have cost her.
I regret that I was cold in my reaction to your apology at Lady Westcott’s. The truth is that my time in your company made for some of the happiest days I have spent in many years. I cannot think of them without wishing, somehow, that it might have ended differently between us.
The loss of you reduces me.
You may always count me as a friend.
Yours,
Adam Anderson
Seraphina read the letter three more times.
His hand, orderly and masculine and artful on the page, made her feel as though she was back in Cornwall, sitting contentedly in the sun as he sketched her portrait, long fingers dancing capably across the page.
She closed her eyes and imagined how it might have been if that day had ended differently. If their affair had continued lazily apace, a few sun-drenched weeks beside the sea, him kind, her trying.
She imagined him in bed beside her on those long, hot summer afternoons, their skin warm as the ocean breeze blew through the open windows. She imagined smelling the salt in the air, lying languid in the heat, with no thought beyond the pleasure of his nearness.
I wish that I had fully known you.
She dipped her quill in ink and began to write.
Dear Adam,
Thank you for your kind words. They mean a great deal to me.
But that sentiment, though true, felt laughably insufficient. Should she say she felt the same? That as she had writhed in bed in London, sweating out the poison in her veins, she had soothed herself by imagining his voice? That she could not shake the feeling she had destroyed something tender and alive that had been unfurling like the tiny, delicate shoot of a new fern? That she wished—oh how she wished—she had not numbed her senses to its fragile nature?
No. That was far too much.
If she was over-reading the warmth in his letter, it would not do to give the impression she was asking for more than he was prepared to give. His letter, after all, was in past tense.
But if he felt enough to write the loss of you reduces me, surely he must—
But no. He did not write I want you back.
She had squandered his kindness once. It was generous of him to extend her his forgiveness. She must hold it with care, and not abuse it. She picked up the quill again and jotted out a few more words:
I wonder if you would join me for supper Sunday next at eight o’clock, so that we might talk? Please know I will understand if you don’t wish to.
Before she could lose her nerve, she scrawled another line beneath it:
But I miss you.
She dropped the letter in the pile of post for Tompkins to have delivered by the errand boy and went out to the apothecary to buy a tincture for Thaïs. She went back home and gave it to Maria with instructions, then went out again to the milliner to pick up her new hat. She checked her timepiece. It was only eleven. She decided to go to the park for a walk.
She was ignoring her work, but she knew that if she went home she would only pace the halls, waiting for the post. The day was turning wet and chilly, and she didn’t have a shawl, so she hailed a hackney home, all the while feeling expectant and low by equal measure.
Oh, she was absurd. She must not go on like this. He would likely not reply. Or if he did, it would be a polite refusal. She could already feel the sting of his rejection. She regretted every word she’d written.
How she hated the disorderly character of emotions. It made her crave a sturdy, bracing drink. But of course she would not think of that, not after all this time and her feeling so much better. When the hackney stopped outside her house she dashed inside. If he had not written, she would shut it from her mind.
She looked for Tompkins or Maria, but no one was about. She paused at the stairs to the basement, panting a bit from her exertion.
“Tompkins?” she called out. “Did I receive any letters?”
“There’s a pile of post sent from your publisher,” Tompkins called back from the kitchen. “It’s on your desk.”
Sera went into her study and rifled through the mail. Twenty letters from readers. None from him.
“There was nothing . . . personal?” she called over her shoulder, hating the sound of desperation in her voice.
“No,” Tompkins said, walking into the room.
Sera felt like she’d been slapped. The sting of tears hit her eyes and she shut them and turned around to face the wall so Tompkins wouldn’t see.
She heard a second set of footsteps.
Tompkins touched her shoulder. “But you do have a visitor.”
Sera whirled around.
Adam Anderson was standing behind Tompkins, a pained expression on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I couldn’t wait for Sunday.”
Adam had been fidgeting with a cup of tea in Seraphina Arden’s kitchen for the better part of an hour, debating whether it had been a mistake to come here.
That Seraphina took one look at him and started crying made him certain that it wasn’t.
The words I miss you might have been less devastating in another person’s letter. But from Seraphina, who so rarely spoke of what she felt, who had claimed so doggedly not to want any man’s affection and certainly not his—it seemed momentous, a confirmation of what he’d sensed beneath all the things she’d never said.
He’d had to see her. But she’d been out when he arrived, and with every minute that ticked by he felt more foolish. He’d been on the verge of leaving. He was so glad—so very, very glad—he had remained.
Tompkins stepped around him and softly closed the door behind her, leaving them alone in Seraphina’s study. That was fortunate, as he felt his throat closing with emotion, and he did not wish for Tompkins to look upon him weeping.
“I’m so sorry,” Sera said, wiping tears from her eyes with her thumbs. “I’m ridiculous. I don’t know what’s come over me, I never cry, I’m so embarrassed—”