“Afterward,” he said haltingly, “the doctor would barely look at me. He acted like I’d killed her. Her mother acted like I’d killed her. That’s why I left Scotland. I couldn’t stand to be there, with them all looking at me like I’d wanted her to die.”
He sat up and looked into her eyes, and she had never seen more misery.
He looked the way she felt.
“So you see, I cannot trust myself. I want something there is every rational reason not to take, and my heart says to take it anyway. Which is why I know that I simply can’t. I’m so sorry.”
He unclasped her hand and wiped the tears from around his eyes.
She sat fixed against the wall, shivering. She was so, so cold.
He rose to his feet, and she was glad.
Go. Please go.
“Sera,” he said softly, looking down at her. “Say that you forgive me.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She couldn’t say more. She hugged herself, freezing.
“Lass,” he said in a tone so miserably tender that she could hear the pity seeping out of him, hear how pathetic she must look crouched here, shaking. “Please understand it isn’t about you.”
Her neck snapped up so forcefully it hurt.
“Not about me?”
But wasn’t it?
Wasn’t this moment, this decision he was making, precisely about her?
About the kind of woman she was?
A dangerous temptation one must guard against, lest one’s real concerns be threatened?
How elegantly this moment would have fit into the pages of her memoirs. Just today, she had wondered how the story of her girlhood might have gone if she’d met a man like Adam when she was young.
But Adam Anderson was not a happy ending to her story. He was a recurring theme.
And the story was entirely about her.
Adam reached down and tilted up her chin. “Sera, lass, know this—” he said in that ragged voice. “I am reduced by the loss of you.”
She shut her eyes tight and said nothing.
She heard him leave the room and walk slowly down the hall. She heard him open the front door, close it.
She ripped the gold chain off her neck and threw the amulet across the room so forcefully it hit the window glass and then clattered against the wooden floor.
Maria walked into the room, drawn by the sound, and yelped at the sight of Sera curled up on the floor with her face pressed into her knees. “Miss? Supper’s ready.”
“Throw it out,” she said.
Maria came forward, anxious. “Are you ill?”
“Yes. I think I am.” Sera stood up, walked to the sofa, and sat down heavily, feeling tired enough to sleep for a year. “Bring me a bottle of claret, Maria.”
Maria looked down at her shoes. “We haven’t any wine, miss.”
Sera closed her eyes. “Then go buy some.”
“Miss Magdalene said that we’re not to stock any—”
“Maria, does Miss Magdalene pay your wages?”
“No, but—”
“Go buy the wine.”
Maria nodded, ashen, and fled the room.
Sera sank her face into the upholstery, letting the fibers scratch her cheeks. She would not weep. She clenched her eyes shut to make sure of it.
She lay in silence, tired to her bones.
What had been the use of all of this? Why try to be better, why try to fight, when it all came back to the same unbearable truth: she was expendable.
She would lie here and wait for her wine and when it came, she would drink so much of it that—
“Sera?”
She opened her eyes. She must have fallen asleep.
A soft hand cradled her head. Elinor was perched beside her on the arm of the sofa, stroking her hair.
But that was impossible. Elinor was in Surrey, hiding. She must be dreaming.
She tried to shake herself awake, but the vision remained.
“Elinor?”
Elinor smiled at her sadly. “Dear, what’s wrong?”
“Why are you here? Bell will find you—”
“Don’t worry about him. I came for you. For your speech tomorrow. I wanted to surprise you.”
Her speech tomorrow. She’d forgotten. She was giving a lecture at Jack Willow’s shop to mark the publication of her second volume.
She must collect herself. She had to be clearheaded in the morning, so she could finish drafting her remarks. She must ward off this terrible episode of emotion and return to herself.
“Sera!” Cornelia called from the corridor. She and Thaïs rushed into the room. They were both short of breath, like they’d been running.
“Maria came to find us,” Thaïs wheezed. “She said you were asking for wine.”
“Oh bloody hell,” she whispered.
Thank God for Maria. She would have to raise her wages.
“What’s happened, darling?” Elinor asked, smoothing her hair. All three of them were looking at her like she might flee.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
Elinor wordlessly gathered her up in her arms and held her. Thaïs and Cornelia moved closer, too, until she was shrouded in a fortress made by her friends’ limbs.
She never wanted to leave.
“Oh, child,” Elinor breathed. She squeezed her shoulders.
For a moment, none of them spoke. No one needed to.
“It won’t be like last time,” Elinor finally said, her voice firm. “You have us now. And you’re so strong.”
“Whatever you need, Sera,” Cornelia uttered, like a vassal swearing fealty to a feudal lord. “Whatever you need.”
“And think, a baby,” Thaïs said softly, a smile in her voice.
They were trying to soothe her—they thought she was upset about the baby. But she wasn’t.
“The trouble is not that I’m with child,” she said tightly. “It’s that it’s Adam’s.”
Thaïs’s expression darkened. “Maria said he was here. What’s he done?”
Sera shook her head. “Nothing. I couldn’t tell him.” She covered her face in her hands.
“Why not, darling?” Elinor asked.
“Because he came here to end things. To tell me that he must end things because his entire future, his children’s future, depends on the patronage of Lord Pendrake.”
She paused, waiting for their faces to twist in horror. When they did, she nodded bitterly.
“Association with me is too great a risk, you see. He has to think of his family, his work. And he’s right. If only he knew how great a risk it was.”
“No,” Cornelia pronounced, shaking her head decisively. “Adam strikes me as a principled man. Surely if he knew you were going to have his child, he would find some other way to get ahead, without relying on Pendrake.”
Certainly, anything was possible. But that did not mean it was likely. Or worth the cost to herself of asking him and being refused.
“I can’t go through that again. Asking someone to choose me, when I know they won’t.”
They were quiet. They knew that she did not say this lightly.
“I can’t imagine, Seraphina, that Adam will not find out about the child eventually,” Elinor said. “Pregnancy is not an easy thing to hide, and news of yours will be a scandal. He will have to make the same choice once he learns. Keeping it a secret now will only prolong your fear, without sparing either of you.”