Chapter Six
WHEN ROSS’S LIPS touched hers, Regina froze and then...
she felt his warmth fill her entire soul.
In the years since the last kiss she and Ross had shared here at Nelson’s wall, she had convinced herself that the sensation she’d felt had been those of a foolish girl acquainted with too many novels and na?ve expectations.
The fact seemed to have been confirmed when Mr. Corrings’ kiss had left her with nothing but disgust. She’d used that kiss as further proof that she had grown out of such fantasies.
But this... this kiss was just as those from their youth had been.
Every part of her body felt both alert and relaxed, poised for more yet lost in the moment.
She reached for him, releasing her shawl, unable to get close enough to him.
His hands cradled her face, and his kiss became insistent.
Then he pulled away, leaving her breathless.
“I love you, Reggie. As much today as any other day of my life.”
His words washed over her, but as he pulled her in for another kiss, her resistance rose once more.
He might still love the seventeen-year-old girl he’d left behind, but Regina was no longer that girl. None of her arguments had been settled by this kiss. She had worked too hard to protect herself from pain to invite it in again.
Pushing him away took all of her strength, but she stumbled out of his arms and then refused to look at his face, afraid of what she would see there.
All she could think was that she had to be the one who left this time.
She heard Ross say her name as she turned away, but she only lifted the hems of her nightdress and dressing gown and ran, determined to get away from the confusion she felt every time she was with him.
She heard his steps catching up from behind her and when he grabbed her arm and spun her around, she screamed as though he’d struck her. He abruptly let her go and then stared at her with wide eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she said through her sobs.
“Please leave me be. Please let me go.” She thought of the letter he’d sent her that morning, inviting her to come— and threw his own words back at him.
“You said that if I would come and listen, you would not bother me again. You were not a man of your word fifteen years ago, but please be a man of your word in this. Let me live the life I have made for myself. Let me live in peace.”
He continued to stare, his hair wild with the wind tearing at it, and his eyes sad.
He took a step away from her. And another.
“I will let you go,” he spoke in tones so soft she would not have heard them if not for the wind carrying them to her ears.
They fell like hammers, and she felt the impact of each syllable— would it hurt so much if what she were asking for was right?
“And I will not come after you again. I’m sorry, Reggie. I truly thought... I am sorry.”
He turned back toward the wall— both lanterns were there, muted beacons in the night.
She dared not retrieve hers and come in contact with him again.
Instead, she turned away and ran. When she was certain she was out of sight, her legs gave out, and she crumpled onto the grass.
The sorrow of what could have been but wasn’t washed over her in a torrent.
Wind howled, and the trees around her bent while she lay there, crumpled and broken and wishing she could purge the pain.
She had found a comfortable life, and he had destroyed it. Again.
His words came back to her. “I wrote you every month unless I was in battle, and even then I wrote as often as I could.”
“You are a liar!” she cried into her hands, rocking back and forth in anguish.
We can begin again.
“You are a fool,” she said. “I could never trust my heart with you again.”
She kept crying as she hadn’t cried in years, until the tears gave way to a kind of numbed detachment.
Her stomach hurt, her chest ached as she pushed herself to her feet and headed toward home, shivering in the cold because she’d dropped her shawl in the meadow.
When the silhouette of the house came into view, she felt the draw of her bed and wished she could sleep for a week.
Would Ross leave Himley now? If she was the reason he’d come, would he now go? The idea of seeing him about the village felt horrendous, and yet the idea of not seeing him again felt even worse. She raised a hand to her lips, where his kiss had been, and felt the invigoration of it all over again.
Though her head felt fuzzy, she reviewed their conversation without the defenses she’d had in place when they’d spoken.
She thought of all he’d gone through, of the career he had made for himself.
What if he hadn’t learned of her engagement?
What if he’d returned to England and called on her? Would she have married him then?
She thought of the battles he’d survived, of the horrific things he had seen and done in war— yet he credited her to having helped him through?
He believed all along that they would be together? He kept her key?
His letters. They were the missing piece.
She’d hoped for one that would shore her confidence— every day for years and years.
Ross had seemed so sincere in his insistence that he had written, going so far as to blame someone else for having waylaid them.
His parents had not been happy about their plans to be together, but they could not have interfered with her mail.
If someone had prevented communication from him, it would have been someone at Crumhall— her parents.
But no one in her family knew of Ross— she was sure of it.
Yet, if Ross had written, interference of some kind was the only explanation as to why she would not have received his letters.
She let herself in through the west door, which she had left unlocked, and walked quietly through the darkened hallways. When she reached the stairs that would lead her to her room, she walked past them and went instead to the library—where her father’s journals were kept.
She opened and shut the door quietly, then lit a candle on the mantle and took it with her to the backmost shelves, where the house documents and ancestral items were kept.
She ran her finger along the spines of identical black journals before pulling one out to check the year written on the inside page— her father began a new one every New Year’s Day.
She pulled out one and checked the date— too early.
She replaced it and moved up three volumes to the year that Ross had left England.
With the correct volume in hand, she settled on the floor, flipped through the pages and scanned the neat penmanship of the man who had always wanted things just so.
It was why Regina was such a cross for him to bear— she had never followed his patterns and instructions but he had always been quick to chastise her when she did not meet his expectations.
Because of that it was difficult to consider that he would keep his knowledge of Ross a secret if he knew—surely he would rail against her for it.
But if there was any person who would have interfered with Ross’s letters, it would have been him.
But how could he? He hadn’t known about Ross.