Chapter Nine #3
If only someone else knew about it. Keeping it a secret that the duchy was penniless was perhaps not the cleverest of moves, but he had done so for a year and could not stop now. Trying to fix the situation all on his own was exhausting.
Henry cast a quick look at Ditty but looked away. No, she wasn’t going to help him—and why should she?
She would be gone in two weeks, he reminded himself. Gone, and back to London to her sisters and gentleman caller. Or whoever.
‘I suppose I have.’
Henry blinked. ‘What?’
‘Built my business on the belief of a formula for romance,’ Ditty said brightly. ‘But then, what sort of proposal planner would I be if I couldn’t offer some certainty?’
‘But no guarantees.’
‘Never any guarantees,’ she said with a laugh, her arm brushing against him as they walked.
Warmth spread across his arm from the point where she had touched him. Try as he might, Henry could not ignore it.
‘Well, I’m a romantic, and I don’t want to think there’s only one formula,’ he said aloud, as though that could distract him from the pleasurable contact they’d just shared.
They were almost at the other end of King’s Street now. There was a bench, relatively dry, and he gestured toward it. They both sat, Henry making sure not to sit too closely to the woman who was already playing havoc with his heart.
Not that it was anything to do with affection—no, surely not. Just something else. Irritation, maybe?
‘Look at your Lodge,’ Ditty said.
Henry frowned. ‘What about it?’
‘It’s absolutely packed to the rafters with people who have lost the ones they loved,’ came Ditty’s quiet voice.
His heart skipped a beat. It was true. There were very few married couples who made it to an age to move into his Lodge. Most of the time it was the woman who made it to an advanced age, but there were plenty of widowers there, too.
‘Sometimes I think we lose who we are,’ he found himself saying quietly, ‘when we lose the ones we love.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Ditty said with a heavy sigh. ‘Love, the sort of love you’re talking about? That emotional, dependent love—it can hurt you.’
‘It can give so much as well.’
‘Whatever it gives, it always takes back,’ said Ditty, pain clear in her voice. Henry tried not to look at her as she continued, ‘I’ve loved people, people I really cared about. And they’re gone now, and I…’
Henry waited. It was clearly difficult for her to speak, and in a way, he was honoured. It did not sound as though Ditty had spoken about this for a long, long time.
‘My father…he died when I was young,’ Ditty said eventually, her voice thick though her eyes were dry.
‘When all of us were young, myself and my two sisters. He died in a carriage accident. My mother has never truly recovered, not really. She…they eloped. He was below her station and so they ran away together. To Greece, actually.’
‘That would explain the name,’ Henry managed to say as his heart twisted. Oh, to have survived such a bereavement, to live with such grief. He spoke as gently as he could manage. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘In a way, I think I’m still grieving. I certainly did not have much time to consider his loss at the time. My—my mother fell apart,’ she continued, and Henry’s heart ached for her. ‘I became mother and father to my sisters all in one day.’
‘Your time of grieving must end, though—’
‘Who are you, who is anyone, to dictate to me when sorrow ends?’ Ditty’s eyes were still brilliant, still bright, tears wavering and yet unshed. ‘Do you think I relish it, the sense of loss? Do you think I wish to feel so alone, so isolated, so…so unsupported?’
Henry could do nothing but look at her, aghast at what he had said, fighting off the instinct to pull her into his embrace.
‘I loved him so dearly,’ Ditty said, with a false brightness that broke his heart. ‘Real love hurts, you know? That’s why I thought, still think, it’s better to avoid it at all costs.’
Henry blinked. ‘Avoid it?’
Her nod was certain. ‘Yes, avoid it. I thought, if I ever married, it would be, well, a companionable arrangement. One where I could retain my independence, prevent my heart from… Anyway. And so I thought, why not plan it.’
Henry waited, a gentle freezing breeze tugging at her hair. ‘Plan it?’
‘Everything. All of it. The whole courtship,’ Ditty said matter-of-factly with a sighing laugh. ‘I suppose you think me strange, but I would rather have a business partnership with someone, and hope love grows.’
Henry stared. No wonder Ditty Oliver had made a career by expertly planning, to the very last detail, precisely how a match came about.
If you think you can control love, then it can’t hurt you.
Henry could see the logic. Despite his choice to steer clear of it, he still believed in love and romance. For other people. The kind of partnership that Ditty talked of left your heart unscathed and unfulfilled.
‘And how is that going for you?’
Ditty coloured. ‘Fine.’
Her answer was too quick, in his opinion. Perhaps the situation with the gentleman friend back in London wasn’t going that well.
A traitorous spark of hope rose in his chest, quickly pushed down.
‘I suppose there are different types of love,’ he said aloud. ‘There’s the romantic kind, of course, but there are others.’
Ditty raised an eyebrow.
‘Companionship, I suppose,’ Henry said with a laugh. ‘I don’t know. After my father died, my mother has not remarried, and in a way I’m glad. She’s still got a great many friends. They offer her something else, a kind of love that’s gentle.’
Ditty met his gaze, and this time she did not look away. ‘Companionship?’
‘Like, a friendship,’ Henry said, his mouth dry. ‘But better. Deeper.’
‘That…that sounds nice.’
‘Something worth hoping for,’ said Henry, heart now in his mouth. ‘Rather than manufacturing.’
For a moment, he could have sworn they were the only two people in the world.
There they sat, on the bench in Brexley, looking at each other, and the longer the moment continued, the more certain Henry was that he was going to fall right there into her eyes.
Into Ditty’s bright and brilliant eyes, all that intelligence and all that pain mingled together.
Henry moved, his hand reaching out for—
‘Well, I’d better get back to Mrs Fletcher’s and see if she has any more ink,’ said Ditty, leaping up from the bench as though she’d been burned. ‘And I’m sure you’ve got numerous errands. Thank you for the embroidery.’
Henry blinked. Embroidery? What was she—
Then he noticed the envelope in her hand. Of course. She was still holding Mavis’s love heart.
‘Oh,’ he said bleakly. ‘Right. Sure. Ditty—’
‘I’ll see you soon, I am sure,’ she said brightly. ‘Brexley isn’t that large a place.’
Henry watched as she strode along the street toward the inn. No, it wasn’t that large, he thought ruefully. And yet you fit here perfectly. Can’t you see?