Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
T he night air had a distinct chill to it and Ash immediately regretted not accepting the offer of the carriage. A breeze picked up, whisking through his hair and down the back of his neck. He pulled his jacket tighter and began to walk briskly in the direction of home. It wasn’t far but by the time he was turning into Williamstone Avenue, the effects of the whisky were beginning to ebb, blown away by the breeze.
As he always did when he was alone, he stood for a moment outside his own house and glanced down the row of houses to where he could just make out Amelia’s front door. He wondered if he would ever stop this annoying habit but it was a hangover from when they were younger and she had been his favourite person in the whole world. Even as a boy, he would look down to see whether there was any hint that she was home. If he’d known that she was, he would hurry inside and make his way through the neighbouring gardens until he got to hers. She would often be there at the foot of their special tree, waiting for him. It only occurred to him now, several years too late, that she must have spent an awful lot of time hanging around in the expectation of him showing up. She never complained or gave any hint that anticipating his arrival wasn’t the pinnacle of her day.
She’d also not complained when he told her about his latest adventures, appearing to hang on his every word, despite the fact that, as a girl, she would never be able to experience anything like him. No wonder he had been so keen to spend time with her even before he knew what it meant to desire a woman. She was the first person, only person if he was truthful, who found what he had to say fascinating, and he had adored her for it. And then she had taken it away. No, that wasn’t fair. He had taken himself away from her, trusting in her unwavering devotion and expecting her to continue with that adoration while he was away and not writing to her. He’d then had the gall to be affronted when she had moved on to someone else. Now he knew that she had done so because she was desperate for money, his hurt and anger were giving way to a far worse emotion, one that he should quash but didn’t seem to be able to do so: hope.
It was a ridiculous emotion. Even if he was open to the possibility of risking his heart once more, and even if Amelia would give him the time of day, which wasn’t likely, he knew he could not be the sort of husband she required. Amelia needed someone whole, someone who would make her laugh so hard, she would forget herself. She did not need someone plagued by nightmares, whose guilt over letting down those who depended on him preoccupied his waking hours.
He was so lost in his thoughts that when the door to Amelia’s townhouse opened and a slight figure emerged from it, he wasn’t quite able to believe what he was seeing. He blinked, hoping it was a figment of his imagination, something left over from the whisky he’d imbibed or perhaps a housemaid, someone slipping away for a few hours of fun. But it was neither of these things, and all the blinking in the world would not make it so.
He would recognise the shape of that body anywhere; pictured it in his dreams, ached for it across ballrooms. Amelia was leaving her house, in the middle of the night, crossing the street and disappearing into the trees opposite, already eaten up by their darkness. Without giving it a second thought, he followed her.
* * *
The faint snap of twigs underfoot and the occasional hoot of an owl were the only sounds Amelia could make out. She loved this time of night for its quiet stillness. This small patch of wilderness opposite her house wasn’t quite the same as being in the country. She could still smell the city, but it was the nearest she could get to without travelling for a couple of days. It stood in the centre of a square of houses and she’d discovered it quite by chance when walking from her marital home, on the other side, to visit her siblings in the house she now lived in. By day, she had to take her maid but there was no one around in late evenings when the rest of the ton were still at one social event or other. She thought of it as hers, a place where she could be quiet and still.
The cold wind that had plagued the streets today, whipping around corners and chilling people to the bone, despite the summer months, was less evident amongst the trees, too. She didn’t come out here often, and even less so since Marcus had passed away and there was less urgency to her need to be alone, but sometimes she still needed to have a moment to herself where she could breathe. Out here, where she could no longer see the house that contained all the people who relied on her, she could get some rest from her worries.
Sleep had been too hard to come by this evening. She had lain, staring at the canopy above her bed, trying to relax, but her body had refused to calm itself. There were too many thoughts and feelings trying to push themselves to the forefront of her mind. Ash, his gaze meeting hers across the ballroom, his fingers curling around hers as he led her in a waltz, the strength of his shoulders as he moved, played across her mind. During the day, she could push these images to the side but at night, they came to her so strongly, it was almost as if he was lying next to her, the press of his body denting the mattress. For so long, the idea of male companionship had been an anathema to her. The idea of being controlled by a man so abhorrent that she knew marriage was out of the question; and the thought of bedding a man so repellent, she knew she would never take a lover but now… Now her body craved Ash in a way she appeared to have no control over. She knew taking him as a lover could be disastrous to her heart, but that had little impact on how much she wanted to feel him moving over her.
All this swirled around in her mind until, finally, she had decided to head to her peaceful place and listen to the wind in the branches for a while. Nobody knew she did this, or the staff did a good job of pretending they didn’t. She knew she would be ruined at best if she was discovered, but she never had been and it was worth the risk in her eyes.
Slightly farther into the patch of woodland was an open space. During the day, this was often used by exasperated nannies, desperate for somewhere to let their charges run off their energy. At night, it was a great place to look up at the stars. She’d brought a blanket and she laid it at the base of a tree. Using the wide trunk to rest her back, she settled down and gazed upwards. As it always did, a great stillness came over her as she stared into the darkness lit by a thousand twinkling stars.
And then, her peace was shattered by the sharp snap of something being stomped on close behind her. It was not the noise of an animal that moved around at night. It was the sound of a human moving rapidly through the undergrowth. One that wasn’t even trying to be quiet.
She stood slowly, her back pressed to the tree, her heart thundering in her chest. Never, in all her years of coming out here, had she met another person. Her chest tightened as breathing became difficult, fear trickling through her veins to the edge of every extremity. It almost didn’t matter if the approaching person was friend or foe. Her reputation would be in ruins if she was caught out here and so would Sienna’s by association. If she stayed very still and very quiet then maybe the person would not see her. She could slip back into the trees and away before ruining her entire life.
Her breathing stopped all together when the interloper stepped into the clearing. From the size of his shadow it was a man and he was alone. Every horror story she had ever heard about what men did when they found a defenceless woman without a chaperone whipped through her mind at lightning speed. The man strode to the centre of the clearing, his gaze on the floor as if searching for clues. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the whimper that was forming in her throat. Terror had a hold of her now and it had frozen her. Her mind was screaming at her to run but her legs would not obey her. She couldn’t outrun a man of that size anyway.
Slowly, the man began to turn and as he did so, the starlight illuminated his profile, and her legs nearly gave way completely. If it hadn’t been for the tree at her back, she would have sunk to the floor. The figure stopped turning when he was facing her. In the darkness she could not see the details of his face but she had no doubt his eyebrows were creased in a furious frown.
‘You,’ he said. ‘What the absolute hell do you think you are doing?’
He took a step towards her, so furious he was practically vibrating with it. When he was close enough to see his face, she could see that she’d been right about his eyebrows; she had never seen him so angry. His teeth were bared, his eyes narrow slits and his fists were clenched. For the first time, she could see the warrior in him, the war hero who had stalked the battlefields against Napoleon, the man the ton talked of in reverent tones.
‘Ash,’ she whispered, not sure why but somehow needing to say his name.
‘Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here?’ he shouted, not seeming to care that they could be heard by anyone. ‘Do you have any concept at all what could happen to you if you were found here by someone unsavoury?’ He dragged his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He looked wild and unkempt and completely different from how she had ever seen him before.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, seeking to reassure him. ‘I have been out here many times and you are the first person I have ever met.’
It was the wrong thing to say. His eyes bulged. ‘Many times,’ he roared. ‘You have committed this lunacy more than once.’
Now she was over the shock of him appearing, anger was starting to seep into her bones. Who was he to criticise what she did? This was the reminder she needed that she did not want or need a man in her life. She was an independent widow in charge of her own movements. If she wanted to walk around outside at night, that was up to her. She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered up at him. ‘I can do what I want.’ That wasn’t quite the passionate, eloquent speech she had hoped for. She sounded more like a petulant child, but it did get the message across.
‘Really?’ Sarcasm dripped from his voice and she wanted to shove him almost as much as she wanted to pull his mouth down to hers. ‘You can wander around at night and face no consequences! Do you really believe that?’
No, she did not. She knew that her actions carried great risks but she had always been prepared to make them to keep her sanity. ‘I am hardly wandering around, as you suggest. I am only a few steps from my own front door.’
‘Is that so? He stepped closer now, so close that she could see the whites of his eyes. ‘Can you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘Your house. If we are merely steps away from it, you should be able to see it clearly. Can you?’
She stamped her foot, childish but unstoppable because he was right, damn him. ‘No, but that is not the point. There are trees in the way. If they were not there, I would see my house clearly and…’
He didn’t let her finish. ‘If you cannot see your house, then nobody from your house can see you. If trouble finds you, then no one else will know and, if something awful happening to your person does not bother you, then surely the thought of what will become of Sienna if you are no longer around does? Or if you are around but your reputation has been shot to pieces?’
That was a rude comment but she had no justifiable response to it because he was right, damn him even more. But he had no idea how bad the days of her marriage had been, how much she had needed this illusion of freedom. Some days, the thought of spending time in the quiet open space was the bright spot on an otherwise dark horizon. She was not going to let him know that, however. He couldn’t just come waltzing into her special place and start yelling at her and expect her to do exactly as he bid. ‘How is it fine for you to be wandering around here but not me?’
Ash growled and she took a step backwards, forgetting the tree was right behind her. She bumped her head against bark and gasped at the sharp pain.
Immediately, he was stepping forward, his hands reaching for her, stopping when they were only a hair’s breadth away. ‘Are you hurt?’ All the anger had fled from his voice, replaced by care and concern.
‘It only stung a bit.’
‘It was my fault. I’m sorry.’
His hands were still hovering near her face and she wanted nothing more than to feel them on her. ‘It’s a little sore,’ she said, angling her face towards him. ‘I’m afraid there might be a bump.’
She was more than capable of feeling her own skin but she was rewarded with his hands sliding around the back of her head and into her hair, his fingers lightly feeling her scalp, searching for an injury she was fairly certain wasn’t there. His breath whispered across her forehead. She could smell the sweet scent of something alcoholic. She fought the urge to capture the taste with her lips. His fingers continued their slow exploration of her, moving up to the crown of her head and then down to the top of her neck. She sucked in a breath as his little finger brushed the skin there and he stilled. She fixed her gaze on the rise and fall of his chest. ‘Did that hurt?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ she replied quietly, noticing the way he shivered as her breath touched against his neck, remembering how sensitive his skin was there.
Slowly, he lowered his hands, resting them briefly on her shoulders before stepping back slightly. ‘There are no bumps,’ he confirmed.
She nodded, oddly breathless.
He cleared his throat. ‘At the risk of sounding repetitive, what are you doing out here?’
The anger had gone from his voice now but she took her time to answer him. How to explain that she risked everything for a few stolen moments of respite or that sometimes she found sleep hard to come by. He might ask her why that was and then she might reveal parts of herself that she preferred to keep hidden, especially from him.
‘Are you meeting Stanmere?’ If she hadn’t known Ash well, she would have missed the strain in his voice as he asked her.
She let out a long breath, unable to decide if she was angry enough with him to let him suspect that his suggestion was the truth. She knew that if she confirmed his suspicion that would be the end of something between them. What that something was, she didn’t want to dwell on just yet. ‘No,’ she found herself saying, ‘I am not here to meet anyone.’
His fingers grazed hers fleetingly, so quickly she may have imagined it. ‘Then why are you out here? It makes no sense to me that you would risk your life and your reputation for this place.’ He gazed around the patch of grass, which, she had to admit, was nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Sit down with me,’ she said, folding herself back down onto her blanket and resting once more against the tree.
For a long moment, she thought he would refuse but then he lowered himself to the ground and leaned next to her, the sleeve of his coat brushing hers.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing upwards.
They both gazed at the night sky for the longest of times; the only sound their breathing and the occasional hoot from an owl. ‘You always did love the stars and I never could get the hang of it,’ he said eventually. ‘Remind me, what is that meant to be?’ He pointed to one of the constellations.
‘That’s Cygnus, the swan.’
She watched him as he blinked up at the sky. ‘No. I don’t see it.’
‘That’s the wings and if you go the other way—’ she waved her hand around in the air ‘—you can see its long neck.’
He laughed softly. ‘I can see a jumble of stars but if there is a mythical swan up there then I’m a carrot.’
She laughed. ‘You never did have any imagination.’
‘Hey, that’s unfair. I wrote that play for you that year.’
‘The one our siblings described as an abomination to their eyes and ears.’ She smiled as she remembered it. Ash, so serious, clutching a few sheets of paper covered in his scribbles, telling her where she should stand and what she should say. He’d seemed to think he was the next Shakespeare and she had been so filled with adoration that she’d thought it was the best thing anyone had ever written. She couldn’t remember a word of it now, only that her brother and their sisters had not been suitably impressed.
‘It is hardly my fault they have no taste.’
‘That’s true. Our acting was sublime.’ She was fairly certain they had fallen over one another during the most critical scene.
‘It was. I fear I have missed my true calling. I was born to be on the stage.’ His voice held that light teasing note she enjoyed so much. Had enjoyed so much she reminded herself.
‘It is not too late. You can always take it up.’
‘If the investments fail, then perhaps that is what I will have to do.’
She paused for a moment. ‘On second thought, I do not think you have it in you.’
He laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the grassy pitch. ‘Oh, how you wound me.’
‘I feel it is better to let you down now than have your hopes crushed at a later date. You are not going to be able to take the stage as an actor.’
‘My pride is hurt but I fear you may be correct. I remember your brother’s look of horror as I uttered the words, “Beyond yonder, my true heart runs amok.” I thought he might try and fling himself from the window.’
‘To be fair, that was bad writing.’ She was giggling now, all her earlier irritation with him forgotten in this shared memory. ‘What does it even mean?’
‘I’m pretty sure that was your wording.’
‘Never! I had nothing to do with the script. You wrote it all.’ Although now that she thought about it, perhaps she had penned some of the words but surely not those ones; those were terrible.
He made a sceptical noise. ‘It doesn’t sound like something I would come up with.’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t… Oh, Ash, look.’ Unthinkingly, she reached over and grabbed his arm. ‘A shooting star and another one. Look, look. Oh, my goodness, there are loads. It’s like fireworks. Can you see?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I can see.’
She squeezed his arm, feeling the muscles beneath the fabric of his coat. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Very,’ he murmured.
They stayed like that for long, uncountable minutes, staring at the sky as it put on a show for them and then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. Amelia let out a sigh of contentment. How wonderful to have seen something special and to have shared it with Ash. She turned to him, expecting to see the same level of awe etched onto his face as she was feeling inside. But he wasn’t looking at the sky. Instead, his gaze was focused on his arm where her fingers were still curled around it. ‘Oh,’ she said, releasing her grip quickly. ‘I am sorry. I forgot I was holding on to you so tightly.’
‘That is quite all right.’ He sounded husky, as if he hadn’t used his voice in days.
She folded her hands in her lap, suddenly at a loss as to what to say. She studied her fingers as they lay against her skirt, intently as if they held all the secrets of the universe if she could only puzzle out the key.
‘Melia.’
‘Yes?’
‘Why do you come out here?’
She risked looking at his face. There was no anger in his gaze anymore, only curiosity, and she found she didn’t mind telling him after all. ‘Sometimes life and everything that goes with it gets too much. I come out here because I don’t want to see the house anymore. I don’t want to be reminded of the people whose lives depend on me. Sienna, the servants and even my brother and sister who don’t live with me anymore but for whom I still feel responsible.’ She gestured to the sky above. ‘I want to look at the stars and be reminded of the Greek myths you told me about all those years ago. I want to be still.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I think I understand. When I was at war, it was the little things that would ground me and take me away from the horror of my reality. I became invested in the shapes of clouds and the way they were in constant motion.’ He huffed out a humourless laugh. ‘I haven’t done that at all since I returned.’ He shrugged. ‘Just as well, I suppose. Burdensome though having the reputation of a war hero is, it is better than being considered a candidate for Bedlam. But in those long, endless days, the sight of them scudding overhead was often reassuring. If they could get away, then so could I.’
Her heart broke a little for him then; the idea that such a simple pleasure was the thing that tethered him to the ground was deeply revealing.
‘I wish I could have been there for you.’ She found that she meant it. Whatever had passed between them did not matter. She longed to be able to go back in time and hold the hand of her dearest friend as he suffered through something no man should ever experience.
‘Another thing that got me through,’ he continued, ‘was knowing that you weren’t there to witness what was happening. I liked to think of you going about your life not seeing the endless torture of men and boys dying for a pointless cause.’ Her heart hurt for him, for the things he had seen and the people he had mourned and also for her younger self. She thought he had gone off to war and never looked back. If she’d known that he was thinking of her then perhaps she would not have been so hurt by his rejection of her.
Before, when she’d had to make the decision to marry for money, everything had seemed so black-and-white. Ash had left her to deal with her life and the disasters that had faced her. In her eyes, it had been the complete abandonment of her by Ash when she had needed him most. The line had been clear-cut. But now, now she knew that he had been suffering, too, and that perhaps what he had faced was far worse than anything she had experienced. The line that had seemed so sure and firm was blurring, and so were her feelings.
‘I am sorry that you had to face all that, Ash.’ She found she really was. The anger she’d held on to for so long was finally fading, replaced with compassion for the man who sat beside her. The man who’d come home from war and now had to find a solution to his family’s financial problems. ‘I’m sorry that now that you’re home and safe, you are facing different worries.’
He smiled sadly. ‘Who would have thought being a grown-up was difficult. Our parents made it look so easy.’
‘Maybe they hid it from us.’ She’d never thought of this before but it was impossible to think that her parents had gone through life without a care in the world. ‘None of my siblings know how bad our finances were after our parents died. They have no real idea of the lengths I had to go to protect them, so perhaps the adults in our lives were the same. I suspect you have not told your sisters about the family troubles, either.’
‘You’re right, I haven’t. I don’t want them to worry needlessly.’
She lightly touched his arm again and he covered it with his opposite hand, somehow sharing the burdens they had both faced. The warmth of him seeped into her skin. The feeling was both familiar and new; familiar because her body knew his but also new because he was bigger and stronger than when they had been younger. She didn’t want to dwell on the warmth racing up her arm and flooding through her whole body. She pushed it to one side as she was becoming adept at doing, concentrating instead on the positive. ‘Then we are the same as our parents, muddling through and trying our best. Do you know, this season I have decided that I will be happy?’
‘Just like that?’ He smiled and began to trace small circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.
She nodded. ‘Yes, just like that, although it is proving harder than I thought it would be.’ His touch was sending tingles up her arm; it was exquisitely delicious.
‘Does Stanmere make you happy?’ he asked softly, interrupting her thoughts.
She was about to answer in the affirmative when she paused. This evening truths had been shared between them, and it felt wrong to mislead him. ‘My flirtation with Stanmere does bring me joy, yes.’ Ash lifted his hand from hers and turned away. She tightened her grip on his arm. She didn’t know why it was suddenly so important that he understand the entirety of her relationship with Stanmere but it was. ‘You should know, Ash, that is all there is to it. It’s only a bit of fun between the two of us. A mild flirtation when we are at social gatherings. It will never be more than that and Stanmere knows it.’
He turned back to her, his gaze unreadable, and she realised she needed to explain the rest.
‘I… I do not enjoy the physical side of a relationship.’ It was important Ash knew this, too. Amelia wasn’t without wits and she wasn’t new to men, especially the one sitting next to her. She and Ash had been flirting this evening and touching. Ash may be a gentleman but it would be the work of nothing for them to pick up their relationship where it had left off. But that would never happen, no matter whether her feelings for Ash developed or not; no matter the stirrings of desire she was beginning to feel once more. She knew for the sake of her sanity and for her heart that she had to keep that barrier between them, no matter how much she was starting to long for him. It would only complicate matters that were already complex enough. ‘That is…to be clear… I will not be sharing my bed with another man ever again. That side of relationships is of no interest to me.’ Until recently, that had been the whole truth.
His hand covered hers again, this time tight and urgent. ‘Did Mortram hurt you?’
‘No.’ And he hadn’t. Marcus may have been a gruff man with very little patience in him but he had wanted theirs to be a mutually satisfying marriage. He had wanted her to enjoy their time together and had put time and effort into trying to make her relax and enjoy herself. After a while, she had learned to pretend because, whatever his faults, she could see that it hurt him that she did not enjoy his touch. Whether he had believed her or not, she was unsure, but he had been desperate for an heir, just as she had longed for a babe of her own, and so they had continued trying to make one. In the end, when he had been too sick to carry on, her guilt at the relief of that side of their relationship being over had been immense. ‘He never hurt me. I just didn’t enjoy it. It was all me.’
Ash gazed at her for a long time. She could not fathom what he was thinking. He remained gripping her hand but he made no attempt to start the gentle, circling motion again. After a while, he let go of her and she was oddly bereft. ‘I think it is time we returned home,’ he said. ‘I am tired and I’m afraid I don’t feel I can leave you out here alone no matter how many protestations you make about your safety.’
She stood as he did, folding the blanket. ‘I am tired also and wish to return home.’ Her statement was to hold on to her dignity. The truth was she didn’t want to stay out here without him, either. Not because she was afraid but because she would be lonely.
They began to walk back towards their street. It was darker beneath the leaves and Amelia concentrated on where she was putting her feet, not wanting to stumble and give Ash another reason to complain about her going out at night.
‘Do you make your nightly forays often?’ asked Ash as the houses became visible through the trees.
‘No. It is quite rare for me to do so these days.’ Now that they were not pressed closed together under the tree, the cold wind was making itself known and she tugged her coat closer.
‘If you do so again, please will you make me aware of it? I should like to escort you.’
She made a noise that she hoped sounded like agreement but probably didn’t. There were two ways for her to make him aware of her nightly excursion and neither of them appealed to her. She could stroll down the street and knock on his front door, causing an outrageous scandal if she was seen, and the chances of that were quite high because his mother or sisters would notice the unusual noise during the night. The alternative was wending her way through the gardens in between their two houses and climbing through the loose window at the back of his house. She had done the latter as a young child but she didn’t even know if she would fit through the gap or if indeed the window was still loose. Either way, she was not going to creep around his house at the dead of night.
She heard his quiet sigh of recognition and knew that he knew exactly what she was thinking. At one stage, he had known her better than anyone else in the world. Although, even then she had kept parts of her nature hidden from him because she wanted him to adore her as much as she had him. She would never do that again. She was unapologetically herself, and if he didn’t like that…well, it made no difference to anything.
‘I’ll know if you do it without me.’
She smiled up at him. ‘No, you won’t.’
‘You’ll feel guilty.’
‘No, I won’t.’
She probably would but he didn’t need to know that.
They reached her house and he stopped at the bottom of her steps. ‘Melia.’
‘Ash.’
‘Be reasonable.’
‘I always am.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You used to be.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m different from how I used to be.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ he said ruefully.
‘If there is a way of informing you that doesn’t end in a horrendous scandal, then I will inform you. How about that?’ There wasn’t and so it was a fairly easy promise to make.
‘I suppose that’s the best I can hope for,’ he grumbled.
‘It is.’ She began to climb the stairs. He watched from his place at the bottom. She reached out to open the door but froze with her hands on the doorknob, turning to look down at him. She had a question she’d wanted to ask him for years, one so fundamentally important to her place in the world. She’d not had the courage to ask before but there was no need to be afraid of the answer. The worst had already happened and nothing could undo that, not even his answer. ‘Why didn’t you write to me, Ash?’
For a long moment, he said nothing. She almost wished she hadn’t asked but she knew that if she wanted to move on, if they were truly going to be friends again, then she had to know why he had ended their relationship in such a brutal, unpleasant way. She had thought the man that she loved would not have acted in such a way and she found it hard to believe the man in front of her now would be so cruel.
He glanced down the road to his house and then back to her. He took a deep breath and then, ‘I did.’
Anger surged through her, hot and potent. ‘No, you didn’t.’ And lying about it was worse than cruel.
‘I wrote to you all the time. I must have got through a forest load of paper but they were never finished and never sent.’
The world tilted as Amelia’s reality rewrote itself. Her anger left her as quickly as it had arrived to be replaced by shock. ‘Why? Why did you not send them?’
‘I couldn’t.’ His words tumbled into the silence between them as strong and as powerful as the shot from a gun.
For a long time, they stared at each other, Amelia completely unable to form a coherent sentence. What he said changed everything; it altered her past in a deep, fundamental way and she couldn’t find the words to express it. Still watching her, Ash took a step towards his house and then another. She watched him go, knowing that this evening had changed something essential within her and between them.
‘I wish you had,’ she said so quietly, she wasn’t sure if he could hear her. When he said nothing, she turned and let herself into the house.