The Suitor #2
And then she would come home and marry Lord Camberton and learn to love hornbeams.
It was a plan. Not a good plan. But a plan.
* * *
The next day brought the promised drive to see Lord Camberton's hedgerows.
Florinda sat beside him in his open carriage, a blanket tucked across her lap against the November chill, and listened as he pointed out the particular merits of various plantings.
The air was cold and clean, carrying the faint bite of coming frost. The countryside rolled past in shades of brown and grey—bare branches, fallow fields, the occasional flash of green where hardy evergreens refused to yield to winter.
"That hedge there," Lord Camberton said, gesturing, "is nearly sixty years old. My grandfather planted it. Hawthorn, unfortunately—I should have preferred hornbeam—but one must respect the decisions of one's ancestors."
"Must one?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Respect the decisions of one's ancestors." Florinda watched the hedge slide past, its bare branches catching the pale November sun. "Must one always honour what they chose? Even if they chose poorly?"
Lord Camberton considered this with the gravity he applied to all matters horticultural.
"I suppose—" He paused, weighing the question.
"One might replant. If the original choice proved truly unsuitable.
But hedgerows take decades to mature. The investment of time...
" He shook his head. "No. Better to work with what one has inherited than to tear it out and start fresh. "
Florinda said nothing. She was not, she suspected, talking about hedgerows. She was not sure Lord Camberton realised they had stopped discussing landscaping three sentences ago.
"Miss Ashbourne." His voice had shifted—softer now, less instructional. "You seem troubled today. Is all well?"
She turned to look at him. His face held genuine concern, his brown eyes warm with the uncomplicated kindness that characterised everything about him. He was trying. He truly was. And she was sitting beside him thinking about another man's letters whilst he waxed poetic about shrubbery.
"Not at all." She arranged her features into pleasantness. "I received a letter from a friend. There is to be a ball in a fortnight, and I confess the prospect of so much society after my convalescence is daunting."
"A ball?" His face brightened. "How delightful. Where is it to be held?"
"Carthedge Hall."
"The Duke's estate?" Lord Camberton's eyebrows rose. "I had heard there was to be an announcement. The engagement ball, yes?"
"Yes." Flat. She could not help it. "The engagement ball."
"I confess I received an invitation myself—the Duke and I are not well acquainted, but we share a border, and these things are expected.
" He paused, a hopeful light entering his eyes.
"Perhaps... that is, if you would not find it too presumptuous...
we might attend together? As neighbours, of course. I should be honoured to escort you."
Florinda looked at him. At his open, earnest face. At his soft hands resting on the carriage seat. At the complete absence of complication in his brown eyes.
This was what she should want. A kind man offering his arm.
A future that did not require pining after another woman's fiancé.
A life built on hornbeam hedges and pleasant prospects and the slow, steady accumulation of contentment rather than the wild, impossible wanting that would only ever bring her pain.
"That would be lovely," she heard herself say. "Thank you, Lord Camberton."
His smile was radiant. Uncomplicated. The smile of a man who believed he was making progress.
Perhaps he was.
* * *
When he returned her to Ashbourne House, Lord Camberton helped her down from the carriage with exaggerated care—one hand extended, the other hovering near her elbow as though she might shatter at any moment.
She did not shatter. She had not shattered in seven weeks of wanting things she could not have. She suspected she was past shattering now.
"Miss Ashbourne." He did not release her hand.
His thumb moved across her knuckles—once, twice—and she felt nothing.
"I hope you know how much I have enjoyed these past weeks.
Getting to know you. Sharing my passion for—" A self-deprecating smile.
"Well. For hedgerows, I suppose. I am aware that I can be enthusiastic. "
"You are devoted to your interests." She kept her voice warm. Kind. "There is nothing wrong with that."
"You are too kind." His thumb stilled. "I hope... that is, I should like to think that my interests might someday include..."
He did not finish. He did not need to.
Florinda looked down at their joined hands. His hold was gentle. His skin was warm. The November wind was cold against her cheeks, carrying the rich decay of autumn leaves and the distant woodsmoke of some farmer's fire.
Nothing. She felt nothing.
No spark. No flutter. No desperate wish for time to stop, for the moment to stretch, for his hand to move toward her face with trembling fingers that would never quite make contact.
Just nothing. A pleasant emptiness where feeling should be.
"I should go in," she said. "Thank you for a lovely afternoon."
"Of course." He released her hand with obvious reluctance. "Until the ball, then. I shall count the days."
I shall count the days.
The words should have touched her. A man, counting days until he could see her again. Was that not what she had wanted? Was that not what Frederick's letter had promised—a man who counted, who catalogued, who could not stop himself from measuring the distance between moments?
But Camberton's counting was not the same. His was the easy arithmetic of anticipation, not the desperate mathematics of obsession. He would count the days the way one counted down to a holiday—pleasant, manageable, forgettable.
Frederick counted the way one counted heartbeats. As though stopping would mean death.
Florinda climbed the steps to the house, her leg protesting each one. She did not look back. Did not wave.
Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, pressing her palm to the cold wood. The hallway held the fragrance of beeswax polish and Margot's hothouse flowers and the fading warmth of the afternoon sun.
Her hand still felt nothing.
But her arms—her arms remembered. Frederick's hands beneath her knees, around her shoulders. The warmth of him as he carried her up fourteen stairs. The press of his body against hers in those suspended moments before he set her down.
Her arms remembered being held.
And they ached.