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Chapter Twelve

A week later, a visitor came to Sheridan Manor.

Lord Cantle’s father had been a good friend of the late Lord Sheridan, and he’d been a regular visitor since.

He was a few years older than Connor and tall, with neatly cropped hair that had gone almost completely white and blue eyes that betrayed a propensity to smile.

Sian liked him immediately, which was a good thing because she was not in the mood to meet new people right now.

Since her encounter with Christopher, each moment had been more difficult than the last.

Was that what the rest of her life would be like? Trying to find distractions to stop herself from thinking of all she had lost and the man she still loved?

It was not a cheerful prospect, to say the least.

One morning, Lord Cantle found her in the rose garden, where she had gone in search of solitude.

Jane had taken Gwenllian, Bethan and Seren to the market in town, but Sian had declined the offer to accompany them.

Instead, she had spent the morning alone, crying.

After so many days spent pretending she was doing all right for her family’s sake, she needed to let her feelings out.

Otherwise, she feared she might well shatter.

Though it had not been hard to keep to her resolve never to see Christopher again since she didn’t even know where he might be, she had found it impossible to stop thinking about him and stick to her resolution not to shed a single tear over him.

When her mood was dark, which was most of the time, she thought back to his betrayal and the way he had pretended to agree to get married before disappearing.

When she lay in her bed at night, she relived their tryst in the meadow in all its lewd, excruciatingly vivid details.

When she ate honey, she remembered how he had licked her fingers clean in the meadow.

The color of the sky, reminiscent of his blue eye, the hue of the wood on her bed frame, as dark as his other eye, the puppies that had overturned the basket the day he’d brought Warrior to service Angel, Angel herself—everything made her think of him.

It was torture.

She had once compared her love for him to sunshine warming every little corner of her soul.

She was now convinced it was more like rot pervading everything little by little with implacable thoroughness.

There was no stopping it. Soon there would be nothing good left of her; it would all have been consumed by her doomed feelings for him.

To add to her dismay, that morning, she’d heard the grooms congratulate themselves. Warrior had indeed gotten Angel with foal, and they were waiting for a birth in the spring, the finest horse they had ever bred.

“Lady Sian. May I?”

“Of course.”

When Lord Cantle sat down next to her, she didn’t move or shy away from her chagrin. He would have seen her tears already, and there was something about him that made it easy not to be embarrassed.

“Are you all right? Forgive me. That was a ludicrous question to ask. It is obvious you’re not.”

Sian could not help a small smile and replied with equal frankness. “No. But I suspect I will be, eventually.” At least, that was the hope. Surely, when she was in her old age, the pain of Christopher’s desertion would have faded away? No one could suffer with the same intensity for half a century.

“A young man broke your heart?” he ventured. Though that was a startlingly bold assertion to make, she didn’t even think of pretending it was not the case.

“Yes.”

A silence followed. Then another odd question.

“How old are you, if I may ask?”

“Almost one and t-twenty,” she stammered. What did that have to do with anything?

“Just like Constance was,” he murmured to himself.

Sian waited. Who was Constance? His late wife?

No, it couldn’t be. She’d heard that the woman had died recently, and she couldn’t have been her age if she had been married for three decades.

Lord Cantle provided her with the answer before she could ask.

“I had a daughter who must have been born the same year as you. She died a few weeks ago. You remind me of her. She had the same eyes as you and the same spontaneous nature. I suppose that is why I enjoy talking to you so much.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sian did not have to force herself to feel sympathy.

She could all too well imagine the horror of losing someone you loved.

Everyone in her family had done so. Her mother had lost her first husband, Connor a wife and two daughters, and Jane had lost two sisters, including her twin, Elspeth.

Sian alone had been spared that awful pain.

“She died … by her own hand.”

Sian was frozen in place. What could she say to that?

Nothing. Taking one’s own life was considered one of the worst sins a person could commit.

What had pushed the poor girl to do such a thing?

Having heard Lord Cantle’s confession, she felt she owed him a more complete explanation as to the reason for her tears.

“The man who broke my heart …” She stopped before she could say his name.

Not only did she have no right to call Christopher by the title he had usurped, but she wanted to preserve his anonymity even if she wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“I’ve wanted to marry him all my life. Or at least since I was able to understand what being married meant.

Finally, earlier in the summer, we decided to be married.

” Heat invaded her cheeks at her tame choice of words because they had not exactly decided to get married.

I forced his hand by making him take my maidenhead . At first, he tried to do the right thing and refuse, but then he surrendered when I took him into my mouth.

“What happened?” Lord Cantle asked when she went silent.

Sian cleared her throat, chasing the shocking image from her mind.

“He left before we could speak to my parents, and I discovered afterward that he’d been lying about his identity and, most likely, his intentions all along.

He made me believe he’d agreed to marry me, but he told me last week he would not make me his wife, after all.

And so now I fear I will end up all alone. ”

A hand landed on her knee, the gesture paternal. “I don’t think that’s a concern, my dear. You’re a charming, beautiful young woman. I dare say plenty of men would be happy to take you to wife.”

Not when they found out she was no longer a maid.

Though how they would find that out, she wasn’t sure exactly.

She did not think Christopher would spread the word of what they had done together, but she couldn’t be sure.

Many people considered him a rogue, he had just been exposed as a liar, and she knew that he liked to boast about his conquests.

She had heard him do so herself. Wouldn’t he tell his friends how daringly Lord Sheridan’s respectable daughter had pleasured him?

Would these men not delight in spreading the word?

It was all too possible. But she didn’t even mind.

“No one will want me when they know I have lain with him. So certain was I that we were meant to be together that I allowed him every liberty. Which only goes to show I am a fool because now I know he never wanted me.”

Lord Cantle gave a cough, as if surprised that she should want to share such intimate details.

And perhaps she should have kept silent.

But suddenly, she needed to confide in someone who didn’t know Christopher, who wouldn’t judge him, or her, but simply listen.

Perhaps hearing the whole story out loud would make her realize how pathetic it was and help her to move on.

It could not make her situation worse, at least.

“You must think me terribly brazen, but you see, it’s not just that I wanted to marry him.

I’ve been in love with him all my life.” She didn’t add that she suspected she would be in love with him until her dying day.

There was a limit to the humiliation she was prepared to endure.

“I didn’t think I was taking any risks because I never imagined I would marry anyone else.

And now, because of a moment of folly, I fear that I never will.

I will be left behind, a burden on my parents, an embarrassment to my family, a broken-hearted old woman. ”

And what a frightening prospect that was. For a long moment, Lord Cantle stared ahead, as if lost in contemplation. He didn’t offer empty words of comfort. Instead, he said the last thing she had expected him to say.

“Do you think you could consider marrying me?”

“I … I b-beg your pardon?”

Had he just offered her marriage? Surely, she had misheard.

“You seem to fear no one will ever marry you. I’m saying that I would. That way, you won’t end up alone or be a burden to anyone.”

Sian wasn’t sure what to think, much less what to say. “I?—”

“I know I am not exactly an enviable party for someone like you. I’m an old man, widowed twice over.

” She kept her face impassive, but that information was new to her.

She’d had no idea that he had lost not one but two wives.

“I have four sons and two daughters left. There is no need for me to have any more children or, indeed, remarry again. But I like the company of a good woman, and I confess I am moved by your story. I would like to help.”

This time, Sian could not prevent her eyes from widening in bewilderment. She had confessed to wanton behavior and the man was moved ?

“You heard what I said?” The conversation was embarrassing, but she had to be sure. “You realize I’m not a virgin anymore?”

And will likely never fall in love with you .