The door to Godric’s room opened.
She looked up, not bothering to hide the letter in her hands.
Godric paused on the threshold, arching his eyebrows mildly at finding her in his room going through his personal possessions. “Good morning.”
“You kept them all,” she blurted out.
“Your letters? Yes.” He strolled in and closed the door to the room. He didn’t seem put out by her riffling through his secrets.
Which made her feel guiltier, of course. She hadn’t kept all of his letters—just the most recent ones, and those she’d tossed in a drawer at Laurelwood. “Why did you keep them?”
“I liked rereading them.” His voice was deep, and she shivered as if it were rasping over her spine.
She looked away, concentrating as she carefully folded the letter and placed it with the others. “Do you think of Clara?”
The question was too personal, too intimate, but she waited, breath held, for his answer.
“Yes.”
“Often?”
He slowly shook his head. “Not as often as I used to.”
She bit her lip, closing her eyes. “Do you feel guilty when you make love to me?”
“No.” She felt him come nearer, standing near enough that the warmth from his body reached out to her. “I loved Clara deeply and I will never forget her, but she’s gone. I’ve learned, I think, in these last weeks, to set aside what I felt for her so that I can feel something else with you.”
She inhaled, her heart beating wildly, not entirely sure she wanted to hear this. “How … how can you reconcile it, though? The love you felt? It was real, wasn’t it? Strong and true?”
“Yes, it was very real.” She felt the press of his hands on her shoulders. They were warm and steadfast. “I think had you not come into my life I would’ve stayed a celibate hermit. But that didn’t happen. You did come,” he said simply, a statement of fact.
She opened her eyes, twisting to face him. “Do you regret it? Do you hate me for forcing you to give up your memories of Clara?”
A corner of his mouth tipped up. “You didn’t force me to do anything.” He looked at her, his dark eyes grave. “Do you feel you’ve betrayed Roger?”
“I don’t know,” she said, because it was the truth—her feelings for Roger were in a muddle. She saw the wince that Godric tried to hide and she felt an answering pain at having caused him hurt. But she soldiered on because he’d asked and he deserved the truth. “I want—wanted—a baby so terribly and I think he would’ve understood that. He was a joyful man and I think—I hope—he would’ve wanted me to be joyful even after he died. But I haven’t brought his murderer to justice.” She gazed up at him, trying to convey her confused emotions.
“I told you I’ll find a way to make Kershaw pay and I will,” he said, iron hard. “I promise I’ll help you lay Roger to rest.”
“I don’t want you going back into St. Giles,” she whispered, stroking one finger along his jaw. “I owe you too much already. Everything you’ve done for me. Everything you’ve given up for me.”
“There is no debt between you and me.” He smiled. “I voluntarily chose to move beyond my grief for Clara. Life is by necessity for the living.”
She stared up into his dark eyes, something kindling and glowing in her breast, and she longed in that moment to tell him. Tell him that she suspected that she was carrying his child. Carrying life itself.
But she remembered with a shock what that would mean: she’d promised him that she would leave when she became pregnant.
She didn’t want to leave Godric. Not yet. Maybe never.
His eyebrows had knit together while she’d remained silent as if he were trying to figure out what she was thinking. It made him look stern and rather solemn paired with his usual gray wig and the half-moon spectacles pushed absently to his forehead. She found the look rather irresistible, actually, and she raised herself on tiptoe to brush her lips across his.
When she pulled back, he had a bemused expression on his face, but she smiled at him and he smiled in return. “Come. If you remember, you wanted to visit Spring Gardens today.”
She ducked her head, linking hands with him as he drew her from the room. Happiness trembled near her heart, but it was held back by the knowledge she would soon have to tell him and when she did, he would ask her to leave.
And if nothing else, she needed to put Roger to rest before she left London. Somehow.
SPRING GARDENS WAS a pleasant place, Godric thought, even if he wasn’t much interested in flowers or plants. Megs was interested, and it seemed her enjoyment of the gardens made it enjoyable for him as well.
They walked along a gravel path, edged with short boxwood trimmed with surgical severity into angular shapes. The beds themselves were mostly barren and Godric privately thought they weren’t any better than his own garden at Saint House, save for the fact that they were neater.
Megs, however, found much to exclaim over.
“Oh, look at those tiny white flowers,” she said, nearly bending in half to peer closer. “Do you know what they are, Mrs. St. John?”
His stepmother, who had been walking behind, crowded close to his elbow to look. “Perhaps a type of crocus?”
“But they’re on stems,” Megs said, straightening and frowning down at the flower, which looked quite pedestrian to Godric. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crocus on a stem.”
“Or with green bits,” Sarah said.
“Eh?” Great-Aunt Elvina cupped one hand around her ear.
“Green. Bits,” Sarah repeated, loudly and clearly.
“I see no green bits,” Great-Aunt Elvina pronounced.
“They’re right there,” Jane said, pointing, while at the same time Charlotte murmured that she saw no trace of green either.
There followed a lively discussion on whether or not the flower sported “green bits” and if crocuses ever could be found with long stems. Godric watched in amusement.
“I’ve never seen her so happy,” his stepmother said in his ear. He turned his head to find that while he’d been watching the others, she’d been watching him. “Or you.”
He blinked, looking away, unnerved.
“Godric,” she said, taking his elbow and walking down the path a bit. “You are happy, aren’t you?”
“Can one ever really say one is happy?” he asked wryly.