The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(16)

With a heart-stopping grin, he stole that bit of her heart she was trying with all her being to reserve for someone who loved her, who didn’t think of her as a little sister, who wasn’t leaving for India in a matter of weeks.

“Alas, my dear old friend, I cannot take the time to travel to St. Ives.”

“There’s a new rail, you know. Just built. You could be in St. Ives in just a day.”

He tilted his head in that way she remembered that made her feel as if he was not only listening to every word she said, but was actually interested. “Is there?”

He seemed to ponder visiting for a moment. “Harriet would be so thrilled to see you.” God above, what was she doing? Trying to match her best friend with the man she loved? Was she mad?

A small smile touched his lips and for just a moment Alice thought she’d been able to convince him. “Still, no. I really must concentrate on my mission here and remove myself to India as soon as possible. As it is, I will have been gone for nearly three months by the time I return.”

“So this is truly good-bye,” Alice said, unable to keep her tone light. She looked straight ahead, not wanting to look at him for fear he would see just how bereft saying good-bye left her. She could tell he was looking at her and she schooled her features into a blandness she didn’t come close to feeling. How was it she still could love him when he’d been gone for so long? It was almost as if he’d never left, as if all those years of his absence, all her fiancés, all her days of feeling nothing, had disappeared. Alice pressed her lips together just slightly, irritated with herself.

“It is.” Beside her he took a bracing breath. “I thought this time I might say a proper good-bye.” He stood abruptly, and Alice rose as well, facing him, looking directly at him so she could recall his face, the distinct blue of his eyes. Like the sea holly that grew in a bundle behind the bench they’d just sat on. An impossible blue, and Alice was struck with the terrible thought that she would never be able to look at sea holly again without thinking of Henderson.

“Good-bye, Henderson,” she said, holding out her hand for him to take.

He looked at her hand curiously before saying, “My dear girl, a shake of a hand is not a proper good-bye.”

And before she could move, before she knew even what Henderson planned, he leaned toward her and all she could think was, He’s going to kiss me. He’s finally going to kiss me. Closer, closer, until his handsome face was nothing but a blur, until all she could see were those brilliant eyes. Her eyelids drifted closed and she held herself still.

“Good-bye, my dear girl,” he said softly, and she could feel the puff of his breath against her lips. Then, she felt his lips. Kiss her cheek. Alice very nearly laughed aloud at her own ridiculousness. So when Henderson pulled back, she was smiling, probably looking rather maniacal. He was still standing quite close, close enough so that, had she wanted to, Alice could have stood on tiptoe and kissed Henderson where she wanted to kiss him. His eyes held some intense emotion before he smiled and it was gone. At least it was a real smile this time. Stepping back, he took a deep breath and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, probably having no idea how very charming and boyish he looked at the moment. He nodded, an odd sort of nod that ended with him shaking his head, and let out a small laugh.

“I’ll go now. It was lovely seeing you, Alice.”

Alice swallowed down the ache in her throat. “Godspeed, Henderson.”

She watched him leave, fighting the urge to run after him and… And what? Beg him to stay? Beg him to see her as a woman? Beg him to kiss her properly? Instead, she simply stood there, mute, and watched him disappear into the house and out of her life.





Chapter 5


With every fiber in his being, Henderson wished he had kissed Alice. One, if he had, he would always remember how she tasted, how soft her lips were. Two, he would know for a certainty if she felt the same way about him that he felt about her. And now, he would never know either. He’d spend the rest of his life wondering. It was just as well. His promise to Joseph was ringing in his ears as he approached her, fully intending to kiss her properly, and in the end, with her looking up at him so damned innocently, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it, to turn what they had into something else. For what if she’d been angry, or worse, repulsed? He would have carried that memory with him forever too. Still, now he would never know what it was like to press his lips against hers.

“You bloody idiot,” Henderson said aloud as he strode from the Hubbards’ home. She was leaving in the morning and he was fairly certain he would never see her again. If she stayed in St. Ives and he lived in India for years as he intended, it was almost a certainty they would not meet again. When he was gone from England and back in the hot misery that was India, he at least would have had the sweet memory of that last kiss. Now when he would think back on this kiss, it would only be with humiliation and the terrible memory of how soft and sweet her mouth looked. He supposed part of him had hoped she would melt against him and beg him to stay. As Henderson walked toward his hotel, he looked up at heaven and wondered if Joseph were having a grand ol’ time looking down at him.



*



Over the next two weeks, Henderson, already in a foul mood, felt his mood darken exponentially following his meeting with each highly positioned gentleman. He tried pleading, flattery, and as a last and terrible resort, he brought out pictures of those poor starving souls. They looked more corpse than human. Women with sunken eyes, skulls clearly and grotesquely showing beneath a thin layer of flesh. Men, eyes empty of hope, unable to stop their children from starving to death. And worse, small children, curled up on hot, dirty streets, waiting to die. Those images, which had brought him to tears even though he had seen such atrocities with his own eyes, were looked at with either disgust or scorn. By the time he left the seventh home, he had lost his faith in humanity and was sickened by his country’s apathy.