The Last Garden in England(105)

I don’t know how long I stayed. I was lost, absorbed by my task and compelled to finish. To be done with Highbury House so I could try to move on.

My concentration was broken when I heard the squeak of the gate. I looked up from where I’d crouched to scribble a note. Matthew.

He paused, his right hand resting on the iron gate, his eyes locked on me. “Venetia.”

My name drifted to me on the autumn breeze.

Hesitantly I rose. “Why are you here?”

“I hoped to find you alone.” He took a step forward. “I needed to see you.”

My hand flew up. “Stop! Please don’t come any closer.”

He froze midstep, his expression agony. But so was mine. I could leave this place behind. The pain and loss may never completely leave me, but they would fade. But I could not do that if Matthew kept opening the wound.

“But, Venetia—”

“Whatever you’ve come to say, I don’t need it. I don’t want it.” My voice cracked, and I looked down at my shaking hands. “Why did you have to come now, when I’m finally ready to leave?”

“I wanted to come earlier,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you?” I hurled the words at him, aiming to wound.

“Helen told me that you didn’t want to see me,” he said.

“Your sister said that? And you believed her?”

His shoulders sagged. “Why shouldn’t I? You didn’t return any of my letters.”

“You wrote? The only correspondence I’ve received is Adam’s.”

He shoved a hand through his hair and gripped the roots. “They kept us apart.”

“And we believed them,” I murmured.

“Why wouldn’t we? If we no longer have a child, you are freed of your obligations to me.”

My obligations to him? I was the one who was being cast out.

“Matthew, I appreciate that you were trying to do the noble thing when you asked for my hand.”

He stared at me so long that I began to shift from foot to foot under his scrutiny.

“You think I was doing the noble thing?” he finally asked.

“With no child, there is no scandal. If you’re worried that I will hold you to your offer of marriage, don’t fear. I’ll absolve you of all responsibility.”

“Then you don’t wish to marry me?” he asked.

I turned away. “I have accepted that what I want and what I can have are two different things. I’m leaving Highbury House today. I cannot stay any longer knowing that our daughter died here.”

He hinged at the waist, gasping out, “A daughter? We had a daughter?”

“You didn’t know?” I asked.

Tears shone in his eyes. “My sister said that it was impossible for the doctor to tell.”

My free hand balled up into a tight fist. “Your sister lied. We had a girl. I thought to call her Celeste.”

He dashed tears from his eyes. “It’s a beautiful name.”

“It was what my father called my mother sometimes.”

“Then I know what to name these.” He dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small brown paper envelope. He offered it to me. Hesitantly I took it and opened it. A half dozen seeds fell out into my hand.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Our rose. The one that we crossed in the spring. It took, and now we have these. A new breed, with any luck.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“I won’t until I can plant these and see what grows, but I’m fairly confident.” He cleared his throat. “I had been saving them for a wedding present. I had thought to name the new breed ‘Beautiful Venetia’, after you. Now I wonder how you might feel calling them ‘Beautiful Celeste’.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I closed my hand around the seeds. “I think that’s a fine idea. We can ask Mr. Hillock to plant ‘Beautiful Celeste’ here.”

I hugged my stomach as tears began to fall. I squeezed my eyes shut, but all at once I was no longer alone. Matthew’s arms came around me, one of his large hands cradling my head to his chest. My sketchbook and pencil fell to the soft earth as I clung to him and cried.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into my hair.

“I lost her and now I’ve lost you, and I don’t know if I can stand it any longer.”

He pulled away a little, the pad of one of his thumbs wiping at my tears. “You never lost me.”

I shook my head. “I became with child. Neither of us wanted—”

“I wanted you, Venetia. That’s all I wanted at first, and then when I found out that we would have a child… That day by the lake was the happiest of my life. I thought that finally I would have all that I wanted.”

“You didn’t think I’d trapped you?”

He laughed, sharp and a little bitter. “Far from it. I feared that you felt trapped by me, and what’s worse, I was glad. I had you and I never wanted to let you go.”

“What could you possibly want with me?”

He jammed his hands onto his hips, shaking his head. “You are the most stubborn, infuriating woman. I love you.”

“You hardly know me.”