Winterberry Spark: A Silver Foxes of Westminster Novella (The Silver Foxes of Westminster #2.5)(15)

“I’m not saying you should do the same as I did,” Clara went on, alarm in her eyes as though she’d just realized how Ruby might take her words. “All I’m saying is that a fallen past does not necessarily mean a ruined future.”

Hope swelled in Ruby’s chest. It reached a towering peak before flattening. “But you were able to move to a whole new country, thousands of miles away from your past. I don’t have the same liberty.”

“Perhaps not.” Clara tilted her head to the side in acknowledgment. “But you do have people who are looking out for a new situation for you, the Croydons, Arthur, and me. You do have friends.”

It was such a simple sentiment, but it choked Ruby up all the same. So much so that she had to put her tea down to keep from spilling it as sudden tears began to fall.

“I’m sorry.” Clara rushed to put her teacup aside as well. She scooted closer to Ruby, hugging her. “I didn’t mean for that to upset you.”

“No, no it doesn’t,” Ruby sniffled. “It’s just…I’ve never had friends before.”

“Never?” Clara asked, sounding shocked.

Ruby’s heart twisted. “Well, Gil.”

“Gilbert Phillips?”

Ruby nodded. Just thinking about Gil filled her with love and pain. “He’ll never forgive me,” she wept.

Clara hugged her harder. “I’m sure that’s not true. Gilbert is a good, sensible man. Mr. Croydon depends on him, and Mr. Croydon isn’t the sort to put his faith in anyone other than the best of the best.”

Ruby wished she could believe her. “He blames me for Miss Goode being able to steal James away last year. Everybody does.”

Clara let out a breath, but rather than pushing Ruby aside, she hugged her tighter. “Do you blame yourself?”

Ruby nodded. “I shouldn’t have trusted her. I was the one who let her come to Winterberry Park, who made her feel welcome.”

“Well, why did you?” Clara leaned back, studying her with genuine curiosity.

Ruby shrugged, wringing her hands in her apron. “She said she was from Limehouse, like I was. She said she lived on the same block where I grew up. She was treated badly by a man too, or so she told me. I’d never had a friend like that, who was just like me and felt the same way I do about things. We talked for hours. It was so comforting. But it was all a lie.”

“She told you everything you wanted to hear, didn’t she,” Clara said.

“Yes.” Something felt as though it broke loose in Ruby’s soul. It was such a relief to admit that at last.

“And you’d never had a friend like that before, had you,” Clara went on, digging right to the heart of everything Ruby was feeling.

“No, never.”

“So of course you wanted to grow that friendship,” Clara continued, her voice softer. “And it was easy for that bad women to take advantage of a good heart like yours when it was hungry for love.”

Ruby snapped her eyes up to meet Clara’s, certain no one had ever understood anything as clearly as Clara understood her.

“People think that women want nothing more than the love of a man,” Clara said with a lop-sided grin. “That’s not true. More than anything, we need friends, women friends. We need sisters to prop us up when we’re down and to laugh with us when we’re happy.”

Ruby nodded, crying harder now than she had when she was merely sad. Hearing the things Clara said was like someone throwing open the door to a prison and setting her free at last.

“You’ve never had that,” Clara went on. “Or so it sounds. So how could anyone possibly hold you at fault for opening your heart to what you thought was the friend you so desperately needed?”

“It’s not my fault?” Ruby squeaked, quivering with hope.

“Of course not,” Clara laughed, hugging her tight.

Ruby burst into a sob of relief like nothing she’d ever felt before, resting her head on Clara’s shoulder. Every ounce of misery and guilt she’d trapped inside of her heart broke free at once, flowing away from her like the tide going out. Her body went limp with it, and when she breathed in, it felt as though she filled herself with every good thing she’d kept at arm’s length for months, maybe even years, feeling as though she didn’t deserve it.

“It was unforgivably wicked of that Miss Goode woman, whoever she really is, to play off your heart like that,” Clara said, stroking Ruby’s head. “If I ever see her again, I’ll wring her neck. But just because someone was very clever and very evil doesn’t mean you’re a bad person too. We all have our weaknesses.”

“Can we be forgiven for them?” Ruby asked, raising her head and wiping her streaming eyes and nose with her apron.

“Well, I forgive you,” Clara said. “And I know Mrs. Croydon does too. Otherwise she wouldn’t be fighting so hard for you.”

Ruby hadn’t considered that. It warmed her from the inside out, giving her a feeling of strength that she hadn’t had in ages. And perhaps the fact that the Croydons were looking for a new position for her instead of tossing her out was a sign of their friendship instead of a way to assuage their own guilt.

“Now, the real question,” Clara said, “is whether you forgive yourself.”