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Prologue

Charlotte found Alexander waiting beside the garden wall, turning his hat between his hands as the brim traced slow, restless circles through his fingers. He smiled when he saw her, a quick, boyish brightening of his whole face, and she forgot the care she had taken not to appear too eager. She had spent breakfast wondering why he wanted to see her alone, stirring her tea long after the sugar had dissolved and answering her mother’s questions without hearing them. When he asked, something in his expression made her hope he meant marriage, and that hope lodged in her chest like a small, bright coin.

She smoothed her skirt as she approached, her fingers not quite steady. “You look very pleased with yourself,” she said, trying to sound light.

“I have good news.”

“For whom?” she asked.

“Both of us,” Alexander said.

Charlotte’s smile widened, and her cheeks warmed. Beyond the wall, someone was cutting grass, the soft, regular rasp of the scythe carrying across the morning. The scent mingled with the lilacs beside the path, sweet, heavy, and almost too much. Bees hummed in the blossoms. It was a lovely morning, the kind she might remember all her life, and she let herself believe it was the beginning of something happy.

Alexander set his hat upon the bench and took her hands, his palms warm and a little damp. His eyes were bright and eager, and she saw he was nervous too; her heart softened. “My uncle has offered me a position managing one of the family properties abroad,” he said. She waited for him to continue, her smile still in place, though it had begun to feel like something she was holding rather than something she felt. “It requires someone he trusts. There have been difficulties with the accounts, and the current arrangements cost him more than they ought. If I put matters right, there will be a considerable payment in addition to my salary.”

“Abroad,” Charlotte repeated. The word sat strangely in her mouth.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“How far?” She asked. She couldn't be hearing him right.

“Far enough that I shall need to remain there while the work is done.” His thumbs moved over her knuckles, a small, soothing motion she did not find soothing. “But that is the advantage. I shall have very few expenses. I can save nearly everything.”

She looked at their joined hands, his broad and sun-browned, hers small and pale within them. The lilac scent seemed to thicken around her. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two years should be sufficient.”

Charlotte lifted her eyes to his, and the garden seemed to hold its breath. “Two years?”

“I know it sounds a long time,” he began.

“It is a long time,” she said, her voice quieter than she meant.

“But consider what it will mean afterward.” He smiled again, encouraged by a future she had not yet learned to imagine, his whole face lit by its shape. “I shall have an income of my own and something put aside. Enough to establish a household without asking my brother to provide for us.”

“For us?” she asked, and her heart gave a small, hard thump.

He nodded. “When I return, I shall speak to your father.”

Her heart gave a painful little leap, and for a moment she could not breathe. There it was at last, the thing she had hoped to hear. It lay so far beyond her reach that she could scarcely take pleasure in it, like a cup on a high shelf.

Alexander drew her nearer, his hands warm around hers. “I could hardly ask for you now. I have nothing suitable to offer.”

“You have never asked what I consider suitable,” she said, and was surprised by the edge in her voice.

“I mean a house,” he continued. “Servants. An income we can rely upon.”

“I understand what you mean,” she said. All hope gone. He didn’t understand.

“Then you see why I must go,” Alexander said.

Charlotte looked at him carefully, searching his face. The earnest line of his brow and the hopeful curve of his mouth. He was so certain. He believed he was giving her a gift. “Have you accepted?” she asked.

He hesitated, and she felt the answer before he spoke, a slow, cold drop in her stomach. “Yes. I wrote yesterday.”

She withdrew one hand, needing something to do with it, and straightened the fold of her sleeve with careful, deliberate fingers. A bee drifted between them, and she watched it so she would not have to watch his face. “When do you leave?”

“In a fortnight.”