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“I am not asking you to refuse the position. You believe you should go, and you may be right. But you cannot decide that leaving is best for us both and then ask me to prove my affection by agreeing.”

His mouth tightened. “That is not what I meant.”

“It is what you are asking.”

Alexander looked away, toward the lilacs. She could see him trying to master his disappointment, the clench of his jaw and the rise and fall of his chest, and she desperately wanted him to turn back with a question. What did she want? What frightened her? Was there some other way? When he spoke, his voice was careful and flat. “Would you prefer that I did not write?”

“No.” She answered quickly, before she could stop herself. “I should like to hear from you.”

“But you will make no promise.”

Charlotte shook her head, unable to speak.

He nodded once, stiffly, then left. The small, final movement made her want to reach for him. She had not expected the conversation to end so abruptly. Some foolish part of her had believed that if she explained herself clearly enough, they would find their way back to happiness.

“Alexander,” she said.

He turned, the hat in his hands. She searched his face, trying to think of something that wouldn't give away the only decision left to her. “I shall miss you.”

He blew out a breath. “I shall miss you, too.”

“Will you come before you leave?” she asked.

“If you wish,” he said.

“I do.”

He bowed his head, and for a moment she saw the boy he had been, bewildered and wounded. “Then I shall,” he said.

Charlotte watched him walk toward the house, his shoulders stiff and his steps too even. Once, she thought he might look back, and her breath caught, but he continued through the open garden door without turning. The door closed softly behind him.

She sat on the bench after he left, where his warmth still lingered in the sun-heated wood. A fortnight remained before his departure. Other conversations would come, surely. Time to say what they had failed to say this morning. She held to that thought as she pressed her handkerchief beneath her eyes, the linen soon damp. Yet the place beside her was already empty, and the lilacs went on sweetly scenting the air, and she could not understand how they had begun by speaking of a life together and ended so far apart.

One

Many years later…

Charlotte recognized her friends’ intentions before she had finished greeting them. Elizabeth smiled too carefully, her hands clasped at her waist as she did when she was nervous and trying not to show it. Amelia had stationed herself near the drawing-room door, where she could inspect every arrival. Her chin lifted, her eyes as sharp as a hawk’s. Daphne looked amused by something no one had yet said, her lips pressed together to hold back a laugh.

A small gathering, they had called it…

Charlotte accepted a glass of wine from a passing footman and looked around the candlelit drawing room at Rosedale House. The red-gold glow of her own hair reflected faintly in the dark window glass. Familiar faces sat in comfortable chairs, and a card table waited near the window. The fire crackled low in the grate, and the scent of beeswax and hothouse flowers drifted through the room. Everything appeared quite ordinary.

Her friends’ behavior suggested otherwise, and a small, wry smile tugged at her mouth. “Whom have you invited?” she asked Elizabeth, lowering her voice.

“A few friends,” Elizabeth said, a shade too brightly.

“Yes,” she said. She narrowed her gaze, unconvinced. They were definitely plotting something. “I recognize several.”

Amelia joined them, a glass of wine in hand. She wore a studied expression of innocence. “You sound suspicious.” That was a sure sign of mischief…

“You look pleased with yourself,” Charlotte told her.

She shrugged lightly. “I am enjoying the evening,” Amelia said in a casual tone.

“It has scarcely begun,” Charlotte said. If she hadn’t been suspicious before, she would be now.

“Then you must admire my optimism,” Amelia said, tossing her head so her pale locks floated around her face.