“God’s breath!” Gavin couldn’t stop the exclamation.

“I actually liked him. He didn’t want anything from me. He was too old and not all there up top, you see? Utterly harmless. I treated him the best I knew how.”

She glared at him then, as if accusing him of wrecking something. As if his offering her anything, even the pleasure of one glorious night together, were an insult. To what? That last sham of a marriage? The shams of all her previous marriages?

“Lass, I dinna kiss you to stop you from talking. I dinna need to smother you to prove anything to myself or any man.”

She stood and came back towards him, but she was different now. Poised.

He felt a wrenching ache. She was closing herself off, slipping away, not telling him something important.

She stopped next to the bed. It was exactly the right height for her to look down on him.

“My life is what I wanted, don’t you see? I used to brag about it in school. How wonderful to be a widow. Widows have autonomy. Widows with money and a title have lots of autonomy. I got scandal and fear alongside. So, I am free. Well, free enough.”

She held herself perfectly still, as one will in bathwater that is too hot, for any movement might cause pain. It was the way some of his youngest officers held themselves after battle. The ones who should never have gone to war, the ones who were too young, or too kind, or too romantic for all the blood. The ones who would return home broken.

“Who are you, Gavin Ruthven, to dare try and take that from me?”

Her focused stillness was that of some fractured vase held together with wax. Gavin felt a profound pity, and he knew she would hate him for it. So, he held himself equally still, afraid to say anything. Afraid to touch her, although she was within reach, for she might shatter as easily as she might melt against him.

Her eyes were hard. Eyes he knew were madder blue, although, in the half-light, he couldn’t see the color.

“Why should you try to change what I have become? What I have arranged for myself? It’s enough. It’s what I want. It’s what I have always wanted.”

“Lass, I dinna want you changed. I only want you here. Come back to bed.” He judged it safe to ask – her wistful loneliness had turned to anger. She was focused on him now and not the past.

Too focused, as it turned out.

“It’s too much. You’re too much. This” —her gesture encompassed the room, the well used sheets, and him— “it isn’t for me. Find some lass who isn’t shaped to be deadly. I’ve nothing left for you. He already took it.”

She might be referring to her father, or her husbands, or the mysterious patron who once held her indenture.

She gathered up her clothing – careful to leave nothing behind. She departed his room with equal care, still naked but for her stockings.

Gavin did not worry for her. She knew full well how to move around a house without being seen. He worried for himself. What strategy now? He would not force her into anything. Could not.

He sank into the warmth of the big bed and ached for her small form next to his. He hurt for her, because he suspected she could not. For what she had chosen to do and what had been done to her. All the men who had come before him had molded her with touches that even his big hands, and all the kindness behind them, couldn’t wipe away. Was it possible to give her enough to fill the void left by what others had taken?

* * *

The next day, the rain returned. Preshea felt it suited her mood admirably.

Gavin watched her, and though she hated herself for it, she watched Gavin.

She had done the correct thing. Did it have to hurt this much? Other necessary actions hadn’t hurt; why should this one be so painful?

The rain brought with it a house-wide melancholy. The party sat about the drawing room, slumped under grey light.

Preshea wasn’t certain what drove her to do it, but she revealed some of her inner turmoil to Miss Pagril and Lady Flo.

Lady Flo embroidered while Miss Pagril flipped through a book of fashion, pausing to comment on some outrageous dress or another.

“Even I,” said Preshea at one, “would look bilious in that monstrosity.”

“Goodness, everyone seems out of temper today. Even you, Lady Villentia.” Miss Pagril was disposed to be less harsh about the gown in question.

“Do I? I had better keep sterner control of my expressions.”

“Must you always be so reserved?” Miss Pagril was genuinely curious.

“It is better, I find, to give few openings to others.”

“Not even to the good captain?”

Preshea turned to where the other girl gestured.

Gavin was looking at them while Mr Jackson took his turn at cards.

“His focus is on you, Lady Villentia, not us. In case you were in any doubt.” Miss Pagril attempted a tease.

Before last night, Preshea might have bristled, but now she knew the truth. Firstly, that the full force of the captain’s attention, and affection, was indeed on her. Secondly, that Miss Pagril would not welcome his courtship, should he try.

Still, the young girl’s comment was a tad familiar for Preshea’s taste, so she made her tone short. “I did not wonder.”

Lady Flo’s face fell, but she did not stop embroidering. “You do not welcome his interest?”

“No more than you or Miss Pagril might. Although” —she paused significantly— “for different reasons.”

Lady Flo gasped.

Miss Pagril turned a piercing look on Preshea. “I’m sure I have no idea what you are implying.”