“I know where I am going to go,” she told him. “At least for now. Perhaps forever.”
Forever? Her stomach lurched.
He raised his eyebrows.
“I own a cottage,” she told him. “My great-aunt left it to my mother, who grew up there with her. I believe it was a very old, dilapidated building even then. It is probably far worse now, but I have not heard of its falling down or having been demolished. It is mine now, and that is where I am going to go. Even a crumbling ruin would be preferable to Leyland.”
“It is in Wales?” he asked.
“On the southwest coast, yes.”
“And you intend to go there alone?” He frowned. “You will need to give the matter some careful thought, Mrs. McKay. It is a long way to go, through wild and lonely and possibly dangerous country. And who is to know what you will find at the end of it all? Perhaps the cottage really is uninhabitable.”
“Then I will find one that is not,” she said, “and rent it. At least I will be in a part of the world where half my heritage lies. And no one will find me there. No one will bother me. I will be able to live again.”
“And dance?” But he was still frowning.
“On the beach, if there is one, as I daresay there is,” she said. “On the edge of the world with all the wild power of the ocean looking on.”
“And you intend to travel there alone and live there alone.” He got slowly to his feet while Tramp sat up and watched, ever hopeful. “It would be sheer folly. The idea may seem appealing to you, and I can understand why. I can even applaud your courage. But consider the reality of leaving Bramble Hall behind and traveling alone and unaccompanied into such a distant unknown.”
She did consider—for a few moments. And she was frightened—but undaunted. The alternative was far worse.
“Then you must come with me,” she said.
Ben could not have been more effectively robbed of breath if someone had planted a fist in his stomach.
Then you must come with me.
They stood staring at each other, four feet apart. Color had flooded her cheeks while he feared it must have drained from his.
“Impossible,” he said. “Who would be your chaperon?”
“You.”
“But I am neither your father nor your brother nor your husband nor your betrothed. Nor female.”
“So?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Your reputation would be in tatters,” he told her.
Her lips curved into a half smile. “So?”
Oh, good Lord.
He went at the problem from a different angle. “I am hardly the ideal man to defend you should danger threaten.” He looked down deliberately at his canes. “Unless, that is, we were assailed by a brigand obliging enough to come close enough to be clobbered.”
“We will take a loaded pistol,” she said, still with that half smile hovering about her lips and the color high in her cheeks, “and you may shoot him from a distance—while sitting.”
“Between the eyes, I suppose.”
“Where else?”
It struck him that she was actually enjoying herself, that her sudden realization that there was a solution to her dilemma awaiting her, in the form of a cottage that had been dilapidated even during her mother’s girlhood, had made her giddy with relief.
“Mrs. McKay,” he said, “do consider.”
“Why?” she asked him. “I have had seven years of nothing but doing what is proper, Sir Benedict. And for what? I married in expectation of a lifetime of happily-ever-after and remained decently married after the disappointment and heartbreak that followed quickly upon the heels of my wedding. I spent a year at Leyland Abbey trying my hardest to be the sort of respectable lady my father-in-law insisted I be even while he disliked and despised me. I spent five long, weary years here, nursing a demanding, peevish invalid because he was my husband and I had promised on my wedding day to love and obey him in sickness and in health. I have observed every requirement of my mourning period but have still not satisfied my sister-in-law or the Earl of Heathmoor. I am facing the prospect of more years at Leyland while what is left of my youth dwindles into middle age and then old age and death. Where has considering ever got me? Perhaps it is time to do something unconsidered and impulsive. Perhaps it is time to take my life in my own hands and live it.”
Her eyes flashed, and there was passion in every line of her body. Who was he to tell her she was wrong? And perhaps she was not.
“I have one day in which to make a decision that will affect all of the rest of my life, whatever that decision is,” she told him. “I have one day in which to make my escape—or bow to what seems my inevitable fate. I do not know where escape will lead me. On the other hand, I do know where bowing to my fate will. I would be a fool not to take a chance on escape. Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict. Why else would I have been left that cottage? It has seemed so useless to me since I learned it was mine that I have scarcely ever even spared it a thought. Yet now it is of crucial importance to my future. Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow even if it does not force us into taking that particular path? I am going where life points me. I beg your pardon for trying to involve you. Of course you will not wish to accompany me. Why should you? You owe me nothing. You have been more than kind even to listen to me, and that kindness has led to my thinking of a solution for myself. I am going.”