Page 119 of The Duke and the Lady in Red
She stepped forward, his beautiful, courageous Rose. “I wasn’t expecting to say good-bye to you so soon. Seems so much needs to be said.”
“Just make the most of the opportunity you’re being giving here.”
“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Pay off all my debts?”
“I promised Harry.”
Slamming her eyes closed, she nodded. “Of course.” Then she opened her eyes, and within the depths, he thought he saw understanding, but she couldn’t possibly understand it all. “My brother knew far more than anyone ever gave him credit for. He would have asked you to look out for me.”
He would have done it without his promise to Harry, but telling her that would only delay the inevitable. A whistle sounded. “You all had best be off.”
Very quickly, she leaned in and kissed his cheek before striding away, her head held high, her back straight. The others quickly followed, leaving him standing there, fighting not to rush after her, struggling not to call out to her and beg her to stay.
He had to let her go, even if he died in the process.
Sitting on the bench seat, Rose looked out the window. She wanted one last glimpse of Avendale to carry with her. She could hardly believe he was sending her away, not after everything he’d done for her.
She saw him standing on the platform. How forlorn and lonely he looked. How alone.
Harry, who had known so much, hadn’t known everything. She remembered the words in his final letter to her.
I also think he loves you, although I am not sure he is a man who would voice the words.
But he had voiced them—in anger and frustration, to be sure. Yet when it had mattered most, when he’d come for her, they had been so formal. When she had dared to say the words, he hadn’t repeated them. Now he was sending her away to a land she had mentioned, to a life with no responsibilities other than to herself. She could do anything she wanted: sleep in, eat cake three times a day, travel in a hot air balloon—
Her thoughts rushed back to the picnic, to lying in the field, when he’d asked her what she would do when Harry was no longer in her life.
I’ll have no responsibilities, no duties, no obligations. I’ll wander, with nothing to tie me down. I’ll have no plans, no strategies, no compelling need to do anything except breathe.
He was giving her that. All of it. He hadn’t stopped loving her because of the journey he’d taken to pay off her debts. If he didn’t love her, he’d have left her to rot.
“Oh dear God.” The train began to move. She shoved herself to her feet. “Wait for me at the next station.”
“What is it?” Merrick asked.
“Love.”
Then she was running down the aisle. She reached the door, threw it open, and, as the train picked up speed, she leaped out.
Avendale could hardly believe his eyes. Knocking people out of his way, he rushed forward, reaching Rose as she finally rolled to a stop on the platform. Grabbing her arms, he pulled her to her feet. “Are you completely daft?”
“I promised to stay with you for as long as you wanted. Are you already so tired of me?”
He looked to the train growing smaller in the distance, looked back at her. Dammit. Where was he to find the strength to let her go again? “I will never tire of you, Rose.”
“Never is a long time.”
“Yes, but where you are concerned it is not long enough.”
“Then why are you sending me away?”
“I’m not sending you away. I’m setting you free of our bargain. I want you in my life more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But from you I learned what it is to be unselfish. I shall never again know happiness but as long as you are happy, that is all I care about.”
“You are an idiot, Avendale. How in God’s name am I to be happy if I am not with you?”
“Rose—”
“I love you.”
