She shoved that thought aside, packing it away swiftly. "I'm very sorry." Not good enough, blast it. She raised her gaze to meet his and looked into those shadowy eyes. "I have failed you. I wanted to help you and I thought I had —"

"I am better, but not yet real and whole." He stepped back once and then again. She felt something tear inside her as the light in his eyes began to go out.

She wanted to run to him, to tell them that she believed he could do it, that he could come back from where he had been.

To come to where she was.

She would never be that unfair to him. She could not promise that she would be waiting for him once he healed. If he healed.

LYSANDER WATCHED GEMMA OAKES give up on him.

It hurt. Pain found places that he'd forgotten existed inside him. All hope dimmed. Stiffly, he waited for the ice and distance. He waited for the barrier to rise again. It wasn't there. He remained as raw and open as a recent wound.

There was only Gemma, looking at him with shame and regret brimming in her solemn gaze.

He should leave her presence. Lysander turned on his heel and walked from the room. He hesitated in the hall, unsure of where to go.

The outdoors called to him. That wide, wild sky. Those stunning, unoccupied hills. The colors of stone and grass and blue eternity above. The light. The sweet, cleansing air.

He mechanically took off his frock coat and hung it on a hook, changing it for the sturdy canvas work coat that Gemma had loaned him. As he thrust his arms into the sleeves, he realized for the first time it had been her husband's coat. Dr. Oakes had been a tall man, close to Lysander's size. A handsome man? A man she had loved?

Did he look like her husband? Did he remind her of him? Had yesterday been a fantasy of some sort, a play upon her past, of a man she had cared for and lost?

I don't suppose it matters now.

He tugged the coat snug and stepped out into the morning. There were chores to be done and Bing needed the help, but most importantly Lysander needed to check on Icarus. If the swelling in the thoroughbred's foreleg had subsided entirely, he could take Icarus to the smithy and replace the shoe today.

He could be on his way by nightfall. It was past time, for there were urgent matters at home to tend to. He felt another different shaft of pain, this one older, something worn into his very bones.

He needed to get back to Worthington House. To his family and to Iris. This was not his home.

Clearly, it never would be.

He should go.

You should stay.