No. She was quite sure it wasn't. Lysander had been in London for several years, yet it was here in the Yorkshire Dales, in the clean and quiet, where he had found his voice at last.

Thus your prescription for your patient is to immerse himself in grime and noise? To breathe air tinged with soot and try to make himself heard above the city's cacophony?

Excellent advice, Dr. Gemma.

He was not her patient anymore, though, was he? He was something else, something different, something that crossed the line between patient and doctor, something that confused and distracted her.

But you're not a doctor. You're a widow with an herb garden and a pony cart, rattling about the dale with delusions of grandeur.

Gemma did not bow before that critical voice this time. She'd been through the fire yesterday and since then, something had turned to steel within her. She'd loved Jennie and she'd lost her. Yet she now understood something important. There had been a chance to save both Jennie and her child and Gemma had taken it.

Furthermore, she would make the same choice again. She was certain now that Jennie would agree that it had been worth a try.

She lifted her eyes to take in the sweep of the dale before her. I am only what I am — but I am all they have.

She mattered here. Lysander had helped her see that.

Topknot stood staring down the road, her nose lifted high. What stories did scent tell dogs? Did Topknot know how reluctantly Lysander had climbed into the carriage? Could she detect the way Atalanta had stared at her wayward brother when he had seated himself across from her?

Atalanta desperately wanted her family to stay together, yet she'd seemed astonished that she'd been able to persuade her brother to leave.

But it was I who convinced him. I broke his heart and stole his words away again.

There. She'd admitted it to herself at last. She, who only wanted to heal, had driven a sword into the heart of someone who had never done her harm.

Why had she done such a thing?

I had to send him away. I don't love him.

She was swept with a sudden memory — his hands, his lips in the dark. The tenderness of his touch that had brought tears to her eyes. The feeling of drifting to sleep with her head on his chest, with his strong arms around her. Stronger for the sharing of themselves, not weakened by it.

And the words she'd heard but not answered because sleep stole her away at just the precise moment.

I love you, he'd whispered into her hair, so nearly silent that she knew she wasn't meant to hear.

She'd been filled with wonder, and then darkness had taken her, but she knew what she would have said if she'd had the chance.

I love you too.