And Val sank back in his seat. It wasn’t every day that a man found himself envying a dog.

“Can you ever forgive me?” she asked in a singsong voice as she scratched Horace between his ears and nose, going back and forth, until he, so clearly in heaven from that attention, let his tongue fall sideways from his mouth, and panted happily. “You are kinder than I deserve,” Myrtle murmured, touching the tip of her nose to Horace’s in that endearing way she’d done so many times before. She gave the dog one last affectionate pat before hopping up and rejoining Val.

“You’re good with him,” he couldn’t keep from remarking, when she’d resumed eating her cake.

She gave him a questioning look.

“Horace,” he clarified, his lips twitching. Had she thought there was another he’d been speaking of?

“I quite adore him,” she said after she’d taken a bite and dabbed at her lips with the napkin she’d fetched for herself. “We’ve never had a dog. I’ve always wanted one, or a cat, or a bird, but my mother and father said they’d agreed that they have six children, and as such, the household was quite crowded as it was, and they knew their limits.” She spoke in the rote way of one who’d heard those words spoken often. Myrtle didn’t take another bite. Instead, she used the tip of her fork to push a large crumb around the perimeter of her plate. “I daresay I’d prefer the company of a dog to a husband. It’s terrible. I’ve spent all these past years at Mrs. Belden’s, attempting to be someone I’m not, striving to be the perfectly respectable lady just so that I could be free of that school, only to find myself poised to present that same charade for the remainder of my days.”

He stilled.

This was more dangerous territory. More of that intimate, personal talk about . . . very intimate, personal matters.

Even knowing that, he couldn’t keep back the question. “Was that your wish?” he asked gruffly. “For a certain . . . gentleman?”

Myrtle smiled, and it was another one of those sad smiles that he so despised, because her lips were meant to form only those truest, purest expressions of her inner joy. “You’re determined I should speak it and have it not come true? Well, I may as well because it will not come true anyway,” she said, her voice catching slightly. Her cheeks pink with embarrassment, Myrtle cleared her throat and went back to eating.

And for the first time, he’d seen a true fracture in her optimism, and he ached all over again inside.