“What you said before . . . about having kept me and Mother and the world out,” he clarified when Val cast a silent question his way. “Cutting those you love and care about won’t protect you from hurting when they’re gone, Val,” Sidney said gently. “It will simply leave you with a profound regret for the time you did not have to spend together. All you can do is take what time you have, what moments you have together, and make the most of each.”

And with those words ringing in the air, Val inclined his head and left.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Myrtle had been bereft when she’d realized the urgency with which Val sought to be free of her and his sense of responsibility for her.

That was, until she thought about the time they’d have together, alone.

Desperate for every crumb of his time and company, she had found not just solace but joy in the impending journey. Joy because she would be alone with Val. She would have the carriage ride to spend with him, talking with him and learning all she could before he was gone.

In the end, she wasn’t even to have that.

In the end, she’d have nothing more than the occasional glimpse of him out the carriage window as he rode his mount and she made the journey to Scotland alone in the fine-rigged black carriage early that morn.

Horace nudged her hand with his wet, black nose, and she favored him with a pet. “Forgive me, friend. I did not mean to imply that your company is anything but welcome.” He whined, then pressed his nose against the glass, staring out at the snow-covered grounds. “Especially as you so clearly want to be out there”—too—“but you are stuck in here with me.”

Horace lapped her fingers with his rough tongue, and she patted his head distractedly as she stared out at the rapidly passing landscape.

Everything following the assault on her family’s household, and Val’s timely rescue and the events after, had proceeded in a whirlwind.

He’d escorted her home and waited outside her chamber doors while she’d filled a valise for the journey to Scotland. And all the while she had packed, she’d waited for him to join her inside.

Of course he wouldn’t.

He was too honorable to accompany her inside her bedchambers.

But she wished he had.

Not for any reasons that were . . . wicked, though there had secretly been a wish to know his embrace once more.

Rather, she’d wanted him to join her so they might talk.

He hadn’t.

And then they’d made the walk nearly silently back to his townhouse—a walk she’d made many times before, these past days.