She stood there several more moments, making sure he slept, torn between wanting him to awaken and needing him to stay precisely as he was.

Myrtle, however, could not remain here with him. Fighting a fresh wave of tears, she headed over to the cloth that contained traces of her blood, that cloth he’d used to tenderly clean her. Catching it, she walked to the hearth, where Horace slumbered like his master.

The dog suddenly popped his enormous head up.

“Shh,” she whispered, urging him to quiet. Myrtle favored the beloved pet with a final scratch behind his ears. “He needs to sleep.”

Horace whined in canine disapproval.

Behind her, Val stirred, shifting on the mattress, the netting that held it creaking.

And she held her breath, waiting for him to go motionless once more, waiting for the noisy rumble of his snores . . . that eventually, blessedly, came.

When she was assured he was deep in sleep, she looked to Horace; he shoved himself up on his back legs and stared at her with big, accusatory eyes.

“Please,” she begged the dog, and sinking to the floor, she wrapped her arms around him, whispering close to his ear. “Do you not know this is hard for me, too?”

He whimpered.

“Fine, impossible,” she said in that same quiet way. She drew back enough so that she could still meet his eyes and touched a finger to her lips. “I need you to be quiet. And I—I . . .” Oh, God. Myrtle squeezed her eyes shut. “I need to do this,” she said, her voice catching, and to keep from sobbing aloud, she buried her face against Horace’s thick neck and wept against him.

She allowed herself to indulge in only a moment of misery, knowing each second she remained was a moment she risked discovery. Taking a slow, quiet, steady breath, she released Horace but remained there on the floor beside him, looking him in the eyes. “You must look after him. He loves you very much.” Horace lifted a paw and slapped it against her chest.

She stared down at it, then shifted her focus back to his pointed gaze. “He does not love me,” she insisted. “He doesn’t.” She loved Val with every fiber of her soul, and would until she drew her last breath, but those feelings . . . They weren’t returned. He’d loved too completely, too deeply, to ever give his heart to another. Loving him now as she did, his devotion, even in death, made sense.

Never would she feel like this again.

Not for any other man.

It was that reminder which gave her legs back the will to stand.

She straightened, and before her courage deserted her, before she let herself remain and allowed Val to join into a union he did not truly want but would enter into anyway, Myrtle headed for her valise.