Some of the tension left him. Surely she’d just . . . gone belowstairs to the floor of the tavern and taken her things with her? His gaze snagged upon the copy of Pride and Prejudice, the gift she’d given him . . . and a lone scrap of charcoal pencil that had not been there last evening. His heart and stomach both tensed as he made himself walk over to that book.

Val stopped beside the table, and then opened the book.

Dearest Val,

She’d called him “dearest.”

I cannot thank you enough for the past days. You’ve brought me more joy than I’ve known in so very long. I hate goodbyes and, as such, decided to spare myself that.

I also know if I remain you’d try to marry me because of what we shared, and I do not want that . . . for either of us.

So I shall simply say:

Happy Christmastide to you.

He stared incredulously, reading and rereading the words that confirmed she’d gone.

His gaze flew to the window, where the snow still came down, though more lightly than it had when they’d sought out the inn last evening. “Oh, God,” he whispered as the implications hit him.

She’d gone off . . . alone.

Sheer terror he’d thought to never again know ate him alive—images of her hurt or in danger cannibalizing all reason.

The moments following were a blur as, sometime later, with his boots on and Horace safely secured with his brother’s driver, and details from the innkeeper about the lady’s whereabouts obtained, Val leaned over the mane of his mount and urged him on through the thick, powder-soft snow. Lady’s hooves kicked up a cloud of the white flakes as they went.

She’d boarded a mail coach.

In this weather, with snow still falling and covering the ground in a thick blanket, she’d climbed inside with the strangers who’d sung and danced merrily last evening and taken herself off.

Val gritted his teeth so hard pain radiated along his jaw, and he welcomed it because then he wasn’t thinking about her being flung from a carriage, her body broken and bleeding and—

He thrust aside the thoughts now threatening to drag him into the realm of madness and concentrated on getting to her . . . and then what he’d do when he did reach her.

He was going to kill her.

Or kiss her.

Nay, he was definitely going to kiss her.

But then shout his head off over her foolishness.

Because how could she go?

Worse, how could she not know? How could she not know that she was the reason he’d been resurrected from sorrow, taught by her to again smile and laugh, and with her not in his life, he’d be restored to darkness?

She doesn’t know because you never told her. You let her believe she was a burden.