“Because you showed him light, daughter of my heart. He won’t go back to the darkness that was his before he met you. He is not a complete fool, though it may seem otherwise to you just now. It may take him a while to figure this out. You need only wait, and be prepared to forgive him when he comes to his senses.”

“Or nudge him a bit, to hurry him along,” Sir William suggested.

Anastasia swung around in surprise at the Englishman’s unexpected remark. “I would not ask you to speak with him, William.”

“Nor would I be so presumptuous,” he said in his stiff English way. “He is a marquis, after all, while I’m merely a lowly knight.”

“Then how would you go about nudging a marquis?” Maria questioned.

William grinned, somewhat conspiratorially. “I could take her to London, dress her in fine gowns, introduce her as my niece. It would show that young pup that appearances and origins mean very little in the end, that happiness is all that really matters.”

“You would do that for us?”

“I would do anything for you, Maria,” William replied softly.

She reached for his hand, brought it to her leathery cheek. “Perhaps I will ignore those handsome young angels after all, Gajo.”

He beamed at her. “I will fend them off when I get there, if you forget.”

She made a semblance of a smile. Her eyes closed slowly, the light gone out of them.

Her voice was but a whisper now. “I leave her in your care, then. Guard well this treasure of mine. And thank you . . . for letting me go in peace.”

Her breathing stopped, as did her heartbeat. Anastasia stared at her in shocked silence, yet inside she wailed, she keened, she futilely beat her breast, and it changed nothing. Her grandmother was dead.

“Maria wouldn’t want you to cry, lass, but sometimes that is the only way to get the pain out.”

This was said kindly and with a catch; William was crying silently himself. Yet he was right, on both counts. Maria wouldn’t want her to grieve, wouldn’t want either of them to grieve. She’d said as much.

Anastasia began to cry, not for her grandmother, who had found peace from her pain, who really wouldn’t want tears shed for her after she’d lived such a full life, but for her own loneliness . . .

Sir William helped her dig the grave. She had had many offers from the stronger of the men to do this, but had refused all but the Englishman’s help. The others had respected Maria, were in awe of her, but they hadn’t loved her.