“Welby!” Heyworth rushed from the dining room and followed Elias to the entrance hall. “Stop right there. Where do you think you’re going?”
Elias snatched his coat from a hook and opened the front door. He looked at Heyworth, a sigh breezing from his mouth. “Tell my father I’ve gone to Morpeth.”
The choice was simple. Elias would go after Josephine regardless of her distance. He would find her and beg her to forgive him. No fortune was worth their separation. He would discover a way to provide without his inheritance. He’d labour for Mr. Heyworth or ask his uncle for work. He would do whatever necessary to build a life with Josephine, for time hadn’t groomed him to take hold of his dream. It had prepared him to give it away for someone better.
He should’ve made this decision months ago, before Lord Welby presented an ultimatum, before Josephine bid her good-byes. He once thought happiness required many things. Now he realized it needed only one.
Elias rode all night, his back and shoulders aching from the strain. He reached Morpeth as dawn painted a blue haze across the horizon.
A shepherd directed him to the De Clares’ cottage—a small property located a league from town. The house sat on a hillside, surrounded by tended gardens and pastureland. Wisteria clung to its stone walls, and smoke curled from its chimneys.
The cottage was a far cry from the hovel Elias had imagined. Mr. Darling and Lord Welby’s stipend must’ve allowed Josephine to hire a groundskeeper. Would she give up the financial aid for Elias? He would promise to weed the garden and prune the rosebushes. He’d attempt to cook meals, chop wood, do whatever task was needed.
Elias dismounted once he reached the property’s fence. He opened its gate and walked his horse up a grassy path, the morning dew soaking his pants legs. He should have tidied his appearance, for the long ride had left him in a sorry state. His clothes were dishevelled. His breath tasted stale, and his nostrils tingled with his own musk.
No lady would find him the least bit appealing under the circumstances.
He stopped in front of the cottage, where chickens meandered and clucked for their feed. His heart raced when Josephine appeared in an upstairs window. She peeked between curtains, her eyes widening at the sight of him.
Love was not based on whether the right girl ended up with the right boy. Love just was—was there in one’s chest, stubborn and certain. But sometimes the right girl did end up with the right boy. Sometimes their love won.
Josephine emerged from the house moments later, dressed in nightclothes and her mother’s tartan. She gazed at Elias as if she couldn’t decide whether he was real or a dream. She approached him with careful steps, her bare feet imprinting the grass.
Elias dropped the horse’s reins and moved forward. He looked at her, and he loved her. That was all he wanted to be—the boy who saw a girl and never stopped seeing her, the boy whose love never grew stagnant.
She halted at a safe distance. Her brow furrowed as she regarded Elias’s appearance. Indeed, she was beautiful even at this ungodly hour. Her chestnut hair tumbled over her shoulder in a single braid. Her complexion seemed to shimmer like dew.
“You’ll lose everything,” she whispered. The words drifted from her mouth like a gasp as if she knew Elias’s plans. She read him like a book.
He rushed forward and drew her face against his. He kissed her like it was the end of the world, and he didn’t mind if she was his last breath. He kissed her for every month they had been apart. He kissed her for every I miss you and I love you he had wanted to say. If they could hold each other now, after long waits and countless mistakes, then surely anything was possible.
Her kiss was the only home he would ever need.
Josephine hugged Elias’s neck as he lifted her off the ground. She laughed and kissed him again, her sigh washing all doubt from Elias’s body. In that second, his world consisted of her hands on his jaw, her lips fused with his lips, an entire universe freeing him from his prison of shadows. The day was bright. He was seen.
And she was everything.
TWENTY-SIX
JOSIE
From: Josie De Clare <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 4:53 PM
To: Faith Moretti <[email protected]>
Subject: What Happened to Elias Roch
Faith, I know what happened. Oliver’s friend sent us the information about Elias. You should be glad we aren’t FaceTiming because I can’t stop blubbering. My keyboard is wet, and my face is pink and blotchy. Nan won’t even come near me.
Earlier today Oliver and I drove outside of Atteberry to a graveyard set upon a hill. I saw the headstones, and I couldn’t breathe. I refused to go near them until Oliver hugged me and said I needed to know the end of the story. He led me to a plot surrounded by gorse.
I started crying before I read the markers.
The inscription said Sir Elias Catesby Roch: Beloved Husband, Father, and Friend. He was buried with Lorelai Roch, his wife of fifty-five years.
Oliver told me Elias married Lorelai and moved to the coast soon after their wedding. They had five children, twenty-one grandchildren. Elias lived for eighty-six years.
He grew old without me.
Maybe I should be happy for him. I mean, he got what he wanted—a home, people who loved him, a full life. I’m not happy, though. Quite the opposite. I’m miserable because I know he didn’t need my love as much as I need his. I’m miserable because he spent his life with someone who wasn’t me. Am I the worst person ever to wish Lorelai had fallen
