The tears that fell now were for herself. For a few wonderful hours Beth had really believed she could marry Josh, that she could choose the man she loved over duty, but still provide a safe and happy future for her sister and support her mother. For the first time in her life she’d been completely and utterly happy, and for the first time she had felt the guilt that was always hiding somewhere inside her float away.
‘Stupid,’ she muttered to herself. She should have seen it would never be that easy.
Beth allowed herself to cry for a few more minutes, feeling the dampness from the grass soak into her skirt. Then, with one last firm strike of the back of her hand across her cheek, she wiped the salty tears away and took a few deep breaths.
‘Enough.’
Tonight she would go to Josh, make him understand that she could not marry him. Then tomorrow she would ask her mother to write to Leonard Ashburton, seeking confirmation of their engagement and to set a date for the wedding. Beth didn’t think she would be able to write the letter herself, but her mother would be only too happy to oblige.
With the wind whipping her hair, she stood and started the walk back home. The descent was at a much slower pace than her frantic rush up to the clifftops but even so she was back at Birling View long before she was ready.
As she slipped the key into the lock and opened the door she glanced up, noting the candle burning in Josh’s room. He was waiting for her.
Chapter Twenty
The tap on the door was so light he wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been sitting silently waiting for Beth. There was a book by his side on the bed, abandoned long ago when he’d realised he’d read the same page three times and still couldn’t recall what it had said.
As he padded across the room, his socked feet not making a sound, he felt a sensation of mounting dread in his stomach. Something was wrong.
‘Beth.’ She was standing in the shadows and slipped into his room like a ghost when he opened the door. He could tell she’d been crying by her red-rimmed eyes and her flushed cheeks, but when she brushed against him her skin was cold. ‘You’re freezing.’
She nodded, starting to shiver despite the heat of the room.
Without thinking he embraced her, pulling her closer and holding her silently until her body had stilled and some of the warmth had returned to her skin.
‘How is your sister?’
‘Sleeping. She was very upset. Understandably.’
‘Did she tell you what happened?’
Beth nodded, anger flashing on her face for just a moment. ‘It was completely unprovoked. Of course, she didn’t know the men, they just saw her and saw a chance to belittle a woman with scars.’
‘It’s just strange they came up to her for no reason...’ Josh trailed off, knowing it wasn’t the right time to debate human nature with Beth.
‘She’s sleeping now.’
‘Good.’
‘I needed to talk to you,’ Beth blurted out. For the first time since they’d met she seemed nervous around him.
‘Why don’t we sit down?’
She looked around the room. It was comfortable, not the finest guest room—that had been given to Leo—but still it had space for a small desk and an armchair alongside the bed. After a moment’s hesitation Beth picked the upright desk chair, perching on the edge. With that decision Josh knew she’d come to discuss something bad, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to resist choosing a spot on the bed where they could sit with their fingers entwined.
The armchair made a scraping sound on the floor as he pulled it over to face her. As he sat down he caught a glimpse of the despair on Beth’s face.
‘Whatever it is, whatever is wrong, we can fix it. Together.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. He could see she wanted to cry but she sniffed back the tears and set her mouth into a firm line. ‘I can’t marry you, Josh.’
Even though he’d half expected something similar ever since she’d walked through his door looking so serious and upset, hearing the actual words was like taking a knife to the heart.
The silence stretched out between them as Josh groped for the right words to change her mind. He understood, she would be falling back into her normal spiral of guilt over her sister, thinking that she needed to put her family first and sacrificing her own happiness. He understood all of it, but he couldn’t accept it. Somewhere he must have the words to make her change her mind, to make her see that she didn’t have to live in misery.
‘They taunted her, teased her mercilessly about her appearance. It was only her second trip outside the estate and that is what she is faced with.’ She was speaking quickly now as if trying to get him to understand something that he could never accept. ‘She was devastated, Josh. I’ve never seen her so upset. She said she is never going to leave the house again...’
There it was. Probably an innocent enough remark on Annabelle’s part, said in the midst of her despair, but the one thing that was guaranteed to make Beth turn away from him and back to a wealthy suitor who could provide the funds to keep Annabelle’s sanctuary.
‘I understand she is upset,’ Josh said, trying to be reasonable. Nothing would be gained if he showed quite how much he was hurting. For Beth to give up on them so easily, to reject their future together without even coming to him and trying to see if there was another way.
The feelings of abandonment
