Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night by Kate Noble Page B

foolhardy and impetuous, and the only time my family talks about me I am a cautionary tale.”
    â€œDamn them all,” he said. But she shook her head.
    â€œI wanted . . . I wanted to prove that what I went through was worth something, at least. But it’s not . . . if I had stayed home even one more day, no doubt the entire journey would have been canceled.”
    She folded into herself. Retreating back into a person he didn’t know, into a shell she had been living in for the past decade. And he knew he couldn’t let her do that—because it was likely Cee—his Cee—wouldn’t come back out again.
    â€œAnd that would have been a tragedy,” he said. “What about me, Cee? You not only found your cousin today . . . you found me.” He leaned forward, gently lifted her chin and forced her eyes to his. “I was as lost as your cousin, even if I refused to see it. You woke me up.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” she said, her eyes becoming watery.
    â€œIt does. We both spent so long not knowing what really happened, and I could kill my uncle for his lies. And I could kill myself for believing them.”
    â€œBut you did believe them. And so did I. So knowing better now . . . it can’t change our mistake. And our mistake has made us what we are. A bachelor with his life ahead of him, and a silly spinster with her life wasted.”
    The carriage rolled to a stop before he could reply. They were back in Berkeley Square. And the driver had come down, opening the door and handing Cecilia down before Theo could think of a reply.
    No . . . not think of a reply. He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to scream. He wanted to grab her and not let her go. But he couldn’t say that. Not while she thought everything about them was a lie.
    â€œCee,” he called out, stepping out of the carriage. “It wasn’t a mistake.”
    She paused, turning.
    â€œOur running away together. It wasn’t a mistake. It was how we felt about each other.”
    She just looked at him and gave him a sad sort of smile. “It was good to see you, Theo.”
    And she slipped quietly inside.
    Theo stood there, on the street in front of Lord Ashby’s townhouse, for he didn’t know how long. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. But night did not relent. It was as if he was stuck in time.
    He was stuck in time. He was stuck in that inn, ten years ago. He was stuck watching what he thought was Cecilia walking away from him. And he did nothing about it. He let it happen.
    He’d be damned if he let that happen again.
    â€œSir?” the driver said, still holding the door of the carriage open. “Is there someplace you’d like to go?”
    â€œYes,” Theo said under his breath. “There is.”

    CECILIA SLIPPED INTO the bedroom she had been given use of. A lamp had been left burning for her, and a banked fire kept the room warm, but luckily no ladies’ maid was waiting up for her. And just as luckily, the house had gone quiet in the short hours that she had been gone, Lord and Lady Ashby—and presumably the baby—having retired for the evening.
    Cecilia was relieved by it. She didn’t know if she could handle seeing anyone just then. She could not say the banal things they would want to hear, describing the ball, or describing finding Eleanor, when this weight had settled against her chest, making her tired and sad.
    She wanted to sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t. She wanted to erase this day and wake up back in her little bed in Helmsley. She wanted to forget today, and still treasure every difficult moment of it.
    Mostly, she wanted to not have the company of her own mind. Underneath her dull exhaustion, it was running constantly. Asking herself questions over and over again, hoping to get a different answer.
    What have you been up to? Her cousin had posed