Page 146 of The Queen of Roses

She nodded. “And yet.”

She knew what he would not voice. That lying with Annabel had not been what he truly wanted. That his heart wanted something else.

He took a step closer to her and then another, lifting her hand in his and drawing her to him so they were nearly touching.

“I thought that what I felt for you was harmless, because it couldn’t be anything,” he whispered. “But then you came to live at Rosewood House, and I realized I couldn’t stay away. If you said that there was any chance that you might have a farmer’s son like me, I would fall to my knees for you, Adele.” She opened her lips. “But I need to ask you not to do that. I can’t be the man who abandons Annabel when she needs me.”

“What if I need you?” she asked, her voice breaking a little.

He leaned his forehead to touch hers. “You don’t need me. You never did. You will fight no matter what. Annabel isn’t like that. That is why I have to go home to her. I have been away too long.”

She wanted to ask him to stay—to beg him to—but she knew that if she did, he would never forgive her for making him break his promise.

“Then you should go,” she said.

He looked up at her then, his expression pleading. “You must believe me when I say that if I were a free man—”

“But you’re not.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You were never free, and neither was I.”

He stared at her for a moment, but then he nodded, picked up his saddlebags, and brushed past her to the door of the cottage.

She stood there, all alone, as she listened to the sound of him pulling down his saddle and calling to his horse. She tilted her head back, blinking away her tears. Was this how it ended? Twenty-six and alone in the world?

She sniffed. No. It was not. This was the luxury she had never been afforded: the choice to live her life exactly how she wished. She was not going to let Macalister or Guy or Mama or Mrs. Barnes or anyone take that away from her.

She turned so abruptly that her dark blue skirts swung out around her in a bell as she rushed out of the cottage to the porch. Macalister was securing his horse’s saddle, and it broke her heart a little to see that he had unhitched the buggy from her horse and set it free in the paddock.

“Alex!” she cried.

He looked up.

“Thank you,” she said.

“What?”

“Thank you for teaching me about the garden. Thank you for your patience,” she said.

A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You would have figured it out eventually in those books of yours.”

“But you taught me instead,” she said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Putting his right leg into the stirrup, he swung up onto his horse in one fluid movement. Then he tugged on his hat and rode off into the chaparral.

October 29, 1907

My dearest Alex,

You must forgive my trembling hand, but I cannot contain my excitement. The thing I have long prayed for has finally come: I am with child.

I know things have not always been easy between us. I worry sometimes that you deserve a better wife, one who can help you earn enough to one day buy a farm once again. You have never complained once that I cannot be everything to you I wish I could be, but I promise you that I will be the best mother to our child I can possibly be.

I know it is selfish, but I must ask you to make one more sacrifice for me. Come home.

Please.

Your loving,

Annabel