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    “You know, Mal, I actually do understand a bit about what you’re going through,” he stated in a low tone.
    Her fingers tightened against the sleeve of his fawn riding coat. Otherwise, she gave no outward response.
    “It’s not quite the same, I realize,” he continued, “since I didn’t lose someone I planned to wed. And yet, love is love, isn’t it, whatever its form or relationship?”
    He waited, wondering if she would respond. Instead, she kept strolling at his side.
    Part of him hesitated, wishing he hadn’t initiated the conversation. Yet loving Mallory as he did, he was willing to do whatever he could to alleviate her misery, even if it might reawaken old feelings he’d rather not nudge back to life.
    “Have I ever told you about my sister?” he asked with a bleakness he couldn’t entirely conceal.
    Her gaze flashed to meet his. “No, not really. She died many years ago, did she not?”
    He nodded. “When she was sixteen. I’d just started my first year of university when I learned of Delia’s death.”
    “It was an accident, was it not?”
    His mouth curved in a cynical slant. “That’s right. An accident. A terrible, untimely accident.”
    “Why do you say it like that?” she questioned as she drew to a halt. “Is it not true?”
    Stopping as well, he turned to face her. “According to my late father and the physician who examined her body at the time, she was the victim of an accidental drowning. They found her one morning floating in a lake near Gresham Park, said she’d swum out too far and was too tired to make it back to shore. But how could a girl who’d been swimming in that lake from the time she was a young child misjudge badly enough to drown?”
    Mallory laid a hand against his chest. “Accidents do happen.”
    “You’re right. And I might have believed that’s exactly what it was if not for her letter.” He paused, swallowing against the knot that still had the power to tighten in his throat, even after all these years. “She drowned herself, Mallory. She took her own life.”
    “Oh!”
    “It isn’t necessary for me to tell you all the sordid details. Let me just say that she was desperate enough, despondent enough that she couldn’t bear to go on living. She told me why she’d made her choice and begged me to forgive her. By the time her letter arrived, it was already too late. She was gone.”
    “Adam, I’m so sorry.” A tear traced down her cheek.
    Reaching up, he brushed it away with a thumb. “I didn’t tell you all this to make you sad or to gain your sympathy. I just want you to realize that I know how hard this past year has been for you and how you’re feeling. I’ve felt it too. The pain and loss, the anger and confusion, and most especially, the guilt.”
    Her eyes widened, her lips trembling on a quiet gasp.
    “It’s what everyone goes through when they lose someone they truly love. But I overcame it, and you’ll do the same. You’re strong, Mallory, and it will get better.”
    “But I’m not strong,” she whispered, more tears sliding from her eyes. “And I keep waiting for it to get better, but it doesn’t.”
    Withdrawing a handkerchief, he tenderly wiped her wet cheeks. “Maybe it would if you’d let it.”
    She frowned. “What do you mean? Are you saying I want to be unhappy?”
    “No, I know you don’t. But I do think you’re afraid to let yourself take pleasure again from your life. For a long while, I blamed myself for Delia’s death, and whenever I did something I enjoyed, I felt terrible afterward.”
    He paused, deciding not to tell her how, in the months right after his sister’s suicide, he’d tried to escape his grief by indulging in a spate of wild behavior. He’d bedded countless women, gotten drunk, landed himself in more than one brawl and had even begun gambling heavily.
    Then one morning he’d awakened in a squalid room, his head pounding like a set of drums and his pockets emptied of all his cash.