Free Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter Page B

settlement,” he said.
    “From whom? It is said that her brother fled due to his debts. Another thing that will stand between you.”
    “Not from her family. Someone else has offered one.”
    “Then it will not be big enough, this settlement. Good-hearted souls are never generous with their purses. They would rather say masses for you and promise a reward in heaven.”
    “Actually, it is a handsome settlement.”
    “
Vraiment?
Handsome even for you?”
    “Even for me.”
    Jean Pierre was impressed. He poured more wine. “Why did you not say so? That changes everything, of course.”
             
    Roselyn strode up the hill past the field behind her home. She did not care about the raw, overcast day or the wind biting her face. She did not notice the dead leaves flying around her legs. In her mind she walked in sunshine and warmth through a world blooming with flowers that never die.
    She pulled her cloak around her and sat on the hill. She set her back to the wind and faced the direction that allowed her to see the farthest. She slipped two letters from under her cloak. Each in its own way promised a reprieve from her relentless loneliness.
    The letters had been waiting in the village for her yesterday when she walked there to buy some thread. Light had reentered her dull world upon reading them.
    One came from London, from a woman she had never met. Phaedra Blair, newly married to Lord Hayden’s brother Elliot, was famously
outré
in her ideas, behavior, and appearance. Now Lady Phaedra had written to introduce herself and to declare that Roselyn’s exile was barbaric and unjust.
    Not a woman to complain and not act, Lady Phaedra had also written that she owned a small house near Aldgate that Roselyn could use, should she ever want to come to London. She also made it clear that Roselyn would be received by Lord Elliot and herself, both of whom refused to accommodate the world’s hypocrisy.
    The firmly penned, somewhat strident words made Rose chuckle. Lord Elliot would have a very interesting life.
    The sensation of laughing almost startled her. It felt so strange. So foreign. When had she last laughed? She gazed to the horizon and tried to calculate it. Weeks, certainly. Perhaps months. She was so out of practice at being happy that her joy today made her light-headed.
    She looked down at the other letter that had caused this unexpected mood.
    Tim had written again. She had been stunned to see his handwriting. It was impossible for her own letter to have reached him in time for this one to be sent. As soon as she tore it open, she had realized he was not responding to her, but sending more news.
    He would never see her letter because he was leaving the French city from where he wrote. However, he had read her mind and now proposed what she had broached with him. He wanted her to join him, and would write again once he had resettled in Italy.
    She read his pleas. Tim did not know that he need not cajole. He had not yet learned that there was no life left for her in England.
    He described travel and adventure. He promised mountains and the sea, Florence and Rome and beyond. She had not been able to sleep last night because the images excited her so much. She had been without hope for so long, but now she felt drunk on it.
    She lay back in the grass and looked up at the sky. It was said that there was more sunshine on the Continent. She already felt its warmth. It incited a happiness that created an exhilarating sense of freedom.
    She was glad Tim had written before her letter reached him. That meant he really wanted her with him and was not just being kind. They were both alone now, both disgraced. There would be freedom abroad, and they would form a family again.
    She pushed herself up and began the walk to the house. She would examine her wardrobe this afternoon, the one that she had saved when the family left London in ruin. It would be some time before she actually went to Tim, but she could fill her days