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“It is always best to have the truth out in the open. I can barely keep a secret, and sooner or later I would have said something.” She gave him a soft smile. “Do not fret over it.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment. “How are you today?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’m fine.” Her lips thinned. “I lost my job at Lady Roberts’ home.”

He couldn’t help but feel this was his fault. Had Lucinda seen them together? Or heard about…well, there were several times they’d been together before the situation last night. No doubt her jealousy affected Wren’s position. He wished he could help, but was unsure what he could do. “I’m sorry.” He might try to get her job back for her, perhaps. “Why?”

She shrugged. “No good reason really. I am going to find work at a shop. My cousin, Lars, he works in town and has many connections.”

He couldn’t help but feel responsible. “There must be something I can do to help.”

Her hands came up, palms facing him, and she shook her head. “No. It is best I do this myself.”

“Can I call on you again?” Grant wasn’t sure why he’d blurted out the words, but once they were spoken, he was glad. “To take you to the park. Or to tea?”

“You cannot be serious,” she whispered. “What will people say? Think?” Her face softened. “You are very kind to me. However, I must decline your offer.”

He met her gaze for a long moment. “Wee lass. I can’t accept that you don’t wish to see me again. But I will make every effort to see you.” He leaned forward, kissed her lips, then turned and walked to his horse.

After he’d mounted and gathered his reins, he looked down at her; she stood stock still, her fingers even now pressed to her lips, and he was sure she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she pretended to be. He smiled and urged his horse into a walk, but not before he said, “You look quite fetching in wet clothes, Wren.”

*

Grant walked intohis parent’s home and was surprised to find it empty. When he’d last visited, he’d promised his mother to stop by weekly to see her and they’d decided that Tuesday was to be their day.

“Where did Mother go?” he asked Gerard, who’d taken his coat and hat and stood holding them.

“I believe to the shops, sir. She left an hour ago,” the man replied and inclined his head. “Tea?”

Just in case she planned to only be gone for a short while. “Yes. I will wait for a bit.” He went to the sitting room.

Outside, the garden beckoned. Bushes were replete with blooms. Along with roses, there were foxgloves, peonies, hollyhocks, and primroses. He walked out to find himself immediately surrounded by the chirps of birds sitting on the branches of a pair of silver birches he’d helped his father plant. It had been a gift for his mother. There was a birdbath surrounded by more roses, and across from it a set of benches over which the branches of the trees hung to provide shade.

He walked to a collection of colorful pots he’d not seen before. In each pot, a plant resembling a tree had been planted. The thin frail branches showed the plant was still young.

“They are Japanese maples, very recently brought to England. A client of mine gifted them to me.” His father stood next to him looking at the trees. “Your mother is entirely pleased to be one of the first to have them.”

“I am glad for her. She will unquestionably have a gathering or two just to show them off,” Grant replied, imagining his mother’s happy expression.

His father nodded. “That is why she is not here. We have guests coming tonight for dinner.”

How he missed times like this when he and his father held discussions about things that were not important. A passing conversation about family, or people in their social circle. For years, they’d not done so, and he hated that as soon as this current conversation began, it would end.

“I best go and see about things before I have to prepare for the evening,” his father said, his tone changing from warm to brusque. “I will let your mother know you stopped by.”

“Father,” he said before the patriarch could walk away. “How have you been? You look well.”

His father’s dark brown eyes met his for a moment before looking away. “I am well. You?”

Grant nodded, unable to form words past the lump that formed in his throat. Unable to let his father go, he swallowed. “I am sorry. For everything. What I did…You do know that?”

“Are you?” His father looked at him, his gaze sweeping over his pristine riding outfit and to the luxurious and very expensive boots he wore. The pride he’d felt in his appearance before leaving the house was immediately gone. Everything he wore had been purchased by women. Women he slept with and escorted here and there. He was a kept man. Nothing better.

“I am sorry,” he managed. “If there was a way to go back and change what happened, I would.”

His father reached out to touch one of the maple’s leaves. “It cannot be undone, Grant. What you did—your actions affected not only this family’s reputation but devastated a friendship of many years. Not to mention, it ruined a marriage.”

“I did not mean for it to happen.” Grant wanted to feel his father’s embrace. The tightness in which he used to pull him into it and pat his back. To once again be the recipient of warm pride-filled looks.