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Aston had been with his uncle when he passed, but the man’s own son had not?

“How awful for you. I’m sorry.” She laid her hand on Aston’s firm knee. At her touch, the hard flesh rippled beneath her palm. “Were you close to your uncle?”

“At one time. My uncle was a good man but, unfortunately, a weak one. My grandfather ran roughshod over him, and my uncle coped with his misery by tipping the bottle.” Aston lifted a shoulder and pulled a rueful face. “Sadly, Conley’s fondness for drink sent him to an early grave. He’d just passed his fifty-second year.”

“Your grandfather has lost two sons. That’s tragic by any measure.” An awful circumstance for any parent to endure. “Has he any other children?”

“No. There’s just my cousin Werner and me now. He’s two years my senior, and unfortunately, has had as great an affection for the bottle as his father had.”

Realizing her hand still rested upon Aston’s marble-like thigh, Chasity moved it to her lap. Aston still cradled her other hand in his, and she felt absolutely no compulsion to withdraw that hand as well.

A comfortable stillness settled around them, punctuated by the rhythmic tick-tock of the clock and impressive feline purring. Chasity and Aston sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

A carriage rumbled past outside, and Aston stirred.

Not only had breakfast grown cold, Mrs. Longsdon didn’t seem the sort to condone perfectly good food going to waste.

“After you left Mrs. Crenshaw’s office yesterday, several matters were set straight,” Aston said.

Chasity brought her attention back to him. She’d prefer not to discuss yesterday’s ugliness, but there was no help for it. “Such as?”

“Mrs. Crenshaw forged my resignation letter and replaced my employment contract with another counterfeit.” Shaking his head, Aston scratched his unshaven jaw. “She wasn’t even clever in her machinations. I don’t know how she thought she could possibly succeed with her scheme.”

“I suspect she became quite desperate and stopped thinking clearly.” Though Chasity couldn’t summon sympathy for the woman, neither could she rejoice in her downfall. She hadn’t been raised to gloat over other’s misfortunes, even if they brought the calamity on themselves.

“I’ve already spoken to the magistrate, Chasity, and I expect you shall be fully acquitted of the false charges.”

She loved hearing her name on Aston’s lips.

Such a small thing, a silly thing, but it warmed her very soul.

“Thank you, Aston.”

Did that mean she would soon be reinstated as assistant headmistress?

She should have been overjoyed, but instead, Chasity felt rather lost and adrift. The things that had mattered most to her were no longer a priority. She wasn’t sure she wanted to return to Balderbrook’s Institution for Genteel Ladies and take up her former life. Granted, it had been less than a full day since she’d left, but that life, that of a spinster teacher secure in her drab role, wasn’t what Chasity wanted any longer.

The man sitting beside her, holding her hand, was what she longed for. To have a future with him.

Aston gave her fingers a soft squeeze. “When you left yesterday, and I couldn’t find you, I determined something.”

Canting her head, Chasity searched his dear face. “And what was that?”

“That if I found you, I’d never let you go again.”

It sounded like… Did he mean?

Was it possible?

Dare she hope?

What about Italy?

Chasity bit her lower lip to keep the questions pelting the back of her teeth from spewing forth. Excitement, anticipation, exhilaration, and longing cavorted in her mind and heart, creating an impossible tangle of emotions.

She tamped down the eagerness swirling through her. Don’t jump to conclusions, she admonished inwardly in her sternest schoolmistress tone. After all, just a few minutes ago, she’d heard Aston telling Mrs. Longsdon that it might very well be a good idea to have her move to a different boarding house.

“Do you understand what I am saying, Chasity?”