“Just days before he was scheduled to return home for our wedding, Marcus, his older brother, was mysteriously murdered.” She swallowed down a lump. “No one knows who did it or why, but only a few days later, Bennet’s ship…caught fire on the Thames. He was never found.”
Dillan wrapped her in another hug. “Oh, Rebecca.”
She shook her head. “I’m all right.”
“How could you be all right?” he asked, pulling back. He still held her shoulders as he searched her face. “After Daniella died, I was racked with guilt for years. You lost your parents, and then Bennet, and now…”
She shook her head. “I know.” The weight of it landed on her shoulders with a vengeance. “But what else do you do but keep going?” And imagine her dead fiancé on street corners and at funerals.
“And you thought you saw him today?”
“And a fortnight ago,” she answered as she scrubbed her cheeks with her gloved hands. “In all likelihood, the strain has finally broken something inside me.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “But whether I face an actual man or a ghost, or a figment of my imagination, I’ll face him nonetheless.”
“I will too,” Dillan said as he pulled her close again.
“No.” Her eyes snapped open. “You should return to Alexi.” She’d kept him from his new bride long enough, and besides, she’d rather be stark-raving mad alone.
He arched his brows. “You want me to leave you in a graveyard alone for an undisclosed amount of time?”
She had to smile at that. “Dillan. I’m a reporter. I do this sort of thing all the time. It’s part of the job really.”
He shifted. “You just move about the city going where you like without risk of injury?”
She shrugged. There was always risk. It’s why she had a pistol in her reticule, a knife strapped to her thigh, and another tucked in her boot. The benefit of her and Bennet wishing to be spies together—he’d taught her to fight. With her hands and with weapons. “I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t like it.” He furrowed his brow. “Regardless of what you usually do, I can’t knowingly leave you.”
“Dillan,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s noon. What is going to happen to me? I’ll tell you what. If you haven’t heard from me by sundown, come back with Alexi. Take a stroll together to see who and what you can observe. Check on me if you like. But I’ll be fine tucked under the shade of a tree for the afternoon.”
He frowned. “Will you at least allow me to bring you a meal to eat while you wait?”
That was a lovely idea. And when he came back, he’d brought her the equivalent of three. She ate and settled under a nearbywillow tree, its branches providing both shade and shadow to hide in as she watched the mausoleum and remembered…
The days spent learning to fight with Bennet and the inevitable passion that resulted from all that…touching.
She and Bennet had never had intercourse. They’d wanted to wait until marriage, and Bennet hadn’t wanted to risk a child before he left. But they’d done everything else. What she wouldn’t give to feel his touch on her skin again.
She drew in a trembling breath, her eyes drifting closed as she pressed her cheek to the trunk of the tree.
Bennet was her other half and without him…
Tears clouded her eyes again, but her fist tightened as she refused to let them fall. He’d left when they were eighteen. For three long years, they’d continued their romance by letters only. And then, he’d been gone. It had been another three since his death. How could she still cry after all this time?
When did the grief end?
She drew in a shuddering breath. Perhaps it ceased when she stopped chasing his ghost. She’d spent countless hours trying to unearth clues about both his death and Marcus’s. Perhaps her editor was right to keep her on the society section. She wasn’t able to shed light on a single murder investigation.
But from the start, so many pieces had been missing. Who would attack the heir to the marquessate? He’d been in Mayfair in the middle of the afternoon. How were there no witnesses? And then there was the strange purse of foreign coin found clutched in his hand.
And that was only Marcus’s death. Bennet was gone just days later, and the circumstances had been equally odd. Why hadn’t Bennet been able to swim to shore? He’d always been a strong swimmer. He excelled at nearly all physical activities.
But she didn’t have time to ponder more as a nearby rustling caught her notice.
Had Dillan returned with more food? It was nearing sunset.
But the quiet sound of boots on grass didn’t grow closer to her spot by the tree. Instead, it passed by her in the direction of the mausoleum. She peeked through the branches and saw the tall frame and straight shoulders of the man she’d come to think of as Bennet.
He’d come back.