Lord Edward Campion was no fool, she realized soon enough; he would kiss the ground where she was standing, and yet he wasn't afraid to speak his mind.
"Are you still in love with your husband?" he enquired after her rash question, and she stopped to consider the matter for what was probably the first time.
Had she ever loved Christopher? She'd been too busy fighting against him, trying to break his composure and ultimately losing him over their mutual stubbornness. The truth was that as much as she regarded Christopher as hers, she'd never been able to understand his principles; he was stiff, and boring, too polite to scream at her the way she secretly craved.
"Does it matter?" she shrugged, and he let out a soft sigh.
"You've never been, have you?"
It was the honesty in his eyes that broke her. "I had to save myself from ruin," she blurted out at last. "It was unfair on him, but I don't think I've hurt him more than he hurt me in return."
"I'm sorry," Lord Campion murmured sympathetically. "Chrissie has always been quite the old-fashioned fellow, I'm afraid. I daresay he has hurt himself more than anyone else could have done."
Sylvia attempted a defiant smile. "That's what he gets for being an idealist in an age when ideals are dead and gone. He and Miss Wannop, they're two of a kind."
"That they probably are," he agreed, and they kept walking in companionable silence.
It was only when they reached the doorway that they paused, and she looked down to where the Groby tree had been; the past was no more, it was time to build up the future.
"So, what about India?" she asked in her most charming manner, slipping her hand around Edward's arm.