The Gentleman and the Lamplighter by Summer Devon

left word that he would go for a walk and return in an hour. As he walked through the pleasant lanes, he thought about Wool, but for once he considered the cost of that marriage to Mrs. Woolver. The harm that had come to her because of Wool’s secrets and a lack of passion—too little emotion. Wool rejected love.
    Giles had thought strength meant staying firm and rejecting emotional entanglements, but perhaps he’d been mistaken. Or as John Banks might put it, utterly hopelessly stupidly dead wrong. Quite the opposite of right.
    When Giles returned to Mrs. Woolver, bearing flowers he’d found in a shop in the village, she greeted him again. This time less fulsomely, but with more warmth. She sniffed the flowers and thanked him, adding, “Forgive my outbursts, or I should say, all of my outbursts.”
    “There is nothing to forgive. We all mourn in our own way.”
    “Bah, Giles Fullerton. I wanted to hate you, but you’ve always been so calm and reasonable and even kind, when I know you were itching to hurt me—”
    “No. Not you. I think … Oliver.” He was grateful that he’d been actor enough to hide his resentment of her—most of it at any rate. “I was angry with him. Yes, and I still am.”
    “Yes, what a rotter Oliver was. Terrible to both of us.” She sighed. “I shall find a man who does nothing but smile from sunup to sundown and all night long. He will prove a fine remedy and I shall marry him and live happily ever after.”
    He laughed. “I wish you luck with your search.” And it suddenly occurred to him that he’d met such a man.
    What a pity that he and John Banks did not even venture into the same circles. Although such a happy-ever-after could not take place even if they did meet up from time to time.
    Why not?
    Giles smiled to himself at the silly question.
Because that is not the way the world works.
    ***
    The next day was the one before Mrs. Woolver’s house party, and he came to say good-bye before her guests appeared. He was glad she was determined to be jolly, but he still didn’t feel ready to witness a party in Wool’s own house.
    She must have suspected his reasons, for she didn’t push him to stay and accepted his weak excuses of appointments in the city. Before he took his leave, he and Wool’s widow went for a walk around the grounds that she had redesigned—changes, he couldn’t help noticing, that were for the better.
    She asked his advice about improvements to a southern-facing garden. “It’s charming as it is,” he said.
    He gazed past her at the spot where he’d once kissed Wool. Just under that tree. Oh, Wool, such a stupid sad waste.
    Mrs. Woolver laughed. “Well, I shall change the garden anyhow and add a summer house. I consult with you purely as a formality, of course. I know you’ll let me to do whatever I wish. You made that clear at that first meeting at the lawyer’s office. I knew then that at the very least, Oliver had left me in good hands.”
    He thought back to that nightmare of a day when he’d learned he must interact with Wool’s widow on a regular basis. He’d been motivated by indifference to her and a fear of having to travel to this very spot, Wool’s family home, the place laden with memories.
    He stopped staring at the tree and, after a silent apology to her, he said, “You have always been sensible. Why would I interfere?”
    ***
    After their walk, she gave him tea. Giles refused her last perfunctory request to him to stay for the ball. “But I hope I shall see you when you come to town,” he told her. He’d said such things before, but now he spoke the words truthfully.
    “We will talk about Oliver.”
    “Perhaps. I hope we will talk more about you and your gardens and your cheerful swain—your gentleman who will always smile at you,” he said.
    “I do believe that it was sorrow that made you so grim with me,” she said. “I’m glad you’re happy again.”
    Hardly that, he thought automatically. To be happy when Wool