I’m in the wrong place.

“This cannot be right,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the ruin at the edge of the cliff in front of her. Behind, the grey ocean stretched out into the horizon, nearly the same color as the sky above.

The neglected Palladian her father had so lovingly restored had been destroyed. The entire left wing had collapsed, and there was a gaping hole in the roof. Soot-blackened debris littered the ground next to the crumbling structure.

“I’m sorry we’re not further along, Madame. Your husband sent some funds a while back to start rebuilding. Do y’see over there,” Gibson, the caretaker, pointing to some scaffolding on the right. “Made a good start, but then the funds stopped coming and so did the workers.”

“When Martin died,” she mumbled.

How could he have kept such a secret from her? This had been the home she had shared with her parents—the place where she had known the only true happiness of her life.

There was no pain, only a numbness that spread through her body as if she’d been submerged in an icy bath.

“What was the date?’

“Of the fire, miss? I reckon it was in mid-April of ninety-nine.”

That was just over a month after she and Martin had departed to the continent.

“I sent word to the address you left me, the estate of the Italian relation of Mr. Montgomery’s,” Gibson added.

But the caretaker had directed the missive to her husband, as any employee would once a woman was wed.

True, she should have seen the letter regardless. Martin wasn’t the type to maintain a steady correspondence or deal with solicitors. Such details had been her purview.

But Martin had collected the mail. He must have seen the note and hidden it to spare her feelings.

Gibson hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was starting to look nervous.

“I would like to be alone if you don’t mind,” she said quietly.

“Of course, miss. I’ll help your coachman settle the horses. The barn is right as rain. It wasn’t touched in the blaze. There’s plenty of room in the cottage since your father expanded it.”

Once Gibson had gone, she moved closer to the ruin, walking over the barren ground where her mother’s rose garden had stood. Edging around the house, she found the stone wall that marked the border of the ancient abbey. It had been so well known the property was still called the Abbey, even before the Palladian had been built over the ruins.

She entered the shell of the house without thought. One moment, she was standing in front of the door and the next she was inside, surrounded by the fragments of a once-happy childhood.

It was all a wasteland now.

Picking her way through the charred rooms, she was surprised to see most of the side staircase intact. Her bedroom had been at the top.

Amelia examined the stairs. There was a fleeting question whether they would still bear her weight, but she couldn’t hold it in her mind. It didn’t matter anyway. She climbed up, lightly leaping over the gap formed by two missing steps.

The damage was much worse upstairs. The hall was under a gaping hole in the roof. Off to the left, the blackened door to her childhood bedroom stood open. The fire had been cruel there. The better part of two walls was missing, exposing a sheer drop of the cliff’s edge and the cold ocean beyond it.

Part of the floor was missing as well…if someone wanted to leap out into the sea, they would have to make a running start.

Amelia sidled closer to the edge, holding onto the wall so she wouldn’t tumble through the gap. She took off her gloves and slid down until she was seated in the corner—the part of the floor supported by the massive timber beams that were the bones of the house.

Wrapping her hands around her knees, Amelia hugged them tight against her body and rested a cheek on top of them.

The protective fog enveloping her began to melt away. A profound grief overwhelmed her. Part of her felt as if she had already been dashed on the rocks below. For a split second, she thought about making it a reality, but she didn’t move. Instead, she let the tears fall. She cried for her mother and father, and for Martin. And she cried for her dead illusions of love.

Gideon must think her such a fool. And in retrospect, he was right. When she thought of the depths of her ignorance, she shuddered. Intimacy between a man and a woman was nothing like she imagined. Her aunt Carol had been right. It was both painful and humiliating, a duty women had to tolerate to please their husbands and lovers.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the look of shock on Gideon’s face when he realized she’d been a virgin. And then his explanation…

We were making love.

Mortification inundated her. How could she look him the eye again?

The answer to that was simple. She didn’t have to—and no, the answer wasn’t dashing herself on the rocks below. Women of means had obligations, responsibilities. Amelia was not about to depart this world and leave her staff to fend for themselves. Almost all had been born abroad, and though most of them were learning English, it would be difficult for them to find new employment even with proper references.

There were also the poor she helped through her charitable endeavors. The school she was building in Paddington, at the edge of the slums, was almost finished. Taking up residence here in Devon wouldn’t be possible, but she’d find another home somewhere.

There were so many things she still had to do…but Amelia didn’t have to do them yet. For today, and today alone, she could watch the surf below and imagine a new life, one where she wasn’t alone.