Page 47 of Snapdragons
“As do I.” His eyes narrowed. “Except for cats. Cats are terrible.”
Penelope burst out laughing. Niles had offered his excoriation of cats with such an overdone tone of disgust that there was no doubt he hadn’t meant a word of it.
“Nothing in your family’s letters prepared me to discover that you are so funny,” she said.
He smiled ever more broadly. “I can’t imagine most people describing me as funny.”
“Do you spend time exclusively in the company of thick-headed people?”
He shrugged. “The Gents are known to be exceptionally bacon-brained.”
That set her laughing again, and he joined in. The filly looked at them, quite as if she felt they had taken leave of their wits. But she didn’t back away.
“I do wish we’d met under different circumstances,” Penelope said. “I would greatly enjoy being your friend.”
“Is it inevitable that our difficult beginning means we cannot move forward as friends?” he asked.
Heaven help her, he was making her hope for things she ought not. Her disappointment would only hurt that much more. “I have imposed on you in many ways. I cannot expect you to continue any sort of acquaintance with me.”
“You overstate the situation, Miss Seymour. You tracked me here and have attempted to turn my head a bit in order to push forward the originally proposed connection between us.”
She blushed at hearing her efforts stated so bluntly by the one on the receiving end of them.
“I refused to return home at the previously determined date and left you to face the humiliation of a missing groom,” hecontinued. “Had the two of us been undertaking a sporting competition, the contest would currently be considered a draw.”
He didn’t mean to hold her schemes against her, schemes Lord Aldric had disapproved of, Liam had condemned, and both Violet and Nicolette had been hesitant to participate in until after they had been assured Penelope didn’t mean to truly impose on Niles.
“Could we begin again?” she asked. “Start fresh—or as much as we can; there is no way of truly dismissing all that has happened—and be friends?”
“I would like that.”
Her heart thudded a bit against her ribs with a quiver of something a little less hopeful than she would have expected. It was as if her heart were rejoicing and weeping at the same time.
“There you are, sweet girl,” Niles cooed.
When the filly didn’t pull back, Niles rubbed her nose gently. His smile was so tender, and there was pride in his expression. But that pride was directed at the nervous little horse who had chosen to be brave.
She had gained the hope of his friendship but realized in the very moment he had offered it that her heart wanted more. In her efforts to convince him that he could be happy in a match with her, she had begun falling in love with him.
Chapter Sixteen
After changing from his ridingclothes, Niles sauntered toward the library, where he’d been informed the Gents had congregated. A sudden burst of laughter echoed from the room as he approached, confirming their presence even before he stepped inside.
You are so funny.Penelope’s words echoed in his mind, pulling his lips upward. Few people even noticed him, let alone credited him with a sense of humor. He very much liked that she had done both.
“You look pleased, Puppy,” Digby said, watching Niles’s entrance from a comfortable chair.
“I saw a hedgehog during my ride this morning. And the weather held until I was almost inside, saving me from a miserable soaking. I negotiated a truce with Miss Seymour, won over Digby’s reluctant filly, and went yet another morning without receiving a letter from my grandfather telling me what a horrible grandson I am. All in all, I would say I have ample reason to be quite pleased.”
All the Gents were watching him now, except for Lucas, who sat at the desk, writing what was likely a letter. Their Jester was a prodigious letter writer.
“Was this hedgehog on its own or with its prickle?” Kes asked in the same moment Digby asked, “Why did your valet decide on this particular pairing of jacket and waistcoat?”
Aldric looked a little annoyed with both of them and posed his own question in the next instant. “What is this truce with Miss Seymour? Did she say she considered the two of you to be at odds?”
Not at odds as much as she considered herself to have ill-used him. But Niles found himself reluctant to share that. It was anadmission that had clearly pained her.
I do try to be a decent person.She’d been trying to convince herself as much as him.
