Page 101 of The Best-Kept Secrets
“I believe I’ve discovered your dreamed-of future.” Eve snuggled closer to him.
“Have you?” He shifted the reins to one hand and set his other arm round her.
“Wagon driver,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t deny it.”
“If every drive ended this way, I’d absolutely be living a dream.”
“Are you saying thatIam your dream?”
Duke kissed the top of her head. “That is precisely what I’m saying, Aoife.”
Mater climbed up and sat on Eve’s other side, the driving bench now entirely full. “While I have a moment alone with the two of you, we need to have a quick conversation.”
“About what?” Eve asked.
“As we have already established,” Mater said, “I have a vast history of losing my intended lady’s companions to the more pleasant, at least in their estimation, prospect of marriage. I suspect the wind is blowing in that direction for the two of you.”
Their current arrangement surely would give any onlooker that impression.
“Should you decide to follow the established pattern, Eve,” Mater said, “please know that I will be incredibly happy for you. Know also that I will tease you mercilessly about abandoning me.”
He could feel Eve laugh. He liked that.
“I also felt I ought to assure you that I will remain at Fairfield for however long Nia needs to remain, regardless of whether or not the two of you inform me that Eve will be jaunting to London to join Duke and leave me to make my way to Lampton Park alone.”
“I don’t know if this will set your mind at ease or sink your opinion of my family lower than it no doubt already is,” Duke said, “but I do not yet know how my parents will behave or how they will treat me and those connected to me after all that occurred here. Until I know what I would be asking Eve to endure, I cannot, in good conscience, ask her to do so.”
“Niles told me what your father said to Penelope.” Mater spoke quietly. “It speaks well of you that you hesitate so much to expose Eve to that degree of cruelty.”
He tightened his embrace. “I am learning to accept that Mother and Father will never be truly kind. I’ve managed to secure some distance from them, but how long that will last or how much peace that will actually afford I cannot possibly guess.”
Mater nodded. “You can’t know until you experience it.”
Eve looked up at him. “How long do you suppose it will take to have a better idea?”
“I wish I had a good answer for that.” He truly did. Not knowing how long they’d be apart was nearly as difficult as not knowing if his parents would prevent that wait from ending happily. “I need to see how they behave when I tell them I’m making a home with my aunt and uncle. I have to see what they do when we cross paths in London and what their course of action is when the Season is over. I don’t yet know how they will react when I don’t return for Christmas next year.” That bit gave him the tiniest moment of regret. Christmastime had been one of the few clusters of pleasant experiences with his parents. But they’d managed to ruin this one. “I don’t yet know how they will react to my decision to tiptoe into the world of politics or what they might do to cause difficulty there.” He hoped Eve could see that he wished things were different. “It could be years. I hope not. But I cannot deny that it very well might be.”
Though the question had been Mater’s, he offered the answer to Eve. “All my estimates tell me that I will likely need three or four years.”
Eve didn’t cry or rage or demand that he make everything right immediately. She actually smiled. “In those three or four years, you won’t have to live at Writtlestone, which is a wonderful thing for you. And Mater and I will travel to our hearts’ content and see so many sites. And we’ll be in London for a portion of the Season, so I will see you then. And we can write to each other.”
“You aren’t going to demand that I fix this?”
“Youarefixing it,” she said. “Just because doing so will take time doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
She was remarkable. Living without her for potentially years would be excruciating. But knowing they could have a life together would make all the effort and waiting that lay ahead of them well worth it.
“Might I make a suggestion?” Mater sounded as if she meant to make it regardless. And then she did. “Should you decide in the near future that you mean to more formally declare your intention to eventually marry, you would do well not to make that declaration publicly nor to sign marriage contracts yet.”
“Are you afraid one of us will change our mind?” Eve asked.
Mater shook her head. “A years’ long engagement would lead to whispers in Society, and neither of you is currently on such firm social footing that those whispers wouldn’t do damage.”
“A secret engagement?” Duke quickly appended. “Eve has been burdened with quite a few secrets of late. I wouldn’t want to add to that burden.”
“It sounds to me,” Mater said, “as though you two have a lot to discuss.”
The greenery gatherers were making their way back to the wagon. Mater alighted once more, exclaiming over their offerings as they all retook their places in the back of the wagon.
