Page 107 of The Best-Kept Secrets
Eve could hardly believe how much had changed in one brief conversation.
She squeezed Duke’s hand. “We wouldn’t have to be apart for endless months.” Eve shook her head in stunned amazement. “I would be in London, spending time with our friends. And I could bake every day. Every single day.”
“Your dreamed-of future,” Duke said with a smile.
She leaned closer to him and whispered, “A future with you is my dream. Always.”
He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her.
“While this path doesn’t come with a guarantee,” Mater said, “it comes with a great deal of hope. And hope combined with love, be it the love of family or friends or the person with whom you wish to spend all your life, is a powerful thing.”
From the moment Mother had told Eve of the painful change in the family’s situation, making do had been the best that had seemed possible. Making do. Getting by. Now she stood with Duke, looking ahead to a future filled with hope and love.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The weather was fine thenext day, so Eve suggested that she and Duke walk to the baking cottage, and he was happy to do so. He welcomed any opportunity to spend time with her.
He held her hand as they walked. It was such a simple gesture, yet he would miss it terribly. Even when they were together again in London, they wouldn’t have the freedom they’d enjoyed at Fairfield.
“Mater says that Mr. Layton will most certainly be able to sort out a location for the baking to be done for the tea shop,” Eve said as they walked. “I will likely need at least one other person to work there with me. Mr. Layton helped Artemis and Rose find skilled and trustworthy employees, so I do believe he can help me with that as well.”
“I am happy to meet with him on your behalf while I’m in London if you’d like.” Duke wanted to do all he could for her.
“I would appreciate that. There may be decisions that need to be made more swiftly than letters can be sent back and forth.” She smiled up at him. Lud, he was going to miss her alluring dimple. “So many things need to be done, and it is a bit overwhelming, but I’m excited and eager to see this all come together.”
“So am I.” He was hesitant to express the concern that still troubled him, but it would be unforgivable of him not to discuss it. His was not the only future impacted by it. “This endeavor will give you some freedom, Eve, and more choices. You may very well find that you could do better than a gentleman who can’t even be certain his parents will treat you with civility.”
She shook her head. “You won’t be ridding yourself of me that easily.”
He stopped their forward movement. They were within a few steps of the cottage. “You think I want to rid myself of you?” He lightly kissed her. “Not even for a moment. I love you with every breath and every beat of my heart. I will miss you and long for you, but I won’t ever stop loving you or wanting to have that life we’re working toward.”
She pulled him toward the cottage once more. “And what makes you think that I feel any differently, Dubhán?”
“Honestly,” he said, “I’m not entirely sure. I don’t doubt that you love me. I don’t think you are flighty or insincere. Yet I cannot shake the concern that before all is said and done, you’ll decide this isn’t worth it.” He feared she would decidehewasn’t worth it.
“I know you well enough to have realized before now that you would struggle with that.” She reached out and took hold of the door handle. “That is why I chose the chaperones I did for today.”
Eve opened the door and led him inside.
Aunt Penelope, Uncle Niles, and Colm were waiting there. They weren’t meant to know about her baking. It was being kept even from most of the Pack. Duke closed the door, shutting out the cold, all the while mired in confusion.
“I told them about my baking and our plans for the tea shop. I have been required to keep a significant secret from my sister lately, and I know how that burdens a person. I’ve had to watch everything I say and tiptoe through conversations with someone I would otherwise lean on for support and advice and encouragement. I don’t want you to have to do that with your family. Now you won’t have to.”
A panic-edged worry grabbed hold of him. “I would not advise revealing this to my parents or grandmother.”
Eve’s smile turned laughing. “I have absolutely no plans to do so, I assure you. The Greenberrys are the family you will be surrounded by. They are the ones I want you to be at ease with. And their home needs to become home to you, which is unlikely to happen if you are constantly evaluating everything you say before you say it.”
That was a painfully familiar scenario. “I lived that way at Writtlestone.”
Aunt Penelope crossed to him and took his hands in hers. “We want Fairfield and our London house to be home to you. Even after you have begun a new chapter of your life elsewhere, when you come back to visit, we want you to feel that you are returning home.”
“I am grateful that you are willing to make room for me—”
Aunt Penelope kept one of his hands in hers and pulled him to the sofa near the fire. She sat, tugging him to sit beside her. Uncle Niles sat on a nearby chair. Eve sat in another. Colm stood beside the fireplace.
“We are family, Duke,” Aunt Penelope said. “Too many years of strain and tension have created a chasm that never should have been there. We have loved you your entire life from an unfortunately large distance. To have that distance shortened so much is a source of joy to all of us. Joy—not obligation or burden or annoyance or any of the other things you are likely worried about.”
He was concerned about those precise possibilities. He’d often felt like a burden and annoyance in his parents’ home.
