Page 60 of The Best-Kept Secrets
They continued riding alongside each other, both experienced enough equestrians to manage the thing with very little thought.
“You are operating under the assumption that I want to be sitting beside her.”
Colm shook his head. “I am horrified to discover that a cousin of mine is this thickheaded. Tragic.” He bent a bit away and called out to the front of the group. “Fennel. Take the fork to the left.”
Up ahead, Fennel signaled his understanding.
Speaking to Duke once more, Colm said, “You watch her a lot, and never with disinterest.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Duke said.
“Why on earth not?”
“Because I’m not willing to cause her sorrow, and any lady who throws her lot in with me will be caused precisely that. Our family was bickering before supper last night, and who did they pull in to fix it? Me. When I arrived with Grandmother a few days ago and your mother was understandably frustrated, you were offered escape, and I was required to remain and arbitrate the inevitable argument. If I am at Writtlestone for more than a week, the days become utterly filled with my father’s bitterness over how his life has played out and my mother’s unhappiness with it all.” He was worn to a thread and often feared that thread would snap. “I cannot ask any lady, let alone one I care deeply for, to be part of a family like ours, neither can I require her to build a life in a place I know will drain the happiness from her. But I haven’t income enough for a home of my own, so escaping that place of misery means living as a perpetual guest in someone else’s home.”
“An arrangement you are not at liberty to extend to someone else,” Colm made the connection.
“Precisely.” Duke guided his horse to the left of the fork as they reached it. “I was foolish to let myself even begin any semblance of atendrefor Eve. But I am not such a selfish villain that I would let that grow into something that will hurt her in the end.”
“War taught me a lot of things, Duke, not all of them good. But among those lessons was this: battles often feel the most hopeless in the moments before the tide turns.” His cousin was attempting to offer him hope, but he wasn’t certain there actually was any.
They reached the others and dismounted. Fennel took possession of Duke’s horse. Fennel’s estate bred horses just as Fairfield did; he was fully capable of seeing to the animals and would enjoy it as well.
Tobias was holding the horse at the front of Eve’s gig. Duke crossed to them and, with care, helped Nia descend. Ellie was there in an instant to offer support to her friend. Duke turned back to the cart.
Eve smiled at him. He kept his expression neutral as she climbed down from the cart. With her feet on the ground, she looked up at him once more, a hint of tenderness in her gaze. He wished he could let himself return it. Wished he could put an arm around her. Wished... a lot of things.
“A footman who specifically hands ladies down from carriages and gigs?” The teasing quality of her question told him she was continuing with the game they’d started during their journey to Surrey.
“No.” It was his usual answer, but he wasn’t enjoying the diversion as much as he had before.
The Pack and Huntresses pulled items from the back of the gig: a few small chairs, a lot of cushions and blankets, and a basket of food.
“Make certain Nia gets a chair,” Eve called out to Newton and Scott as they passed, each carrying two chairs. “And a blanket,” she said to Gillian, that Huntress having several blankets in her arms.
While the group arranged all that had been brought, Eve remained near the gig, watching her sister with ill-concealed concern. Duke knew he ought to follow the others’ lead and set himself to a task, but he couldn’t seem to convince his feet to take him anywhere.
“I hope this doesn’t prove too much for her,” Eve said. “Nia has been so discouraged, but she has also been crushingly tired.” Eve looked more than a little tired herself. “Everything will be fine in the end, won’t it? Tell me I’m not foolish to believe that.”
He wanted so badly to hug her in that moment, as he’d done in the inn kitchen. She seemed to need an embrace as much now as she had then. But he couldn’t indulge in that any longer. A few kind words were all he could reasonably risk offering.
“A wise person very recently told me that battles often seem most hopeless in the moment before the tide turns.”
“Then we’d best prepare ourselves for a significant turning of the tide because I am feeling... well, not hopeless but definitely helpless.” She looked over at him. Her silvery eyes were smiling but also sad.
Duke clasped his hands behind him and kept his distance. “I’m confident you’ll sort something out.”
Her eyes narrowed a little, and her mouth tugged downward. “Thank you.” But there was confusion in the response.
He was making a muck of all this. He had to get them back on more neutral footing, and that meant returning to a more generally affable connection. Things needed to go back to the way they had been before the journey from Ireland and the magic of the abandoned inn, but he wasn’t at all sure that was even possible.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You will miss the startof the evening’s festivities.” Nia’s quiet objection managed to only further convince Eve that returning to their room after supper to be with her sister had been the right choice.
“You are going to missallof this evening’s festivities,” she pointed out.
Nia opened and closed her eyes slowly, her eyelids heavy with illness. “It is not your fault that I am laid low.”
