Page 75 of Henhouse
“Oh my God, shut up,” Hope squeaked, Theo right by her side.
“What’s going on?” Theo said by way of greeting, but his eyes quickly searched the room for the someone he yearned to see.
“Hope was checking you out.” Hope slapped Brayden across the shoulder.
Theo’s laugh was warm and rich. “It’s the tux, I promise.” But the twinkle in his eye told Hope he knew he was worth a second and third glance with or without the tux. She admired the self-assuredness andimagined it had little to do with his looks and everything to do with knowing himself. She only wished it had rubbed off on Effie more.
After a few polite exchanges and small talk about the decor, Theo seemed ready to crack. “Is she coming?”
Hope’s developing motherly instincts compelled her to wrap him in a hug and smooth the worry from his brow. Despite his palpable anxiety and vulnerability, she kept her hands to herself. “She should be.”
“Or she’s sitting upstairs alone and missing out because she heard I was coming.”
“No one knew for certain. Louisa just told her you bought a ticket.”
“I shouldn’t have come. She would have invited me if she wanted me here.” Theo shot a sharp look at Brayden.
His path to the entrance was now blocked anyway by a woman in a ravishing gown fit for an enchanted queen with side-swept curls tumbling below her collarbone.
The woman Hope, Aunt Bea, Grams, and now Theo saw so much more clearly than she ever saw herself.
Effie Rose Thatcher.
The one and only.
36
Seeing her was an arrow through the heart. It was a special kind of anguish being on the precipice of forever to have it yanked away without warning. Without cause. Though Theo supposed from Effie’s perspective there was plenty of cause, she just wasn’t sharing what it was.
Effie smiled through a few greetings as she meandered through the gathered guests. His jaw ticked with every gaze that trailed behind her with a longing he knew intimately. It took more strength than he knew he possessed to keep from whisking her onto the dance floor for all to see, to claim her lips, and to show her off. But when she finally found him in the room, her face dropped and Theo swore his heart stopped right along with it.
She wasn’t happy to see him.
He was going to kill Schilling. Theo hoped the daggers he threw at him conveyed as much. Schilling’s cowed shrug said he understood, but not that he was sorry.
Theo supposed that was only fair. It would all be over soon and he could leave Effie in peace.
Effie arrived at their little group avoiding Theo and pinning her eyes on Hope. “Show-off. I should have had you and Grams do mine, though I guess it would have been wasted this year.” Hope smoothed her skirt over her rounded stomach, and Theo unwittingly imagined what Effie might look like carrying their baby.Fuck. That was not a train of thought he should entertain.
He speared his awareness back on the present, looking at Effie’s dress anew. “You made that?” She was truly an impressive creature. He fancied himself a creative person, but he was a hobbyist. Effie made creativity a lifestyle.
“With some help. Grams is determined to make a seamstress of me yet.” She spoke directly to him but there was a tightness to it, a chain attached.
Her gaze lingered on Theo for a breath, too short to read what lay beneath her oceanic eyes. Hope, thankfully, intervened before he could put his foot in his mouth. “Let’s go get a snack, I’m famished. Get your dancing shoes ready, gentlemen.”
She led Effie toward a waiter in the corner with a tray of flakey samosas, bacon-wrapped scallops, and something that looked like seared tofu skewers.
Theo’s shoulders dropped their tension with his exhale. “I’m sorry,” Schilling whispered.
“It’s not your fault, but don’t expect me to linger,” Theo said tightly.
The pity on Schilling’s face was a twist of the knife. “You’re not even going to try to get her back?”
“I’m not going to push her. I just want her to know I’m here,whenever she’s ready to be here with me.” Theo scratched a phantom itch at the back of his neck. He couldn’t very well respect her wishes and lay the truth of his feelings at her feet.
“But?”
“But that’s assuming I’m right. That she got spooked but still wants me. If she doesn’t . . .” Schilling’s hand gripped Theo’s shoulder in a show of support.
