Page 14 of The Duke's All That
“Do you think I will allow you time to change your mind?” he demanded. “Nae, we leave at first light.”
“First light?” The laugh she allowed to pass from her lips was not complimentary to him, not at all. “You are deluded. Even if I had no other responsibilities, I could not possibly be ready so quickly. I need at least a week.”
“Now who is the deluded one?” he countered. “I have responsibilities as well, and I say we leave tomorrow.”
But Seraphina was done caving in to every demand he had. Dragging in a deep breath, she jutted out her chin and stared mutinously up at him. “As I have been forced to concede on each and every other aspect of this farce,” she gritted, “the least you can do is to give in a small bit. I vow I shall not change my mind, that I shall leave for Scotland to see this done. Now, can you at least meet me halfway?”
He considered her closely. “Verra well,” he finally replied. “I’ll give you three days to put your affairs in order. Does that work for you?”
“Fine,” she spat. She held out her hand. “Give me your direction and I shall meet you there.”
But her hand remained empty, hanging suspended in the air like a marionette’s. “Oh, nae you don’t, my traitorous wife,” he drawled. “I willnae gamble on you disappearing again. I’ll wait here on Synne until you are ready, and we shall travel north together.”
“I would rather eat dirt.”
He merely shrugged. “If that is what it takes.”
But she pointedly ignored his sarcasm. “I refuse to becooped up in a carriage with you for days on end. There must be some other way.”
He made a show of considering that for a moment—an insult, really, as she saw from the malicious light in his eyes that he had no intention of reconsidering.
“Nae, I dinnae believe there is.”
She blew out a sharp breath, just barely holding back a growl of frustration. “Very well, you beast. Three days from now, at first light, I shall meet you at a place of my choosing. I won’t have our leaving together draw any attention; I still have to live here, after all.” She narrowed her eyes. “Until then, stay out of my way.”
With that she turned and stormed off across the sand—trying and failing not to hear his reluctant, rough chuckle behind her.
Chapter 7
What do you mean you’re leaving?”
Seraphina sighed and glanced about the small circle of her friends, all sitting close together on the compact collection of mismatched furniture, teacups and biscuits suspended halfway to their mouths as they gaped at her. She typically enjoyed the weekly meetings of the Oddments, something that had taken place rain or shine in the small office at the Quayside Circulating Library for years now. But last night’s conversation with Iain had effectively soured this week’s meeting for her. For she had known she would have to tell her friends that she would be away from Synne for a time, and they would have questions—questions that she was still not ready to answer.
“It won’t be for long,” she answered instead, trying to redirect them. “A week and a half perhaps. A fortnight at most. But I do hope I can count on all of you to check in on my sisters while I’m gone. They have never handled theQuayside completely alone before, and while I know they are more than capable, I do worry.”
Honoria, however, was not one to be distracted once she sank her teeth into something, just as Seraphina had dreaded. “Of course we will check in on them. You do not even have to ask us to do that, for we all shall, and gladly. But don’t think you’re going to get out of explaining the reason for your absence. Or where you’ll be going.”
Before Seraphina could think how to respond—something she had been trying to figure how best to answer since parting from Iain the night before—Honoria’s hazel eyes lit up. “Does this have anything to do with that Scotsman we saved you from yesterday?”
“Honoria, hush,” Adelaide reprimanded, reaching across the space between their chairs to swat at her arm. Seraphina did not miss, however, that the action was more performative than anything. Adelaide’s swat was more a caress than anything, and her eyes did not leave Seraphina. In fact, she leaned closer as she sipped at her tea, as if she did not want to miss even a breath of information.
“I know we vowed not to pry into your past,” Honoria continued. “But the Scotsman’s appearance yesterday coupled with your news today cannot be mere coincidence.”
Coupled.She felt slightly ill at that word choice.If her friends only knew.
But they would not know. Not if she could help it. No one would ever learn of that most shameful part of her past when she had been at her weakest. Or what had come after.
“Not to mention the elephant in the room,” Bronwyn added, the first she had entered into the fray of this particular conversation. Her gaze, glinting behind her spectacles, shifted to Phineas, who sat happily chewing on a bitof greenery on the perch behind Seraphina. “Or, rather, parrot.”
Every eye turned Phineas’s way. The creature, traitor that he was, chose that moment to squawk out, “Noo, jist haud on!” before he went back to his leaf.
Seraphina groaned.
“Yes!” Honoria nearly fell out of her chair as she lurched forward in excitement. “You have a parrot that speaks with a Scottish accent. How in the world could we have forgotten that?”
“Well,Idid not forget, at any rate,” Bronwyn muttered from behind her teacup.
A bit of sarcasm that Honoria chose to ignore. More pity, that, for it might have distracted her from Seraphina and her upcoming trip.
