Page 67 of Duke of Emeralds
He smiled. “Ye should. It suits ye, Bella.”
He turned to Hester next, offering his hand. She took it, her grip cool but steady, and she met his eyes as she climbed aboard.
“If anything is amiss, or if you need anything—” he started.
“I will send word at once,” she finished for him.
He nodded, stepping back. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to pull her to him, to keep her here and see her smile again in the blue-lit studio, to show her that he meant every word he’d said about trust. But he said nothing.
He shut the carriage door then stepped back, folding his arms against the morning chill. Hester leaned out the window, her bonnet framing her face. Their eyes caught, and he waited for her to say something—anything.
She only smiled, small and genuine, then retreated to her seat. The carriage rocked, the horses champed, and with a crack of the driver’s whip, the whole procession moved off down the gravel lane.
Thomas watched it go until it vanished around the first bend. Only then did he let his arms drop to his sides.
The cold felt sharper, somehow, now that she was gone.
If you tire of London, you can always return here, he’d told her. He hoped she would. God help him, he hoped she would.
CHAPTER 29
Bailey squinted. “The ground’s too soft, Your Grace. We’ll lose another half the planting if it turns wet again next week.”
Thomas reined in his horse alongside, the two animals stamping their discomfort in the rising mud. “Aye,” he said, “but it’s better than no crop at all if we get even a fortnight’s sun after this.” He scanned the horizon, measuring the threat in the darkening spring sky. “Have ye told the tenants what to do with the worst patches?”
“Already done, Sir. Some will shift to hay. The rest, I’ll have them drain off to the east ditches. But we’ll need new pipes by the end of the year.”
Thomas considered, wiping a sleeve across his brow. “Get the estimate for what it’ll cost, and don’t let Wilcox try and fob off the old stock. I want it done right this time.”
The survey lasted the morning. By the time they returned to the yard, both men were sodden and caked to the knees in gray-brown filth. Thomas dismounted and ran his hand over the horse’s shivering neck, soothing it while Bailey relayed a few last instructions to the waiting stable hands. The barn smelled of oats and the honest sweat of animals, and for a brief moment, Thomas wanted nothing more than to linger in its warmth and not go inside.
But the duties of a duke did not leave time for comfort.
He handed off the reins, stripped his gloves, and walked the gravel path back to the castle which rose grim and silent above the muddy lawns.
He walked out, pulled the door shut behind him, and paced the upper hall. He crossed past the nursery, past the gallery where Hester had sometimes lingered to study the paintings, down into the library where he’d last found her, curled in a patch of sunlight, reading to Bella.
He tried to push the thoughts aside as he always did. She had made herself clear: she did not want children. She would not entertain the idea of it. The rule was set at the start—he’d agreed to it, and he would not be the man to break his word, even if every bone in his body strained against it.
But the memory returned, unwanted, of Hester’s hand on Bella’s shoulder, of the affection that passed between them, the way she’d looked at the girl with something like pride. She wouldhave made a magnificent mother. The idea took root and sent a rawness through him.
He sat heavily in the leather chair by the fire though there was no fire, only the darkened coals from the day before. He set his jaw and willed the feeling to pass.
It’s none of yer business what could have been,he told himself.She made her choice, and ye’ll abide by it, same as ye swore.
But the emptiness of the castle did not abate. Every hallway, every room, seemed to echo with the absence of her.
He tried to picture Hester in London, surrounded by her friends, dazzling in a ballroom, or perhaps seated at her mother’s side, offering comfort and wit in equal measure. She would thrive there, among people who understood her.
He would not be selfish.
He rose, restless, and went to his study and poured himself a whisky, went to the window, and watched the clouds move in over the hills. He wished, in that moment, that she would change her mind. That she would forgive him for wanting more. That she would someday allow herself to want it, too.
But he would not beg. And he would not betray her trust.
He downed the whisky in one swallow then turned from the window and set himself to the tasks of the day.
London announced itself not with fanfare but with the familiar scrape of carriage wheels on wet cobblestones, the sharp scent of coal smoke, and the distant clamor of a city already at full stride by mid-morning. Hester leaned into the window, chin cupped in her hand, watching the city pass by in shades of gray, blue, and red brick.
