Page 44 of Duke of Emeralds
Her lips curved though it felt slightly forced. “Oh, I do believe you are worrying for nothing, Anna dear. All is perfectly well with me.”
Anna’s silence said otherwise.
Still, Hester gave a soft chuckle, the sort one offered when the matter had grown too serious and needed to be quickly whisked back to comfort. She would not follow the thread of Anna’s meaning. Shecouldn’t. That path would lead to questions she had no intention of answering. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever.
She turned instead toward the fire, watching the shadows shift along the hearthrug. Whatever Anna had meant to say could float on, unguided and unanswered.
Hester had chosen her path. And she had no intention of picking up any sentiments that might slow her step.
Later, when the hour grew late and coats and shawls were collected, Hester stood at the door embracing each of their guests in turn.
“Oh, I shall miss you more,” she said warmly as she hugged Anna tightly. The others echoed the sentiment with smiles and more kisses on cheeks.
They were all to return to town come morning. The thought gave her a slight pang, for the evening had felt… full. She would dearly miss that.
As the party made their way down the steps, Hester paused just inside the doorway, watching Thomas speak with Copperton and Craton near the carriage.
“I’ll have the new contract drawn up and sent to you both before the week’s end,” he was saying.
She tilted her head, curious. Craton and Copperton nodded along, clearly familiar with the matter.
“Oh, it’s been five years, and you’re still just as maddeningly efficient,” Craton laughed. “There’s no need to rush, Lushton. We’re happy to wait.”
Hester’s brows lifted.Five years?
She hadn’t realized Thomas and Craton had known one another for so long. Nor that their business ties predated his ascension. What sort of work had occupied him before he’d inherited the dukedom?
What manner of wife was she that she knew nigh on nothing about her husband? Sighing, she tucked the thought away.
“Very well,” Thomas replied, and the men clasped hands before parting.
She turned and walked back into the castle. In the drawing room, she perched on the edge of a settee. Silence fell for a beat before Thomas joined her.
“Ye were unsurprisingly remarkable tonight, Duchess,” Thomas said, approaching her with the ghost of a smile.
Hester’s lips lifted in response. “I never cease to amaze you, do I?”
“Indeed,” he said. “Though it appears you are quickly forgetting yer humility.”
“Well, you are terribly contagious, Thomas. It was bound to happen.”
They both laughed before his expression softened. Then, just as swiftly, it sobered.
“I ought to tell you this now,” he said. “I’ll be leaving at first light.”
“Leaving?”
The word escaped her before she could temper it, sharp and far too revealing. Hester straightened at once, willing her spine not to betray her sudden unease. But the feeling, low and cold, had already curled deep in her stomach.
Thomas nodded. “There’s been trouble at Norwood. The river rose and took part of the bridge with it. Two tenant cottages were damaged as well. I must see to it.”
She stared at him, her thoughts briefly muddled by the mention of a place she barely knew. Norwood. One of the estates listed in the documents of his possessions she had seen after their marriage but little more than a name to her.
“I ought to have left this morning,” he went on. “But I did not wish to leave you to manage the hosting alone.”
She shook her head though whether it was in denial or discomfort, she couldn’t quite say. “You needn’t have stayed on my account.”
But even as she said it, her chest gave a strange little pull.
