Page 89 of A Christmas Temptation for the Duke
Alison spun about just in time to see what looked like a young boy diving from the road as the horses charged on ahead, missing him by inches. And her eyes widened when that same boy whipped his head around in time to see her.
It was Tommy…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Are you certain this is what you want to do?” Godfrey asked.
Daniel scowled at the valet but said nothing.
“Just double checking…” Godfrey pulled his coat in tighter, shivering from the freezing cold as well as the water that sprayed across his face. “Last minute changes of mind are always welcome.”
“As I have told you a dozen times, my mind is made up.” Daniel scowled in warning once more. “You mention it again, and the cold will be the least of your concerns.”
“I never was much for travel by boat either,” Godfrey offered with a pitiful chuckle. “I tend to get seasick.”
“You have a few tough months ahead then.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Daniel could feel Godfrey watching him out of the corner of his eyes, the overly familiar valet clearly wishing to push the issue further. But Daniel clenched his jaw and fixed his gaze ahead, determined to force silence because the last thing he needed right now was a reason to have his mind changed.
That I am looking for that reason should be enough to tell me this is the wrong thing. That I want him to keep pressing at me, as if to wear me down… why do I refuse to admit it?
But it was too late, and Daniel clung to that fact as if it was a raft in a storm.
It was he and Godfrey alone. They stood by the end of the pier, their eyes cast down its length at the ship which was just now being loaded and set for the coming trip. Dozens of sailors crowded the area and hurried up its deck, each carrying heavy boxes and chests and wooden barrels and sacks of foodstuffs needed for the coming months at sea.
The morning was as dreary and morose as Daniel had expected; as if the day had woken with a determination to match his mood. Clouds sat dark in the sky. Snow drifted lightly from their bosom. Sharp winds whipped and cut at exposed skin. And the ocean beneath Daniel’s feet thrashed and roared its anger, its spray a wet and cold warning of what was to come.
“Any minute now,” Daniel said, more to himself than Godfrey.
“Aye,” Godfrey agreed. “The captain said he’d come for us when it was time. Should be soon.”
“No going back.” He spoke distantly, his voice wavering in the wind. “No going back…”
This was the right move. The only move, as far as Daniel was concerned. This world was not for him, this life not one to be sought after or held onto. Everyone Daniel had ever known or loved was better off for him leaving, and only once he was as far from these shores as possible might he finally have a chance to… to what? To find happiness? To live peacefully? To forget what he was leaving behind? He wished he knew.
Thoughts of Alison ruined him.
That she had come to him last evening, that she had announced her love, was more than he could handle. It had broken him, very nearly forced him from this path because once she spoke those words, they lit inside of him a fire that had sat dormant now for years.
One which told him, as he had always known, that he loved her too.
It does not matter that I love her, and that is what she fails to understand. She will be better off without me… she will find someone worthy of her… this is the only way.
“There he is,” Godfrey sighed. “About time, all things considered.”
Daniel nodded with understanding when he saw the captain of their ship trudging down the dock. He waved at them to join him, the sea beneath his feet rocking the pier.
It’s time. No going back…
Daniel indicated to the captain that he saw him. Deep inside, there was that final effort brought from his conscience not to do this, begging him to stay and go to Alison. But Daniel, ever the stubborn one, fought it back and started his way down the pier.
“My lord!” a voice cried from behind him. “Wait! My lord! Stop! Please!”
Daniel spun about at the sounding of his name, and he scrunched his face and leaned back when he spied none other than Tommy sprinting down the docks and toward the pier.
“Tommy?”
