MY BRIDE IS NOT AT breakfast the next morning. When I inquire as to her whereabouts, I am told that she has gone for a walk. I don’t blame her for wanting one. The day is gorgeous, the temperature perfect, and I would have stayed out much longer on my ride if I weren’t so keen to see her again.
An hour later, in the midst of a conversation with my bailiff, I look up to see a carriage draw up to the front of the manor. A Larkspear carriage, which I have decidedly not ordered.
But I am no longer the only person in this manor with the authority to order such a carriage.
“You will have the funds for the ditches, Mr. Carroll,” I tell my bailiff. “We will save the discussion of new fences for another day.”
I do not, as a rule, truncate meetings with my agents, my solicitors, or my estate managers. Mr. Carroll tries his best to hide his astonishment. Then again, I am a man on my honeymoon and really ought not to be involved at all in discussions concerning fences or drainage ditches.
I go up to my bride’s rooms. She is not there, but her maid is, carefully packing her dresses into a large trunk. My blood runs cold. “Where is Lady Larkspear?”
“She is out with the dog, sir.”
I run.
I FIND HER ON THE bank of the trout stream, a pretty tartan blanket spread beneath her, her back against the trunk of a tree, a book in her hand, Grisham dozing by her side.
She watches my approach, her expression a strange mélange of rue and determination. “You look a little out of breath, Larkspear.”
I barely stop myself from bellowing, Where do you think you are going? Keeping a tight rein on both my temper and my panic, I reply, “I heard you were out here. I wanted to join you.”
She gestures with her book. “Do you enjoy The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam?”
“Who doesn’t?” My cheeks hurt with the effort of remaining polite. “‘A book of verses underneath the bough, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou.’”
Her smile is a stillborn one, as if she does not have enough joy left to see one through. “So you do read the books in your own library, at least.”
I can take it no more. “Why is your maid packing your bags?”
She flips through the pages of the book, not looking at me. “I am off to pay my sister and brother-in-law a visit. After that, my brother and his wife.”
I’d thought as much. But to hear her confirm it is a kick to the solar plexus. “When will you be back?”
The color seems to be draining from her face. “I have not decided.”
I feel cold everywhere. “Are you going to be back?”
“That too has not been decided.”
“Why? And why now?”
“Did I not tell you last night I might test your theory on which one of you I will miss more?”
Between me and him, she means.
“Don’t take me for a fool. There was nothing significant in that particular line. You are upset this morning because of something else.”
She rises to her feet. The sea-foam muslin of her walking dress ripples in the breeze.
“Really? Are you going to tell me that you know better than I what motivates my decisions?”
“Yes.” For suddenly I hear in my mind those precise words she’d uttered in the heat of passion that must seem to her, in the cold light of day, an unbearable confession to have made. “You admitted that I put you in a constant state of arousal.”
Her expression changes, a flash of outrage—that I would bring up the subject—followed by the shadow of fear.
“But you did not stop there, did you? You asked me to stimulate one specific region of your anatomy. And then, forgetting yourself, you even went so far as to tell me that I have found a weakness in you that you deplore.”
She flushes to the roots of her hair. “I will thank you to not—”
“It does not make you weak, my love, no more than my desire for you makes me weak.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” she retorts hotly. “It does make one weak. It makes one exploitable. And it makes one unable to defend oneself.”
Her answer would make no sense, unless…
“Are you afraid that you are falling in love with me, when you still can’t trust me completely?” I blurt out.
She flinches. The question hangs between us, making me feel naked. She does not understand—not entirely, in any case—how much power she wields over me. With a few sharp words, she can shatter my heart. Then with a few more, she can put it back together.
Frightful powers.
She speaks after a long silence. “I most certainly cannot trust you.”
“You will not come to trust me better from a distance.”
“And who says I want to trust you better?”
Oddly enough, it does not hurt as much as I thought it would. Perhaps because I see so much of myself in her fear-and pride-driven responses. “I think you do want to trust me better, but you are afraid of the vulnerability that comes with opening yourself to me.”