Page 74 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

‘You are sounding so much happier.’

‘That is because I am.’

‘Oliver and Esther were here at Elmsworth last evening but they did not wish to disturb you.’

‘Oh, I would like to see them next time they come.’

‘I imagine it will be soon. Esther was full of questions though, so be prepared for that.’

‘And you are not?’ Her smile was kind.

‘I was waiting until you were stronger, but I would like to know how you got down to Hastings undetected.’

‘I went south because I thought Simon St Claire would probably go north. I hitched a ride with a family who were returning to Hastings. They dropped me off in the middle of the market town, where I purchased some basic clothing and Mrs Withers was there at the same stall and approached me to ask if I needed a place to stay. When I said I did she took me on the dray from the inn with all the week’s produce and so I gained a room at Winchelsea.’

‘I had imagined so much worse when you couldn’t be found. I thought Simon St Claire might have kidnapped you.’

‘I think he would have if I hadn’t run.’

It was the first time they had had an honest conversation since he had found her again, Phillip thought. It was the first time they had looked each other fully in the eye, too.

‘I know that I cannot return again to Society in London, so I was thinking when I feel better that I should like to rent a small house by the sea with a garden.’

He nodded and felt disappointment rise because every word precluded a future between them.

But she kept going, as he did not speak. ‘I am an outcast now and I have no fight left in me to be otherwise.’

‘There are options…’ She didn’t let him go on.

‘All of which will keep me at the will or grace of others, don’t you see? Simon St Claire has the house and land at Belton Park and there is very little left. I now want to make my life away from rumour and censure in a smaller and quieter way.’

She looked tired and much less robust than she had a few moments ago. Her hands twisted the material of her skirt this way and that. Phillip wished he could have stepped forward and laid his own over them, but her words sounded final. Once not so long ago he would have brought her up into his arms and whispered things to make it all better, but now…

Now they were two people whose path had forked and who had not pledged enough to each other before all of this had happened.

If he could go back and start again, what could he have promised? What would she have accepted? He watched her now leaning against the wall.

She had fought for him at the Kellands’ ball when the Society gossip had pointed their arrows at him. But this was another matter entirely. Here they were both vigilant and wary.

Willa had tried so hard to stay awake after the visit to the stables but she had not managed it and the second she had lain down on her bed in her room she had been asleep. Glancing at the clock in the corner, she saw it was now late afternoon, the shadows from the day sloping onto her sheets.

She had to let Phillip go and her words in the stables had allowed him an escape. He had taken it. He did not need to feel responsible for her or obliged to offer help and she hated both her weakness and her sadness.

Her hands came across her stomach and she breathed in Elmsworth. This is your heritage, little one, she thought, your family that has inhabited this land for centuries. Your father isthe eighth Earl of Elmsworth and if you are a boy you will be the ninth. Tears came to her eyes because a place in the world was important for everyone and as a child growing up she had seldom felt any sort of belonging.

Here the future stretched ahead and the past bolstered it up with all the portraits that marched down the main corridors. Every pale crenulated stone that made up the manor echoed of belonging as did the majestic oaks dotting the land around Elmsworth like sentinels.

This baby would be born into the lineage of men and women who had lived through the centuries as Morelands and as guardians of the earldom.

Yet she and Phillip were distant, both stung by the words she had delivered to him under the name of protection. Only an interlude. Just a dalliance. Leaving her no idea as to how she could break through the lies with truth.

She loved him.

She had always loved him.

Tears trickled down the side of her face and the sunset turned the room to the palest shade of rose.

She was surprised when a few moments later Phillip walked through the door of her bedroom and asked if he could have a few private words with her.