If not because of her love for him, then at least because a woman traveling alone in far-flung lands was not the safest situation and—
And none of it mattered because she wasn’t alone. She didn’t need to wait. She could have the adventures right now.
She didn’t need Thad.
“Sir?” the butler asked, his brow furrowed in obvious concern.
Thad shook his head. He did not trust himself to speak. Besides, what was there to say?
Priscilla was Princess Charming. Of that, Thad was certain. The problem appeared to be that he wasn’t her prince.
Her story appeared to involve the man she’d dreamed would fetch her since childhood after all. The criminally absent father who, despite all the odds, had turned up at the last moment just in time to cock up Thad’s wedding proposal.
All he could do was let his princess sail off to find the happy ever after she deserved.
“Not receiving,” he said aloud, lowering his flowers. “I understand.”
The door began to close before he’d even turned away.
Just before it clicked shut inches from Thad’s face, the door flung back open wide.
There she was. Priscilla. Looking resplendent in high color and chestnut curls and eyes that sparkled just like the sea that would carry her away.
She bit her lip. “Thaddeus.”
Thaddeus.
Just one word, and yet it seemed to convey that everything was indeed falling apart, just as it seemed. Even the air around them was thick and heavy and suffocating.
“Ma chérie,” he said, and lifted the flowers. “I came—”
“I know what you came to ask.” Her eyes were haunted, pleading, but she did not take the flowers. “I… can’t right now. My father’s here. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said as she shut the door.
It was true. He had never been sorrier in all his life. It felt like his heart was dying, rotting his chest from the inside out.
I can’t right now wasn’t yes or no, which was somehow even worse than an answer. Or perhaps it was the answer. Because the future Priscilla had been waiting on had just arrived.
As Thad trudged back to his gig, he tossed the bouquet of carefully chosen flowers onto the bench of the cabriolet. That’s where they belonged. Everyone knew beautiful white horses were for the hero of the story.
He wasn’t even part of the plot.
Chapter 14
Priscilla closed the front door and hurried to reopen the door to the parlor.
Guilt squeezed her heart. She hated seeing the happy hopefulness on Thaddeus’s face crumble so completely. She could welcome him inside and tell him what he wanted to hear. That she knew what to tell him, what to say, what to do.
But everyone was saying far too many words this morning. Another visitor had arrived not a quarter hour before him, while Priscilla was upstairs being dressed. Her maid had glimpsed the carriage while she was tying Priscilla’s stays.
They didn’t recognize the cabriolet, couldn’t see the passengers disembark from inside her dressing room, but something awful was happening. Raised voices trickled up through the floor, followed by the slam of a door.
She had flown downstairs with no shoes and half-finished curls, just in time to glimpse Thaddeus. He was not the cause of the commotion. The other guest was still inside. Muffled shouting from inside the front parlor was audible despite the closed door.
Priscilla could not abandon her grandmother to face another minute of such mistreatment alone.
On shaking limbs, she yanked open the door to the parlor and dashed inside.
