“Then if you mentioned that I had gone riding,” he said, “add a postscript to assure her that Gil brought me home safely, not a scratch upon my person.”
“I will,” she said. “I am not spying upon you on Mama’s behalf, you know, Harry. Or spying at all, in fact. But you cannot stop us from beingconcerned.”
“I know.” He grinned. “And I appreciate that you are. I am going to put my feet up for a while before luncheon. You do not need to walk me back to the house. Stay and have a word with Gil. I am sure you are itching to ask him how Ireallyfared.”
She was not itching for any such thing. But Lieutenant Colonel Bennington had heard, so she waited politely for him to be finished with what he was doing while Harry set out alone for the house.
“I steered him clear of all six-foot hedges,” he told her when he joined her in the stable yard doorway a few minutes later. “It was a very sedate ride, Miss Westcott, and he was a bit frustrated by that very fact. He has always been a neck-or-nothing rider, as I daresay you know. But he has surmounted another hurdle in his recovery.”
“I really did not need a full report,” she said, flushing. “I do try not to fuss over him.” He smelled of leather and horse, as Harry had. It was not an unpleasant smell. “It is just that... Well, we spent years worrying, as thousands ofmothers and sisters and wives did, and then months on end preparing ourselves for what seemed his certain death. He is precious to us.”
“He will do,” he said. “He will do very well indeed. I have never known a tougher soldier than Harry Westcott.”
She nodded and turned to make her way back to the house. She had never thought of Harry as tough when he was a boy or very young man. In many ways he seemed the same now as he had ever been. But he was not, was he? He had lived through six years that might have broken him or toughened him. Just as she had lived through the same years, grappling with them in her own way.
She hoped that Lieutenant Colonel Bennington would stay in the stables for a while after having a word with her. He had not been avoiding her during the last few days any more than she had avoided him, but he had not sought her company either. But he fell into step beside her now, a silent presence on her right side. She kept her hands clasped firmly at her waist while he held his behind his back. He was the one who broke the silence.
“I believe, Miss Westcott,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
“Oh? For what?” she asked foolishly, turning her head to look up at him.
“For kissing you,” he said. “It was unpardonable.”
“Yet you ask my pardon?” she said.
“I do.”
She wondered, as she had done surely a hundred times since it had happened, why he had done it. And why she had allowed it.It was nothing,she was on the verge of saying now. But it had been something. Of course it had. She had slept badly since. She had found herself reliving the kiss and feeling guilty about doing so. As though she sought some thrill in what had not been thrilling. Or ought not to have been.
“Then you have my forgiveness,” she said.
“Thank you.”
Had this not happened before? Ah yes, out in the woods when he had apologized for misleading her into thinking him a servant. And in the process of speaking to each other now, they had somehow stopped walking—in the gap between the stables and the house, the very place where she had stopped walking on that day she had watched him chopping wood. There was another pile of wood there now, she could see.
“When do you expect to hear from your lawyer again?” she asked. Silly question. It was only three days since he had received the last letter.
“I have no idea,” he said. “This is an eternal waiting game, Miss Westcott. The sort of thing I am least suited for. But I will not wait him out here for much longer. I can promise you that. I will stay long enough to be sure that Harry feels perfectly comfortable in the saddle, perhaps another week, and then I will be off.”
“To your home?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Would you be thinking of leaving,” she asked him, “if I were not here?” She could have bitten out her tongue, but the question had been asked.
There was a lengthy silence, during which time they stood where they were.
“The thing is,” he said at last, “that procrastination can become a way of life. Waiting can become total inaction. I came here because I was needed—and because I could not bear the thought of going home alone. I have been here several weeks and will be needed for perhaps another one. Harry is growing stronger by the day. He will have you for company after I am gone and numerous friends and friendly neighbors close by. I would be deluding myself if I stayedhere after next week because I thought my presence indispensable.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Sometimes one does wonder if one lives quietly from choice or if in reality one is merely waiting for something that may never come.”
She could almost read his thoughts. It was a woman’s place to wait and a man’s place to do. And why were they standing here? She had a letter to finish and a postscript to add. And what had made her suddenly fear that she was wasting her life?Wasshe at peace here? Or was she merely waiting endlessly?
“You could come with me,” he said.
She whipped her head about to look up at him, her eyes wide.
“What?”
