But even more insufferable than Emma was Mr. Knightley. Delilah had always thought him dashing, but now she held a revised opinion that he was simply a dour know-it-all. Further, the blasted man was always there for Emma’s worst moments—and more infuriatingly, he was always in the right.
But what Delilah truly didn’t understand was why these two people wanted to marry each other!
She snapped the book shut on a tiny roar of frustration and tossed it to the other end of the settee. No matter. No one was here to see her less than civilized behavior. For two solid weeks, she’d been the lone Windermere knocking about the walls of Casa Windermere with the servants and Valentina’s cat—the aptly named Miss Hiss, who made for feral company as she occasionally gifted Delilah a mouse on her pillow. She supposed it was sweet. Still, Delilah would prefer it if the mighty huntress would allow Delilah to stroke her fur as a sign of affection. She reckoned beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Delilah meandered over to the bow window overlooking the back garden still bright with late-summer blooms that had begun to fade and make way for coming autumn.
Two weeks.
It was an interminably long time to be holed up at home, waiting for inevitable scandal to follow on her heels to London. But she’d pored through all the gossip rags, daily, and there was not a whiff of it, not even in the blind items.
Sebastian had managed it.
That was what she’d come to realize.
Of course he had.
And what had she done?
Followed her first instinct.
She’d run.
She should’ve known she was flying too close to the sun. But the summer had been idyllic, and she’d gotten carried away in the perfection of it all—and she’d thought—what?—it would simply continue along that way?
As ever when she flew too close to the sun, she’d gotten scorched.
Truly, Fate had it out for her.
But that wasn’t what occupied her mind.
Why was Sebastian always mixed up in her worst moments?
She darted an annoyed glare at the book laying innocently on the settee.
The man was her blasted Mr. Knightley.
But, chimed in a small voice,isn’t he also mixed up in your best moments?
This summer… Was it perfect because she’d become a player in the theater company? Or…
Was it perfect because Sebastian had been there, too?
She tried to swallow around the unresolved lump in her throat. It had been there these last two weeks. An interesting word—fate.
It was as if she and Sebastian were…fated.
And she’d run.
Like she always did.
Except this time, she’d almost immediately known it for a mistake.
And yet she hadn’t turned back.
She was a person of forward momentum—and look where all that forward momentum had gotten her.
Here… Alone.
