“You don’t?” he replied with no small amount of shock. “It seems like perhaps you should.”
“I don’t,” she repeated, reaching across the table for his hand and squeezing it hard. “Sometimes, love can strike us before we’re ready to hold it. I am wiser now. I am less afraid. I am ready for what I feel and have always felt for Raul. It had to happen this way because it never would have worked in the other.”
He wrinkled his brow, giving half a shake to his head. He knew what she was doing, what she was saying, but it was just so verypainful to think about. How long had she hurt like this? How long had she carried it quietly, and alone?
“Do you understand?” she asked softly, still squeezing his hand, her eyes searching his face.
He sighed and nodded, flipping his hand over so that her grip would fall into his palm, so that he could hold her in return. “I think so.”
“That’s good,” she said, her shoulders easing and a little smile coming over her face. “I am so glad we saw each other this morning.”
“So am I, Mother,” said Freddy, relaxing in turn and returning the smile. “Truly. So am I.”
CHAPTER 18
The departures started in earnest on the morning of the third day, but it wasn’t until the fourth that the carriages for London were set to leave.
Claire had always hated goodbyes.
“You could come with us to Chipping Camden,” she was saying to Ember, holding her hands like she could keep the other woman in place from the sheer strength of her own fingers. “You might have a good time!”
“I’m certain I would,” Ember replied apologetically, “but with Silas staying, Joe has to get back to the firm. There’s still half a Season to go of ne’er-do-wells and upstarts causing legal mischief, and my man has made himself the center of their particular anchors. Besides, I’ve a new business to launch, and it’s ready for furniture.”
“Oh, bother,” Claire tutted, frowning.
Millie and Abe had delivered much the same excuse. It was still mid-Season, the high months for their own business in privateinvestigations, and they could not allow to be gone for much longer if they wanted to meet their margins for the year.
“Besides,” Millie added quietly, leaning in so as not to be overheard, “I think I should be in London before I start to show.”
“To … to show?” Ember repeated, her eyes falling to Millie’s midsection with a little gasp.
“Millie!” Claire shouted, drawing attention from servants and guests alike and immediately coloring. She lowered her volume, cleared her throat, and corrected her posture before adding, “You should have said something.”
“Well, I wasn’t entirely sure,” Millie said with a little smile. “But now I am.”
“I bet you told Dot,” Claire replied testily, only to be met with a little flush and flattening of Millie’s mouth that confirmed that she indeed had. “Shameful!”
Dot arrived at exactly that moment, sighed, and said, “I told you she would know.”
As the servants began to mill about, stacking trunks and bags and valises into carriages, Freddy arrived. He launched into his own farewells to Ember and Joe, to Abe and Millie, all while Claire glowered at him with her arms crossed, hoping to maintain the illusion that she still expected him to have gone with them today, back to London.
“You will love the games,” Silas was saying to his wife. “They are perfectly absurd. It was the only thing Freddy and I ever agreed was worthwhile when we were small.”
“They are the highlight of the year,” Freddy called, turning from his conference with Abe and Joe to agree. “I cannot wait to see them again.”
Claire narrowed her eyes.
“Is there another Hightower home in Chipping Camden?” Dot wondered, looking from one brother to the other. “Or shall we stay in the inn?”
“We have an old hunting box outside of town,” Freddy answered her, flashing a smile, “and a series of cottages dotted around it. We don’t take up the already limited space at the inn for the event of the year.”
“The hunting box is too decayed to stay in, but you and I will have one of the cottages,” Silas explained, taking his wife’s hand. “You will love it.”
As the gathered group spilled out onto the green to say final farewells, Claire lingered just a little behind, long enough to catch Freddy before he could fully crest the threshold of the front door. She touched him lightly at the bicep, trying not to feel the warmth of his skin through his clothes. He turned, surprise in the pale blue of his eyes as they caught hers.
“You are not coming to the games,” she said softly, her lungs squeezing at the whiff of his scent that floated around them when he moved, at that sparkle of bergamot and lavender in the air.
He hesitated, something like a grin looking like it was boiling beneath the surface of his expression as his eyes flicked down to her hand on his arm and back up to her face.
