He nodded once, sharply, and disappeared through the door.
Lillian stood alone in the green sitting room, her heart racing, her mind spinning with the implications of what had just occurred.
He had invited her to ride with him. Alone. Without the buffer of Rosanne's presence.
Whatever walls remained between them, he was choosing, deliberately, consciously, to lower them.
Tomorrow.
***
From the gallery above the entrance hall, hidden in the shadows, Rosanne watched her brother walk away from the sitting room with a stride that was not quite steady.
She had not meant to eavesdrop. She had simply been passing through. What mattered was what she had seen through the partially open door: Daniel and Lillian, standing close enough to touch, speaking in voices too low to hear.
And then Daniel's face as he walked away. The expression of a man who had just stepped off a cliff and was not yet certain whether he would fall or fly.
Rosanne smiled; a small, private smile of profound satisfaction.
Finally, she thought.Finally, you stubborn, impossible man. You are letting her in.
She had worked for this moment for weeks. The manufactured absences, the convenient headaches, the relentless observation and careful maneuvering. She had seen what Lillian could do for her brother, she had seen the way he softened in her presence, the way his walls crumbled when she was near, and she had been determined to give them every possible opportunity to discover it for themselves.
Chapter Ten
"His Grace is waiting for you in the stable yard, miss. He asked that I inform you the moment you arrived."
Lillian paused at the entrance to the Wynthorpe stables, her heart executing a small, treacherous flutter that she firmly instructed it to cease. She was not a schoolgirl. She was a woman of three-and-twenty who had long since learned to govern her emotions with practical good sense. The fact that she was about to spend an unspecified amount of time alone with the Duke of Wyntham, without Rosanne's cheerful presence as a buffer, was not cause for fluttering.
It was, if she was being entirely honest with herself, cause for something rather closer to terror.
"Thank you," she said to the groom, pleased that her voice emerged steady and unremarkable. "I shall go to him directly."
The stable yard was bathed in the golden light of mid-morning, the cobblestones still damp from an early mist that had since burned away. The air smelled of hay and horses and the particular crispness of autumn; that scent of decay and renewal intermingled, of endings and beginnings happening simultaneously.
Lillian saw Daniel before he saw her.
He was standing beside a handsome bay gelding, adjusting something on the saddle with the focused attention of a man who needed to occupy his hands. His riding clothes were immaculate, dark coat, buff breeches, boots polished to a mirror shine, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that spoke of tension rather than ease. He looked, Lillian thought, like a man preparing for battle rather than a morning ride.
Beside his gelding stood Minerva.
The mare's coat gleamed like burnished copper in the sunlight, her dark eyes intelligent and calm. She was already saddled, a lady's saddle, Lillian noted, of excellent quality, and her bridle was adorned with a single blue ribbon that matched, almost exactly, the color of the riding habit Lillian was wearing.
He had noticed. He had noticed what she wore, and he had remembered, and he had chosen accordingly.
The flutter in Lillian's chest intensified. She advised it, somewhat desperately, to be quiet.
"Miss Whitcombe."
Daniel had seen her. He straightened, his hands falling to his sides, and for a moment they simply looked at each other across the length of the stable yard. The morning light caught his features, softening the sharp angles of his jaw, warming the dark depths of his eyes. He looked, Lillian searched for the right word, uncertain. Almost nervous.
It was strangely reassuring to know she was not the only one.
"Your Grace." She crossed the cobblestones toward him, acutely aware of every step, every rustle of her riding habit, every beat of her foolish heart. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."
"Not at all. I was merely..." He gestured vaguely toward his horse. "Attending to some adjustments."
"Of course."
