"I….Yes, I can ride."
"Then we ride. Now."
He was already moving toward the horses, his movements quick and efficient. Within moments, both mounts were free and ready. He helped Lillian onto Minerva, his hands steady on her waist, his touch impersonal despite what had passed between them moments before, and swung onto his own horse with the fluid grace she had come to expect.
"You do not need to come," Lillian heard herself say. "I can find my way."
"I am coming." His voice brooked no argument. "We will ride for Hartfield together. Whatever you need, Lillian, whatever your family needs, you have only to ask."
She looked at him, this man who had just kissed her as though his life depended on it, who was now preparing to ride into unknown crisis at her side, and felt her eyes sting with sudden tears.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He nodded once, sharply, and turned his horse toward the path.
They rode for Hartfield at a gallop, and Lillian did not know what awaited her there.
Chapter Twelve
"He was on the roof. I told him...Itoldhim to wait for the men from the village, but you know how he is, Lillian. You know how stubborn he can be when he has decided something must be done."
Lillian's mother stood in the entrance hall of their house, her face pale beneath the careful composure she was struggling to maintain. Her hands were clasped tightly before her, the knuckles white, and there was a tremor in her voice that Lillian had never heard before; not through years of financial difficulties, not through the quiet disappointments of a life that had not turned out quite as expected, not through any of the small crises that had marked their modest existence.
This was different. This was fear.
"Where is he now?" Lillian asked, her own voice steadier than she felt. Behind her, she was acutely aware of Daniel's presence. A solid, silent figure who had followed her into the house without invitation and now stood just inside the doorway, uncertain of his place in this family drama.
"Upstairs. In the bedroom. Mr. Crawford is with him, the physician from the village. He came as quickly as he could, but..." Mrs. Whitcombe's composure cracked, just for a moment. "There was so much blood, Lillian. From his head. And the way he fell, the sound of it..."
"Mama." Lillian crossed the space between them and took her mother's hands, holding them firmly between her own. "Tell me what happened. From the beginning."
Mrs. Whitcombe drew a shaky breath. "The roof. You know it has been leaking—the corner above the study, where the tiles came loose in the spring storms. Your father has been meaning to have it seen to for months, but the expense…..And he thought perhaps he could manage it himself, just a temporary repair until we could afford to have the work done properly."
"He climbed onto the roof himself?"
"This morning. Early, before I was awake. I found his note on the breakfast table; he said he wanted to assess the damage, to see what materials would be needed." Mrs. Whitcombe's voice wavered. "He must have been up there for some time. One of the beams had rotted through, apparently. He stepped on it, and it gave way, and he..."
She could not finish. Lillian saw the image her mother could not speak: her father falling, the sickening crack of impact, the blood pooling beneath his head on the hard ground below.
"How far did he fall?"
"Fifteen feet. Perhaps more. He struck the flagstones beside the kitchen garden." Mrs. Whitcombe closed her eyes. "The cook heard him cry out. She found him lying there, not moving. We thought, for a moment, we thought..."
"But he is alive."
"Yes. Yes, he is alive. He regained consciousness before Mr. Crawford arrived. He knew who I was, where he was. He even tried to apologise for frightening me." A ghost of a smile crossed Mrs. Whitcombe's face. "That is your father, is it not? Apologising for his own injury."
"That is indeed Father." Lillian squeezed her mother's hands once more, then released them. "I am going to him. Will you..."
She hesitated, glancing back at Daniel. He stood where she had left him, near the door, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes dark with concern. He looked, Lillian thought, profoundly out of place; this tall, aristocratic figure in his fine riding clothes, standing in the modest entrance hall of a country gentleman's house, surrounded by worn carpet and faded wallpaper and all the small evidences of genteel poverty.
And yet he was here. He had ridden beside her, and he had followed her inside, and he showed no sign of leaving.
"Your Grace," Mrs. Whitcombe said, seeming to notice him for the first time. "Forgive me, I did not realis?e…...Lillian, you did not tell me you were…."
"His Grace was kind enough to escort me when we received the news," Lillian said quickly. "We were…...I was visiting Lady Rosanne when the message arrived."
It was not precisely a lie. It was simply an incomplete truth, and Lillian found she could not bring herself to offer more—not now, not with her father injured and her mother frightened and the memory of that kiss still burning on her lips like a brand.
