Lavender smiled ruefully. “I worried about the same thing with Kendrick. But love is worth the risk, Eden. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that. I wouldn’t trade those moments that he and I spent in Spain for anything in the world, even if they had been all I ever had with him. When I’m with Kendrick, I can be myself completely, and that’s no small thing.”
“I felt the same way about Max back then,” Eden said pensively. “He really listened to me, Lavender. He really seemed to see me, in a way no one else ever had.”
“You said your father denied his suit?” Lavender asked shrewdly. “That seems to indicate that he did indeed want to be with you. Now that your father and husband are gone, and you’re independently wealthy, none of the barriers of the past stand in your way.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Eden admitted. “Part of me wants nothing more than to pick up where we left off. But another part of me is happy with the life I lead now and has no interest in once again being beholden to any man.” She met her friend’s gaze. “Are you truly happy now? Do you have any regrets at all about choosing this life?”
“I am very happy,” Lavender said, and the sincerity in her eyes was absolute. “Sometimes it’s exhausting and overwhelming, but I have no regrets. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Thank you. I needed to hear that.” Eden sighed. “It’s a moot point anyway, I fear. Max has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want anything from me other than his fee. I tried to talk to him about how our relationship ended, but he said we must leave it in the past.”
“Men aren’t good at talking about their feelings,” Lavender said, reaching over to squeeze Eden’s hand. “But if he’s worth it, he’ll eventually let you in. In the meantime, you must steal a little bit of happiness for yourself. You get to be that girl who believed in love again, if only for the duration of the journey. Take the time, and see what happens.”
They moved on to talk about the details of the trip, but Lavender’s words stuck with Eden as she returned home to finish packing. She realized she’d needed to talk to her best friend even more than she’d thought. Lavender had such a serene presence about her, and her love story was the only one that Eden had ever even heard of that seemed likely to remain happy forever.
After their conversation that afternoon, she resolved to let things develop however they would and not try to push a relationship that had long since died. Still, if things went well, she was determined to embrace whatever taste of love she could manage. Wasn’t it better to have love and passion and lose them than never to know them at all? Despite how things had endedwith Max the first time, her life would have been poorer for never having loved him.
Back in her own room, she opened her wardrobe. She carefully took out a pair of the breeches that Daphne had made for her. She couldn’t imagine riding a camel sidesaddle, and during what was certain to be her rigorous trek through the desert, she would be far more comfortable wearing them than anything with skirts and petticoats.
She laughed at the mere thought of riding a camel. Such amazing experiences lay in front of her. She would not worry another minute about what may or might not happen between her and Max. All that mattered was that she was finally on her way to what was certain to be the greatest adventure of her life. She pulled the second pair of tweed breeches from the drawer and placed them into her trunk, a defiant farewell to the stuffy world of thetonshe was leaving behind.
Chapter Seven
By late afternoon the next day, Max had secured the last of the cargo, and Dover Harbor was already surrendering to the evening’s damp. The jetty lamps cast their amber halos through a salt haze, reflecting in every puddle on the stone. Dockworkers barked at one another over crates of fruit and casks of gin. Above them all loomed the black hull of the Peninsular and Oriental steamshipConstellation, the gold leaf of its name glinting in the low light.
He drew up near the customs shed, boots squelching through the mud, and dug his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. The air was raw and full of brine, and coal smoke billowed from the ship’s twin funnels. Up on the main deck, deckhands in tarred canvas swarmed, manhandling barrels and sorting through net-wrapped bales. The business of shipping an entire civilization’s worth of detritus could not proceed without chaos.
Max watched a crate stampedFRAGILE—CAIROtilt dangerously on a pulley, steadied at the last moment by the wiry boy who’d spent all morning trailing after the porters and earning their derision.
There was no sign of Eden yet. Max’s orders had been explicit: meet him at the gangway promptly at seventeen hundred hours, where he would escort her and her companion to their private quarters, giving them plenty of time to get settled before they got underway. She wasn’t late yet, but he feltanxious, nonetheless. He wouldn’t be able to relax until she was safe in her cabin.
A bell sounded from the purser’s office: half-past four. Passengers were beginning to drift up the gangplank, leaving England forever or at least for the winter.
He shifted his gaze up the wharf and caught a flash of fiery hair. Eden moved with brisk authority, setting her apart from the rest of the crowd. Flanking her was Mrs. Carlisle, a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, wearing starched black widow’s weeds, her thin face pinched and anxious. So, this was the chaperone that Eden had agreed to bring to preserve her reputation. He’d been assured that they’d leave her at the hotel in Cairo when they ventured out into the desert, then retrieve her on their way home.
Max straightened, his pulse accelerating. She was going to go through with it. He supposed that some small part of him had thought she might come to her senses at the last minute. He wasn’t certain if he was disappointed or elated that she hadn’t.
He should have known she was too stubborn to give up on her dream.
She met his eyes directly over the crowd, and it was all he could do to keep from hurrying toward her.
“Lady Eden,” Max said as she approached, offering the most perfunctory of bows.
She looked him up and down, her lips tightening ever so slightly at the formal address. “Mr. Thorne. I trust your journey from London was... tolerable?”
