Lily wrinkled her nose. “There’s a story there, I’m afraid. The young lady’s groom went to check the horses in the morning.” She lowered her voice. “He never returned.”
Julia’s heart panged. “Oh, how sad.”
“They were eloping. Just like you. You’d be surprised how often it happens.”
Julia quirked a brow. “I thought Mr. Todd doesn’t permit couples of ill repute underneath his hallowed rafters.”
“Well…” Lily glanced down at Julia’s muddied breeches. “Usually, the eloping couples are…”
“More discreet?” Julia supplied.
“If you’ll pardon, miss.”
“I can’t take this.” Carefully, Julia folded the night rail, feeling for the unknown abandoned bride. “I’d think of the poor woman’s heartbreak every time.”
“I know what you mean,” Lily agreed. “You’ve one of the good ones, though.Hewon’t abandon you.” Lily elbowed her. “You’ve all the luck, you have.”
Did she haveall the luck?
If Rayne had truly meant what he’d said—that he’d do anything for her and their future family—she absolutely did.
Love would not fail. She only hoped courage was equally resilient.
“Now,” Lily said. “Let’s see what we can do about your hair.”
…
Following Mr. Todd’s thorough tongue-lashing, Rayne returned to find the foaling room empty. At first, his heart seized. Had Julia come to her senses and left him after all? Gone on, on her own, to her delightful Cracked-skull?
His eyes adjusted to his lamp’s dim light.Twobeds had been carefully laid.Two. Those three little letters delivered lighted-headed, intoxicating relief.
He traversed the length of the room and back, then chose the colder bed, the one farthest from the kitchen wall. She’d shown few lasting ill effects from her chill, but, given the circumstances, keeping her warm as possible seemed wise.
Wise.
He snorted. Neither of them could be called wise, could they? He’d no choice but to admit he’d fallen in love with pestilence herself, and, though he’d shown her plenty enough to despise, she appeared to trust him completely.
But she didn’t know the failure that left him most ashamed. She hadn’t seen inside of the Grange. She hadn’t any idea of the length of the manor’s shadows, and she could not comprehend the full extent of callousness and neglect embedded into his inherited legacy.
He bunched his coat and tossed it over the top of the bed for a pillow.
…Nor could she conceive of the things he wanted to do to her body. Tender feelings had taken root when she was ill, but a strong undercurrent of lust ran just beneath the surface—an undertow that threatened with a more-than-occasional tug inside the deepest part of his gut.
Settling down on the hay, he studied the faint, orange fingers of light as they lapped against the ceiling, allowing his nagging lust to be subdued by his fatigue. In its absence, his mind webbed with hazy versions of the future.
Couldhe salvage his birthright with her by his side? Could he manage to control the worst of his inclinations and bed her as a gentleman was supposed to bed his wife?
And what if he could, but she was truly attached to the man she’d set out to meet? Just because Rayne had kissed her first didn’t give him any right to steal her away.
On the other hand, he couldn’t help feeling the hand of fate guiding this journey.
Fate had thrown them together, set them on a path to Periwinkle Gate—the only place where people still believed in his worth. Could that mean—though he’d failed in his duty and disappointed both himself and his friends—fate intended to give him faith in his potential? Show him his rough edges could still be cut away and his core polished?
He could not formulate an answer. Not tonight.
He’d no fight left.
Between the prior night’s fitful slumber and the dizzying relief of actually making it across the bridge and the hellfire sermon he’d just endured, all he wished for was sleep.
