They were only perhaps an hour from Dalston, and from there, he would have nowhere to go.
Only an hour left with her.
He rather doubted he would get much of a goodbye.
Confound it, what had he beenthinking?
He’d been so afraid of losing her, he had broken his word and guaranteed her loss far sooner than he would have otherwise. The question, the solution to her problems, had fallen out of his mouth without any assistance from his brain, and he had ruined everything.
He might as well just be honest with himself and call it love. Nothing else could make such a fool of him.
His mood only deteriorated further when he re-entered the taproom, having bargained for the use of a carriage with almost all his remaining money, to find Emily’s face blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed.
She avoided his gaze.
Wonderful.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, taking her elbow as he guided her through the room, which was now increasingly filled with rougher-looking locals. When she flinched and stepped away from him, he dropped his hand. “I never wanted to upset you.”
“Then why—” She cleared her throat and found her composure again. “You should never have asked.”
“No,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t part as friends, Em. Whatever else I may feel, I don’t want to lose my friendship with you.”
In the middle of the courtyard, a rickety carriage waited for them, a drenched ostler holding the reins and an equally drenched coachman glowering at them in the light of the oil lamp. Emily hesitated in the inn’s doorway, and Oliver removed his coat, sliding it clumsily over her shoulders. His bad arm ached, and he wished he were anywhere but here. All his euphoria had deserted him.
Still, he put his hand against her back and guided her to the carriage. Up close, it was even more dilapidated than he had thought—certainly a relic from the last century. He shivered as he handed her in and shut the door. Inside, it was even darker, and he debated lighting the internal lamp swinging from its hook by the door, but eventually decided against it.
“You cannot give me your coat,” she said, shucking it off and tossing it at him. “I won’t take your charity.”
He huffed an incredulous breath. “Is that why you think I proposed?”
“I’m not ashamed of the life I lead.”
“I never once suggested you ought to be,” he said, feeling as though he had sunk into a fever dream. Just an hour ago, he had been inside her, and it had been bliss. “But what comes next? Are you going to stay in that old house for the rest of your life as it slowly rots around you?”
Her sharp intake of breath was enough to tell him his words had landed, and he instantly regretted them.
“I happen to like that house,” she said.
He closed his eyes. “Of course you do.”
The swaying motion of the carriage threatened to disrupt his stomach, and he had flashbacks to the last time they had been in the vicinity of a carriage—and one a deal sight better than this.Then, the weather had been equally bad, and he knew that he had not been inebriated.
He did not have the same faith in the coachman.
Darkness continued to fall.
The silence stretched between them.
“What will you do once you’ve dropped me off at home?” she asked. “It’s late.”
“I still have my watch and ring.” He shrugged. “That should get me a room for the night, then I expect I will have to take the stagecoach down to my brother. If the worst happens, I should be able to travel post.”
She closed her eyes; he saw little in the dim light, but he saw that. “You shouldn’t have come with me.”
“If I had procured a decent carriage in daylight, I might not have done.” Especially given he had offered for her, and she had refused him. This proximity and coldness was akin to torture. “But, unfortunately, that was not on the cards for today, and I would prefer to be here in case something happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
