“Such as Lady Charlotte,” Isla said before she could bite the words back.
He stilled. “We are not discussing Charlotte in a damp lane.”
“No,” she said. “We are not discussing her at all. You may go back to her. I am sure she has not fainted at anyone in the last hour. She must be starving for attention.”
“Isla,” he said warningly.
“What?” she demanded. “You sent me away, Edward.”
“I suggested,” he said, “that you might be safer in Perthshire than under my mother’s roof while she and Charlotte prepared their exhibition. I did not imagine you would bolt like a startled filly.”
“As you say,” she said. “You did not imagine.”
His temper, which had been held in check since she swung the branch, snapped.
“You accuse me of pushing you out,” he said, “and yet you left without a word to me. You wrote to your brother, you ordered the horse, you took my trap and you did not think to tell your husband you were going.”
“Would it have made any difference if I had?” she asked. “You had already chosen your side.”
“Regardless,” he went on, “you are here now. On the road. Alone. Which is an absurdity I intend to rectify.”
“I am not returning to Wexford,” she said at once.
“Good,” he said.
She blinked. “Good?”
“If we turned back now,” he said, “my mother would take it as proof that she can order my household. I have no intention of rewarding her tactics. We are going north.”
We.
The word slid under her guard before she could raise it.
She crossed her arms. “I am going north. You are going back.”
“I am not,” he said.
“You cannot simply attach yourself to my journey,” she said. “This is my business.”
“You are my wife,” he said, with maddening calm. “Your business is my business.”
“You did not always feel that way. When you shut yourself away in your study to avoid me,” she shot back.
“I feel that way now,” he said. “Which is when it matters.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
“She mentioned it to me. Clearly she has also mentioned it to you,” Isla said, quietly.
He watched her, some of his irritation easing into something more thoughtful.
“I came after you,” he said, more quietly, “because the roads are dangerous. Because you are stubborn. Because I could not sit at my desk and imagine every wheel rut and ditch and rogue you might encounter without doing something.”
It was too much. And not enough.
She looked away, toward the main road, the strip of grey vanishing between the trees.
“Very well,” she said. “You have found me. You have scolded me. You may return to your study and your ghosts.”
