Their feet stopped moving as the music drew to a close. Two more dances in this set. Could she make it through them without breaking into tears?
Admissions
Willoughby kept silent as the second dance of the set began.
She’d asked him why he’d not come to see her the next morning. He remembered planning on it. He remembered thinking he’d buy her flowers. Something bright and big.
Why hadn’t he gone?
And out of the corner of his eyes he met his mother’s steely gaze watching him from her vantage point beside the Duchess of Marvelle.
Hell and damnation. Yes. His mother had stopped him that morning. She’d asked after his destination and he’d told her. She’d wrinkled her nose when he’d mentioned Matilda’s parents.
“You oughtn’t visit her so soon.” She’d advised. “Your father isn’t feeling well again, and I have need of an escort…”
He’d accompanied his mother to Estelle’s Parents garden party that day instead. He remembered intending to go to Miss Fortune’s home the following day… and his mother had asked him another favor.
That had been the beginning of his father’s illness. One would think watching one’s father die a long, slow and painful death would have been enough of a trial. One would have thought it perhaps would have prepared him for Estelle’s decline.
He vaguely remembered hearing of a couple being killed on their way to Brighton but hadn’t realized they had been her parents.
Would he have made the time to go to her had he realized? He’d lain in bed recalling how he’d felt to touch her. His recollections had perhaps not been as innocent as hers. He’d remembered her eager kisses, her fingers threading through his hair, down his neck…
“It was a most memorable evening.” He admitted aloud.
She’d been staring off over his shoulder, as lost in thought as he had been, but upon hearing his words, slid her glance back to his face.
“I think that perhaps, not everyone is so lucky.” Her smile wound itself around his chest.
It was what he’d thought before, in the carriage, when he’d first remembered.
“A very special moment in time.” He agreed.
He pulled her slightly closer. Not so much as to raise eyebrows but because…
He did not know why.
He’d not intended to dance with her. He’d asked impulsively, as soon as he’d realized the set was to be a waltz. And he’d not intended to tell her so much of his memories.
The two of them had been ill fated. Jasper maneuvered them around a cluster of couples near the edge of the floor.
There wasn’t time to lose himself in recollections of the past. The last governess would be coming tomorrow and hopefully he could approve of her. He might even return to Warwick Creek ahead of schedule. He wasn’t prepared to negotiate the bait and subsequent traps he’d inevitably come upon in town. Melancholy made him careless. If he wasn’t watchful, he’d find himself leg shackled to wide eyed debutante and his mother would be turning the key.
“You’re troubled.”
Her words floated up like a pleasant scent.
“And there you have it. The third time I must beg your forgiveness.”
She did not laugh this time, at his self-deprecating comment. Rather she watched him with those eyes of hers. “Hazel.” He stared into them. “And tonight, they appear more green than brown.”
“Your girls will be fine.”
And they would be. “Althea hardly talks at all. I fear Eloise removes all incentive.”
“They are five? Six? And they’ve lost their mother.” Her voice sounded with some authority. “But they have their father. And one another. I remember how close my sisters and I became after my parents passing. And we had my aunt. Children are resilient Jas– my lord.” She caught herself.
“One never ceases to worry.” He admitted. “But I find some comfort in your words.”
