With a sigh, I set those thoughts away for later examination, refusing to sully this outing. The horses clopped beside each other down the lane, an apple orchard at our sides. Hugh glanced around surreptitiously before grabbing an apple and tossing it to me. He took a second and chomped into it with no decorum.
“I have come to find myself quite fond of this part of the country. It’s quite beautiful,” I said, desperate to move on to easier topics.
“You have?” he asked, throat bobbing in that infuriatingly attractive manner.
“Yes, and your weather is quite fine here. Every fine day, I expect will be the last of the year, but it never seems to be.”
“We seem to have had a stroke of luck today.” His voice was thick and strained in an unfamiliar way. “Kate, I… I hope you find Kent to your liking. And Thornton. I—the countryside was bereft in your absence.”
“I do not expect to leave for Lincolnshire again in the near future. You may assure the countryside of my continued presence.”
I sensed more than heard the weight of his exhale. “That is good to hear.”
“I discovered on my trip that my home is no longer in Lincolnshire.”
“I… I know I should express my regrets, but I find I cannot. I find I much prefer… that is—damn it all! Kate, I missed you like the devil!”
Perseus started at the abrupt shift in his tone, dancing restlessly forward until Hugh pulled back on the reins. I urged Andromeda to a stop. Hugh tossed one leg over and hopped to the ground, grabbing at my mount’s reins and tying them both to a nearby post. He appeared at my side, catching my hips as I dismounted before settling me onto the path. Releasing me just as quickly, Hugh began to pace to and fro in front of me, agitation clear in his countenance. It was… I had never seen him so… My mouth hung open in unladylike astonishment and I could not bring myself to care.
“I missed you.” He said, finally ceasing his pacing and facing me. “And I am so damn tired of doing things properly. I was so caught up in doing what was correct that I forgot to do what wasright. I wasn’t supposed to care about Michael, and it cost me a brother. I knew how to manage the estate best and I lost nearly everything. And you—you, Kate. You weren’t what I was supposed to want and I just—I will doanything—do you understand—anything to keep you. But you must tell me what it is you need, frankly and in the plainest terms. Because if these past few months have proven anything, it is that I have no idea what that is.”
He towered over me, chest rising and falling in rapid, heaving breaths. His hands hovered inches above my shoulders, fists clenching every so often. My own chest was heaving under my spencer in time with his. The air between us was thick and present, tangible.
“I have not been hiding my feelings without reason, my lord. I was trying to be the viscountess you wanted.”
Rearing back, he strode over to the fence, dropping his head to rest against a post. “I know,” he said, defeated. He turned to face me, back against the fence. “I know you were. And it was what I thought I wanted but I was wrong. I have been wrong about a great many things, Kate. But never anything as much as I was wrong about this. I cannot go back to the way things were. I cannot play act at what I was taught a husband should be. And I cannot accept a lie, not from you. I want to be married. To you. I want to be your husband in every complicated, messy, beautiful definition of the word. And I wantyoufor my wife. Not a perfect viscountess, just you.”
“What does that mean? For you?”
“I want to tell you when I make mistakes, so we can solve them together. I want to know about all your ridiculously ill-advised matchmaking endeavors, and your music, what it is you giggled with Lady Juliet about in the library, and whatever ridiculous gowns your aunt purchased for you. Anything, everything you wish for me to know. And I need you to tell me if you find something upsetting. Please. Preferably before you reach the point of storming into my study like an avenging angel.”
“I will do my best,” I said. I found my way to his side, leaning against the post as well.
A sigh left him and most of his agitation escaped with the breath. Part of me lamented upsetting him, but it was the truth, and he had asked for the truth. I had been hiding for months, so it wouldn’t be an easy habit to break.
“That is all I can ask, I suppose. I… may I ask something?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Were… was… that morning in the study. Was that everything? Or is there something else I should know?”
“It will not upset you to hear it?”
Another sigh. “It will upset me greatly to learn of yet more ways I have failed you. But I cannot rectify that which I am ignorant of.”
He was determined to press on this bruise then. Safest to start with the oldest of wounds then. Time has lessened its sting. “You did not allow me to invite Kit to Christmas last year.”
“I knew that was poorly done as soon as I did it. I am sorry. You have invited him this year, I presume.”
“I have not.”
“There is still time. You should write to him when we return to the house.”
“I do not think it is a good notion.”
“Tell me,” he said. His voice was honey deep and rumbling beside me.
“I would not subject him to your mother’s commentary.” I could not allow anyone I love to be spoken to the way his mother spoke to me.
