She tugged on her hand, but he held it fast, brushing his lips across her knuckle.
“An excuse for what, Silas? Quit talking in riddles, I pray you!”
He smiled, defeated, against her skin, closing his eyes.
“An excuse to reach out and take what I want. What I havealwayswanted.”
“And what is that?”
Honora stared up at him in confusion, her hands holding his now, a glimmer of understanding shining in her gaze.
“You, Honora. I want you.”
They stared at each other as the breeze rushed through the trees above them, birds chirping in the boughs.
“But…you refused my kiss, you acted as if you hardly knew me all these years. Why?”
She ripped away from his grasp, rising clumsily to her feet as her eyes flashed with fire.
“I love you, Silas. I loved you then as I do now, Lord help me,and you acted as if I didn’t exist.”
She wheeled around and ran in the direction of the house, her hair tumbling from her pins and falling free down her back as she fled from him, from his confession.
“I love you too,” he whispered roughly into the wind, wishing that somehow the words would find their way to her heart.
* * *
After what felt like an age spent wallowing in defeat, sprawled on the blanket amidst the ruins of their picnic, Silas dragged himself to his feet and made his way back to the house.
He needed to fix things. Immediately.
He couldn’t go another day without Honora knowing that she was like the moon and stars, the sun, the very reason for every breath Silas took.
He came across Jobs on the way, the man looking relieved when he caught sight of him.
“My lord, is Miss Seton with you?” The man looked around anxiously, searching the path.
Something hard and dreadful settled in the pit of Silas’s stomach. Why had he let his guard down? Despite the guards patrolling the property, he should have been more careful. It was an unconscionable mistake.
“No. She went ahead of me. Why?”
“She has not returned, and you were out for such a long time…I did not want to disturb you. But, you say she is not with you?”
“No.” Silas strode forward, foreboding twisting in his gut. “Check the stables, Jobs, I will search the way back to the house.”
He started to jog, loping across the field. “Find her,” he called over his shoulder.
But somehow he knew they were already too late.
After an afternoon spent combing the house and surrounding fields with the servants and stablehands, Silas had to admit defeat.
They had found a ribbon from her hair, snared in a bramble at the edge of the woods, in the direction of the main road.
Honora was gone. Taken, most likely.
Each hour that passed meant she was further from his reach, and his heart felt brittle with fear.
How the hell would he explain this to Benedict?
