“It is that important?” she asked.
He looked around at the well-loved house with its time-darkened paneling and white linenfold walls, its family portraits and dark pastorals topped off by one rather rusty set of armor. The house had been in his grandmother's family since Queen Bess had been a girl. It had been his refuge his entire life. He knew every cranny and cherished every out-of-plumb line and eccentricity.
It washis,damn it. It and everything and everyone it protected. But only if the duke agreed.
Then he thought of his fiancée's tear-ravaged face. He could hate his father for this. She didn't deserve any of it.
He was bringing her back anyway.
“Vital.”
And for reasons even greater than his home.
Gen took her own look around. She had spent quite a bit of time here herself, having grown up on the next estate over. “Then you are quite right. You must run her down.”
Flint sighed. He knew that. His father had given him no choice. It was the girl or the house.
If there were only a more honorable way to do this.
“I believe it's time for me to go to my own home,” Gen told him as they reached the black-and-white marble entryway. “Along with everyone else. The last thing you need is an audience. And Flint?”
He stopped to attend her.
“If this plays out the way it looks, then I expect you to honor it.”
He raised his eyes to hers and saw their shared history in their depths. Friends, one-time lovers, neighbors. He'd once thought she would be his wife. She'd fallen in love with somebody else, though. Her words meant that even their casual flirtation was over.
She lifted a hand to his cheek. “Make sure she understands. She will not accept a lie.”
He nodded, his heart a little sore. He realized now he had held out a hope that with Gen widowed, they might find their way back together again. Depending on how things went in the next few weeks, his father had quite thoroughly put paid to that idea. Gen would never disrupt a family the way hers had been.
“I'll let you know how things fall out,” he promised.
She shot him a flashing grin. “Oh, I have a feeling I'll be able to hear it from Ravenwood. I’ll give Aunt Winnie a quick visit and then be gone along with the rest.”
Another complication in his life. “See if she’s interested in leaving anytime soon.”
Gen just smiled, since both of them knew the answer to that. Aunt Winnie had been ensconced in this house as long as either of them could remember.
With one last brief kiss, Gen shooed him out the front door. “Go on. I have to breach the billiards room.”
His head groom was waiting for him by the front step.
“She's gone, then,” the banty Irishman said in a near-growl. “You can fire me if you want, but Billy Burke isn't one to turn away a weeping girl.”
Flint thought he was doing a lot of sighing today. Good lord. She'd turned the man who'd taught him to ride against him. “You know damn well I won't fire you, Billy,” he told the grizzled, bent old man. “Now go get me my curricle.”
“Why?” the old man demanded, hands on hips.
Flint leaned down until they were nose-to-nose. “To bring her back.”
For a moment the only thing that could be heard was distant birdsong and the chuckle of the fountain on the front lawn.
Then, abruptly, Billy nodded. “Well, all right, then.”
He'd spun around and was stalking over to the stables when Flint spoke up. “She rides, huh?”
The question earned him a rusty bark. “Sits like a sack o’ corn.”
