She looked up into the harsh, masculine beauty of his face, running her eyes over every beloved angle and plane, before meeting his blazing gaze head on. She knew what she had to say, the words bitter and heavy on her tongue, a mouthful of poison she must either spit out or consume.
Bess forced the words out like a curse, like her dying breath, never taking her eyes off his.
“Love…doesn’t matter.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Three weeks.
It had been three interminable weeks since Nathaniel walked out of Bess’s kitchen—out of her life—without a backward glance.
Bess thought about the countless weeks upon weeks still left to go in her life, all to be somehow gotten through on her own, without Nathaniel, and sighed.
“Fourteen,” Lucy announced from across the table they’d claimed near the bar. The remains of a very good fish pie sat in front of them. “I make it fourteen, what do you say, Gem?”
Lady Gemma Lively, now Gemma, Duchess of Havilocke, pursed her pretty lips thoughtfully and took a sip of ale. A ring set with a large, oval garnet winked red fire from her left hand. “Fifteen, surely. At least.”
“Fifteen what?” Bess asked.
“We are keeping count of how many times you have sighed since you sat down with us a half hour ago,” Lucy told her. “At least fifteen, we reckon.”
“Pining,” Gemma diagnosed, a disbelieving quirk to her dark brows. “And all over our arrogant, condescending tyrant of a half-brother!”
Bess nearly choked as Lucy slapped at her sister and gave her a quelling look.
“I’m not pining! It’s only that it’s strange to be back and to find myself with so little to do.”
Gemma bit her lip. “I don’t want to put you out of a job, but Flora has done so well the last few months while you were away?—”
“And she and Rohit are saving money so they can get married this year!” Bess shook her head emphatically. “No, no, of course you must keep her on. I should be glad of the help.”
Bess was happy for her sweet, young cousin, truly. And of course it was better for the inn not to rely on a single person to run the kitchen every single day of the year—sharing the workload made sense.
But the days when Flora took over the kitchen left Bess with far too much time to think.
Five Mile House was bustling, full to the brim with loyal regulars who lived in Little Kissington mingling with travelers on their way to Bath or returning to London.
In the corner by the hearth, Peter Cartwright had brought out his da’s old fiddle and was playing a lilting jig to an enthusiastic circle of clapping, stomping listeners. Bill Givens was behind the bar, having been hired on to help out now that Hal had more to do around his estate, keeping tabs on the new mining operation as well as the repairs and improvements to the tenant farms it had funded.
Most of the faces Bess saw as she gazed about the room were smiling, happy, familiar. This was her home, the place she’d lived all her life.
Why, then, did she feel so ill at ease?
Bess shifted in her seat. It was like an itch between her shoulder blades, as though her skin was a dress she had outgrown. Too small to contain the yawning crevasse that had opened up in her midsection the day Nathaniel left.
The day she broke both their hearts and sent him away.
She took in a deep breath—and held it as she realized the reason she kept sighing was to stop herself from weeping every time she thought of Nathaniel.
It will pass, she told herself grimly, swallowing down the knot in her throat. It has to.
But as the front door of the inn flew open, she couldn’t help but turn to see who entered, her heart leaping into her throat at the quicksilver thought that it might be—but no. Of course it wasn’t.
“Hal!” Gemma cried, finishing her drink and jumping to her feet to greet her husband with a kiss that made the tables nearest the door shout and stamp their feet in boisterous approval.
Tall and strong from years of working to rebuild his crumbling estate and the farms of all the tenants who depended on him, Hal lifted his petite, curvaceous wife right off her feet and swung her round till she laughed and ordered him to put her down.
The moment her feet kissed the floor, she tugged him off to a darkened corner table for two, signaling to Bill for supper and a drink for Hal as she went.
