Snorting, Silas braced a boot on the rung of the fence while crossing his arms on the top of a post. “I’m simply flabbergasted because you were never this possessive over Helena, and to see it with a lady you never planned on marrying....”
“I am not possessive over her,” he grunted as Ariadne managed to spur her horse into a trot.
“Of course you’re not,” Silas replied sarcastically. “You nearly took my head off for nothing.”
“You know how this marriage came about,” Cedric said, while scrubbing a hand over his face. “I did it to save her face, but I—I haven’t been kind to her.”
“Why?” Silas asked, his brows furrowing.
“I—I suppose, in the back of my mind, I kept reflecting on how I felt being betrayed by Helena, and I wanted to protect myself. You know, that to this day, we have never found out the man she wanted to run away with.”
Silas’ face fell, “I know. But you have to let that stay in the past. You are self-sabotaging your chances of finding happiness again if you keep judging everyone by the pain she left you with.”
It’s not only me she left, but she left Emily, as well. I truly think if she had not died in the fire, she would have grown even more resentful of me. Emily would never have had a mother.
Cedric knew his friend was speaking the truth, but he had to actively believe it before he could ever move on. He felt when Silas elbowed his arm and nodded to Ariadne. “It looks like she is ready to come down.”
Ariadne was, in fact, looking down at the mounting block, unsure if jumping three feet from the back of a horse was the smart thing to do. Pushing off the fence, he strode to her and rested a hand on the horse’s neck.
“Maneuver your leg out from under the pommel,” he said. “And rest your hands on my shoulder.”
He did not take his gaze off Ariadne; she was so, so close, and he watched as her eyes, alive and bright, piercing in their regard, flitted from him to the mounting block.
He was intrigued by the shape of her lips, how wide and full they were, how the top one was slightly larger than her lower lip.
They were not pink but red and were wet now, still, soft and plump and beckoning. She still did not blush, even when she found him staring at her mouth.
To his shame, all else faded from his awareness. It would be so easy to lean forward, easy to feel her lips again… He felt a long-forgotten heat and now an ache for more.
She blinked twice, boldly staring at him, and Cedric wondered if she was trying to make sense of what just happened as well.
Silas cleared his throat behind them, and it jarred him to reality; he stepped back and lifted her to the ground. “We need to go and speak to the orphanage manager.”
. Ariadne knew herself to be a good judge of character, and everything about Stephen Maximilian exuded goodness and care. The headmaster of the orphanage was a gentle man in a plain suit and spectacles that framed blue eyes.
The man beside him—not so much. Clad in a tailored suit with a brocade waistcoat, this man was lean, his eyes were hard onyx, his brows black slashes, his cheekbones blade-sharp beneath his pale skin. When he inclined his head, not a single strand of ebony hair fell out of place.
“Mr. Maxmilian, and Mr. Draven, may I introduce my wife, Ariadne. Ariadne, Maxmilian is the curator of the orphanage, and Draven is my steward.”
Oh, that explains the sharpness in his eyes. Cedric has the same look.
Both men bowed and greeted her, but Ariadne felt herself being drawn to Stephen.
“Thank you, Your Grace, for this outing,” he said, fixing his round spectacles. “The children really needed a reprieve from the schoolwork and the work the older ones do around town.”
“Work?” Ariadne echoed, her brows knotting. “What kind of work do you mean?”
“The older girls work at the local seamstress and wash for the lady in our village,” Stephen said. “The boys do farm work and sell at the market. The younger ones keep gardens in the land around the house, and it’s not much, but the children do contribute to the house with their goods. The ones who earn money do keep what they earn.”
That sounds reasonable.
“I keep suggesting that those who earn should give their money to you to help with their keep, but you won’t hear a word of it,” Draven chuckled, but Ariadne did not find the humor in it.
“Pardon me, Your Grace, and my lords,” an adolescent boy said as he held the two-year-old lad in his arms. “Sir, Tobey is hungry.”
“The sandwiches are in the coach,” Stephen said.
“Sandwiches?” Cedric frowned. “I instructed that you could have luncheon at the town’s assembly room.”
