Miss Van Arsdale plucked a slip from her reticule with dramatic flair and offered it to Dom. “Don’t be late, Dominic.”
Dom nearly burst out of the inn’s door and decided to walk the distance to Foxdene Cottage. He needed air. He needed to burn off the frustration that any interaction with the Van Arsdales seemed to spark.
No other patronage had ever made him feel so owned. So much as if he was little more than a puppet pulled by another’sstrings. But it also made it abundantly clear to him that he would be replaceable in the Van Arsdales’ minds. They didn’t value his experience, his knowledge, his passion for the past. They valued the legend. The caricature.
He needed to speak to Eve almost as much as he wanted to talk to Tess.
He decided he’d pen her a note if he had time for the Randalls to give to her upon her arrival.
As the bright pink and purple primroses that lined Foxdene’s front path came into view, the irritation in Dom’s chest began to ebb. When she appeared, everything else faded.
Tess stepped onto the cottage’s front path, bonnet in hand, her honey-blond hair catching the morning light.
She turned and spotted him, her lips curving into something that seemed like relief.
“We have this habit,” she said as he approached. “Of always seeking each other out at the same time.”
“I’m fond of it,” he murmured. “Let’s keep doing it.” Every day, if he had his way.
“Shall we walk?”
“Of course. Do you have a destination in mind?”
“I was going to speak to Lord Fenbridge, but I’m not on any timetable.” She pointed toward the field where she’d gone to think just the previous morning. “Let’s just amble in that direction.”
Dom offered his arm. When she took it, something in him slid satisfyingly into place. As if Tess was the missing piece that made everything else make sense.
“I realized this morning how I’d put you in a terrible position,” she said when they were wading through the tall grass. “I didn’t think it through.”
“I know.” He glanced at her, exhaled, and felt the last ofthe tension in him unravel. “They were at the inn this morning when I came down.”
She closed her eyes. “Because of me?”
“No,” he said firmly. “You did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong.”
Tess watched him, her brow furrowing. “Why were they there?”
Dom slowed his steps, gaze fixed ahead, as if the horizon might offer an answer. But there was only the open field, the wind stirring the tall grass, the hush of morning settling between them.
He didn’t want to say it.
Not now. Not when she was beside him, her arm resting so easily against his, like she belonged there. Like they belonged together. Not when there was so much left unsaid between them. He worried distance would cause her to doubt again.
But there was no sense in delaying the inevitable.
“I have to go to London.” His voice came quiet, but firm. “With the Van Arsdales.”
Tess stopped walking, withdrew her arm.
He felt the absence of her touch like a coldness creeping over his skin.
“Oh.” Her voice emerged as a soft exhale.
There was no anger. Just that one syllable, almost as if she’d been expecting this moment. And she had, of course. Hadn’t she insisted he’d leave?
But that wasn’t what this was, and he needed to make her understand.
Dom turned to face her fully. “It’s only for a couple of days. Nothing will change, and we’ll pick up right from this moment when I return.”
