Frances squeezed her eyes shut and clung onto the dear girl a moment longer. “It is nothing that anyone has done, and I do wish that I could stay.” Her voice hitched. “Believe me when I tell you that. But I am the firstborn daughter, dearest Harriet, and I have a duty to my sisters.”
“For a moment, I thought that you and my father?—”
“We should depart before the morning escapes us altogether,” Frances interrupted with a somewhat strained smile. “The journey is a very long one, after all.”
She could guess what Harriet had been about to say, and she could not bear to hear it. Not right now, on the brink ofdeparture. It would be too painful and too confusing, to hear that others had also sensed what she thought she had felt between them.
Just yesterday, in the entrance hall, she had looked up into Dominic’s gray-blue eyes and had hoped, for a brief instant, that he was going to kiss her. But then he had not, his face growing stony again, putting a distance between them that she could not overcome. Then, he had told her that he had no qualms about her leaving as soon as possible and had not sought to stop her.
Hestillhad not sought to stop her, and the longer time wore on, the more she understood that he was not going to. Whatever that gift had meant, whatever his arm around her had meant, whatever their too-close dance had meant, whatever leaning in to pluck a cherry blossom from her hair had meant, it seemed it was all in her head.
“Good luck to you, dear Harriet,” Frances said in a softer tone, her eyes pricking with tears. “Come and call upon me when you are in London. You shall be welcome any time, and I know that Juliet would be delighted to make your acquaintance. Write to me, too, if you have any questions about the lessons I have left for you.”
Harriet brushed something from her cheek. “I shall miss you terribly, and I do not know that I can be friends with your sister for some time, for she has stolen you from me.”
“I will miss you too,” Frances said with a fond smile.
With that, she pulled away from her most diligent student and began the short walk to the carriage. She slowed her pace and listened for fresh footsteps, but when she heard none and she reached the carriage door, she understood: Dominic was not even going to wave farewell to her, though he knew roughly what time she intended to leave.
The dream was over.
“Ready, my lady?” Catherine said with a knowing, apologetic smile.
Frances nodded. “As I shall ever be.”
The two women climbed into the carriage with the aid of the footman and, just like that, the driver began to pull away from the towering, intimidating manor that no longer frightened Frances a bit.
“Goodbye! Goodbye!” Harriet’s voice called out desperately.
Feeling sorry for the girl, Frances pulled down the carriage window and stuck her head and arm out, waving. “Goodbye! Do not forget your lessons! You shall do so well, Harriet!”
“Thank you, Frances!” Harriet began to run, hitching up her skirts in averyunladylike fashion.
She came all the way to the edge of the gravel carriage circle and stopped on the verge of grass, her hand raised to wave back.They continued to wave until their voices could no longer carry and Harriet grew smaller, Frances’ heart so heavy she wondered how the draft horses could pull the carriage at all with such a weight aboard.
She was about to sit back and close her eyes, in a vain attempt to catch up on the sleep she had missed last night, too anxious to rest at all, when movement made her squint.
A chestnut gelding with a coat as sleek as its color’s namesake was charging across the grass, kicking up clods of mud, its elegant mane and tail tossed by the wind. The rider was no less dramatic in his appearance, his powerful body bent against the whip of that wind, his head down, his long, dark hair flying backward, along with the length of his old coachman’s coat, flapping out behind him like a pair of wings.
Just before the gates, Dominic caught up to the carriage. He pulled his horse to a standstill beside the open window, his eyes feverish with the exertion of racing to meet her.
It was like something from one of Lucinda’s books, and Frances had to remind herself to breathe.
“The sheep got out,” he explained breathlessly. “I have spent all night catching them, and I lost all sense of time.”
Has he come to ask me to stay?Frances prayed, still unable to find her voice, still unable to believe that he had raced to catch up with her.
“Did I forget something?” she croaked as, behind her, she heard Catherine stifle a laugh.
Dominic shook his head. “I have no idea.” He paused. “I just… came to wish you well.”
“Oh… um… thank you.” Frances deflated, almost wishing he had not come to her at all.
Ifthiswas the last image she had of him in her mind, windswept and unfairly handsome, riding urgently across the lawns toward her, truly like something out of a novel or a daydream, then how on earth was she supposed to forget about him?
“I did not want you to think me ill-mannered for not saying my farewells,” he added, the wind catching the side of his open collar, revealing hard muscle that glistened with sweat.
So, a personcanperspire elegantly…Although, ‘elegantly’ was not necessarily the word that Frances would have used. She did not know if she had a word for the way it made her feel, all flustered and over-warm, like a walk out of doors in the very height of a London summer, where the streets seemed airless and murderously hot.
