“Lucky?” Elise inquired, looking to Kit.
His expression was calm, but there was a distance. “I won,” he admitted. “Enough to lease a carriage to see us to Moorcock.”
“Then we shall arrive in style,” she answered, equally distant.
And that is how they treated each other, as if they were strangers.
Kit hired a vehicle from the small posting house and brought it back for her. They set off for Moorcock. Kit drove and Elise sat inside the open-air vehicle. Tamsyn ran alongside until she was tired and then begged to ride with them. She happily curled up on the seat beside Elise.
They were continuing their journey, but the search for her father was no longer uppermost in Elise’s mind.
No, she was dreading the moment she and Kit parted.
She feared it would come too soon.
Chapter Seventeen
When the apple is ripe, it will fall.
Irish proverb
They had stopped to stretch their legs.
The leased carriage had seen better days. The springs were loose and it might have been an easier ride if they had sat on hardwood boards. No wonder the owner had been willing to let Kit drive off with it.
Elise didn’t complain. Her mind was elsewhere. She was glad for the presence of Tamsyn. The dog allowed them to pretend to act normal with each other.
However, after an hour or so of travel, her thoughts began eating away at her. She had attempted to discuss the night before. There was so much that didn’t make sense.
But Kit had not responded to her questions. He’d changed the subject, talking about the weather, asking her questions about the roadsideflowers, and teasing her about always wanting to know too much.
Finally, she’d given up.
She’d decided she would just not talk to him at all, and that is how they had traveled for the last two hours.
Elise had needed this stop. She walked a bit of a ways and then returned. That small amount of exercise did her good.
Kit was throwing a stick for Tamsyn. The dog never tired of the game. “Are you ready?” he asked upon her return.
“Do we have much farther?”
“Actually, no. A half hour, a little less.”
Elise nodded. She reached for the handle of the carriage to help herself in. Kit was by her side in a blink.
“Here, let me.” He offered to take her hand.
“I’m fine,” she said, ignoring his help.
He made a face. Then, instead of speaking to her, he spoke to the dog. “There is that word again, Tamsyn. She isfine.”
Elise pretended she didn’t hear him. She rearranged her skirts. Actually, she was heartily tired of traveling. She didn’t know how Kit could make a life of “wandering.”
A new thought struck her. Perhaps Kit believed she would expect him to change. That she would expect him to give up his aimless travels. Would she?
Thatwas a humbling thought. Elise hadn’tconsidered it before. She did now and acknowledged that she had no desire to lumber around from village to village. Or to live off of whatever he could win.
When she was younger, she’d wondered why they couldn’t travel with their father. Now she knew. It would be too much for her father to follow wherever luck took him with three daughters in tow. Nor would she wish to raise children that way.
