“What else have I got to do?” Collin replied with a laugh.
“I’ll take you around the entire perimeter sometime if you’d like, but we’d better get back to the house now. Lucy and the children want to see you.”
“Of course.” Collin nodded and gathered the reins in his gloved hand.
They both turned and began a canter back toward the house.
“Seems I forgot to tell Lucy you were coming,” Derek said, his eyes fixed straight ahead on the path.
Collin lifted his brows. “Lucy’s not upset, is she?”
“Only that she didn’t have all week to look forward to your visit.”
“Ah, well, I suppose I’ll just pretend it was a surprise visit, then.”
“Yes, well…” Derek’s voice trailed off.
A sudden, odd tightness gripped Collin’s stomach. “What? What is it?”
“Seems my forgetting to tell Lucy caused a problem elsewhere.” Derek still hadn’t met his gaze, a sure sign of some kind of guilt.
Collin’s brows drew down. “What? How’s that?”
Derek slowed his horse. Collin did the same.
“You know how certain things tend to…happen when Lucy is involved?” Derek asked.
Collin poked out his cheek with his tongue. “She is usually up to something, isn’t she?”
“You could say that,” Derek replied.
“What is it?” Collin asked, apprehension replacing his suspicion. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
At last, Derek met his eyes. “I have something I must tell you, Collin. Something I’m afraid you’re not going to like.”
Chapter Eight
“Collin? Hunt? Is here? In this house? Right now?” The words left Erienne’s mouth in a staccato rhythm. She knew she sounded like a mad woman for the way she’d uttered them, but she couldn’t help herself. The implication of what Lucy had just told her slowly sank into her brain, while panic rose in her throat.
“Dear, you must believe me when I tell you I did not plan for this to happen.” Lucy bit her lip and glanced to the side. “Not this soon, at any rate.”
Erienne braced a hand against her bedchamber wall, her knees gone weak and watery. When Lucy returned from her talk with her husband, she’d asked Anna to watch the children a bit longer and then motioned for Erienne to follow her out of the nursery.
They’d walked back down the corridor to Erienne’s bedchamber, and once they’d reached it, Lucy had opened the door and motioned her inside. Erienne thought the duchess’s behavior slightly odd, but it hadn’t been until Lucy turned to her with a worried look on her face that Erienne had become truly concerned. She’d seen many expressions on the duchess’s face since she’d met her, but worry was never one of them.
“What is it?” Erienne asked, her heart beating faster.
Lucy bit her lip and wrung her hands, two other things Erienne had never seen the duchess do.
“Derek just…” Lucy cleared her throat, “informed me of something important you should know.”
“Important? How?” But cold dread had already begun to creep along Erienne’s spine. Even before Lucy said the words, Erienne had guessed them.
“It turns out … Collin is here,” Lucy said.
And that was when Erienne slid down the wall to sit in a heap on the floor like a rag doll. No doubt her new employer thought she was daft, but at the moment, her entire body felt as if it was without bones. Her breathing came in short spurts that hurt her chest.
“Collin? Hunt? Is here? Now?” she echoed what she’d already said, something in the back of her brain prompting the words as if they would make more sense or seem more real if she repeated them aloud.
