“It has not been difficult,” he said.
“Not at all?” she wondered.
“Mayapple is pleasant,” he clipped. “It’s not as if I cannot navigate proper doorways or stair rails or Persian rugs. Until five years ago, I made trips to villages on market days. I met clients. I called to shops and forges and granaries. I don’t live in the forest because I’m...” he exhaled “feral; I simply prefer the out-of-doors. My sister and Killian have made a happy life here.” It was mostly true. He was, perhaps a little feral. Less than he’d once thought, but even so. Hewassleeping in the stables.
“I suppose it’s more unsettling that we are seeing the betrothal through.”
“Well it’s not a lasting transition, is it?” he said. “It solved a large problem without inviting sweeping changes in either of our lives.”
He said this because he didn’t know what else to say. He could hardly tell her that her dress, which was the color of whipped butter, set off the dark shine of her hair. He could hardly tell her that he’d wondered, all morning, what color she would wear, and that when she’d walked into the library, he’d thought she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. He could hardly tell her she smelled sweet and natural, like salt air with the slightest hint of a wildflower.
He knew only that the fewer compliments he paid, the less real their impending marriage would feel. Compliments were the result of paying attention. And it wasimprudent, surely, for him to pay too much attention.
It was also imprudent to be left alone together in the library—or share one pen and a single sheet of parchment. Because honestly? The challenge of both Mayapple and their marriage was not feeling hemmed in, the challenge washer. He found himself categorically unable tonotwanther. He felt like a boulder rolling down a hill: hard, unstoppable, and wild. Being alone with her only made it worse—and it was uncanny, really,howoftenthey found themselves alone. As hosts, Killian and Elise were gracious and warm; as chaperones, they were shite.
“Have you spoken to your sister?” she asked.
“My sister? Yes. She was just here five minutes ago.” Gabriel frowned at the closed door. “Where she’s gone, I cannot tell you.”
“I didn’t mean, have you uttered words. Imean, have the two of you had a proper reunion, have you spoken about your years in exile, or your flight from France, or finding your younger sister?”
“No.”
She studied his profile. “Oh.”
Gabriel wouldn’t look at her. Not for the first time, he wondered why list making was a two-person job. She was creative and presumably, as a citizen of the larger world, knew far more about what constituted a believable courtship than him. Meanwhile, he could barely focus on the page. He found himself transfixed by the delicate bend of her wrist. The small bone, the tendons, the little freckle. Lady Ryan was an island girl, and her skin was tanner than that of a well-shaded London lady. He liked the freckles on her nose.
“Well,” Ryan was saying, “you needn’t sit knee-to-knee across from Elise and struggle through a formal conversation. You could walk with her or ride with her. Now that you’ve come to Mayapple, you can return whenever you like—you can pass Christmas with her family. You needn’t stay away, after I’m gone. There is time to rebuild your relationship with Elise.”
“I know almost nothing of ‘relationships,’” he said. “And even less of rebuilding them.”
For a long moment, she said nothing. She looked back to the parchment. This was her way, he’d learned. Unless she urgently required an answer, she did not press. She made inquiries and allowed them to hover, no expectations, like a moth in the air. Eventually Gabriel was compelled to swipe at it.
“We could say that I knew you when you attended the boys’ school,” Ryan said, pointing to their notes. “Perhaps I summered in Marlborough with a relative, and I sought you out because of our letters. We could say our correspondence continued from that point. We could tell Mr. Soames that we’ve been writing ever since.”
“I regret,” Gabriel blurted, “that I did not come to Mayapple sooner. It has been wrong of me to not seek out my sister.”
Ryan paused. She turned to him. “I think your regret is misplaced. The reasons you did not leave the forest are valid. Savernake Forest was a necessary sanctuary and we all understand this. Certainly, I understand it.”
“Really?” he said, rising from the desk, “well, that makes one of us. No—that’s a lie, of course I understand. I mayregretit, but I understand it. I felt safe there... and I wanted to learn horses... and other options did not immediately present themselves to an eleven-year-old prince on the run for his life.” He exhaled.
Beside him, Ryan waited patiently, brushing the feather quill against her chin.
“Savernake Forest is a great source of fear to most people, did you know it? They’re afraid of spirits and highwaymen and faeries and God knows what else.”
“It is a dangerous place,” she agreed, “at least in my experience.”
“I’venofears in the forest. It is a haven. This is what Samuel Rein believed, and he passed the belief on to me. Before this belief, I was gripped by fear all the time—I was seized by it. Sometimes it felt overwhelming and incapacitating; other times, it was a tiny, painful pinch at my shoulder—but it was always there. Samuel and his forest delivered me from that. He never said, ‘Your fear is not legitimate,’ or ‘You should conquer the fear.’ It was simply, ‘You’ll be safe here.’”
“It’s a powerful message, indeed,” she said.
He shook his head and turned his back to the desk, propping his hips on the edge. Ryan stood beside him, facing the paperwork. His bicep touched her shoulder, and he felt a tingling at the point of contact. The smell of her enveloped him. He was touching her, and smelling her, and revealing life truths to her. How could he also resist her?
“In my experience,” she ventured softly, “beloved parents—or surrogates, in your case—shape us in profound ways, and their views can become nearly impossible to dislodge. The world may present an alternate view, but, so what? We know only what we’ve been taught. Take for example my mother. She was the parent who shaped me. For better or for worse.” An exhale.
Gabriel braced, uncertain if he could hear about Ryan’s mother, and her shape, and her worldview. He worried he’d learned all he could about Ryan Daventry without becoming irreversibly attached. He liked every single thing that he’d discovered. Whatever she had to say about her girlhood would be, undoubtably, just as endearing. Of course he would hear it, because he was incapable of not listening. He hung on her every word.
“My mother was a remarkable woman,” she began. “Clever, and confident, and proficient in so many things, but also compassionate and cheerful—an encourager. She was perhaps better suited for a grander life than our remote estate in Guernsey. Her choices were limited, obviously. As a woman, she could hardly run for parliament—although I’ve no doubt she would’ve been excellent in the Lords. For a variety of reasons, she married my father; and by the timeI came along, she was running our estate. My father was a true gentleman of leisure; she was called countess but she might as well have been the earl. I lost her when I was fourteen years old. For better or worse, the running of the household fell to me. I was young, but she’d taught me well and honestly there was no one else to do it. As I broached each new challenge, I always thought, ‘What would Mama have done?’ Her memory has informed my every decision. In hindsight, I’m not sure this has been the correct guiding force.”
