“We’ll set off as soon as we’ve finished eating,” he told her when they met for luncheon. “The snow is fairly deep so I expect the ride to take us twice as long as usual.”
She nodded her agreement and added a smile. “Thank you for your hospitality, and for your forgiveness. It means a great deal.”
The look he gave her in return was full of warmth. “I am hoping it will allow for a new beginning.”
“So you will speak with Charles then and try to make amends with him?”
“I plan to. Yes.”
Her smile widened. “Oh, thank you, Robert. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear it.”
He held her gaze while he sipped his wine, inviting a lovely bit of heat to swirl up inside her. They had, against all odds, become friends during the last two days. She’d pestered him, tried his every last nerve, she was sure, and he’d scolded her for it. But not without a valuable lesson. While her parents and siblings would oftentimes roll their eyes at her behavior, treat her like an impossible child or like an impending threat to their reputations, Robert had tried to tame her without compromising her nature.
She wondered at this and could not refrain from asking, “Do you like me, Robert?”
The question seemed to freeze his movements. He gave her a careful look. “What do you mean, exactly?”
Taking courage, she said, “Most people outside my family try to avoid me. I don’t really have any friends and the ones I did have as a child mysteriously disappeared after Charles’s wedding. Given my personality, I cannot help but wonder if it was myfaux pasthat turned me into a pariah, or if I’m simply too unruly to like.”
“You are aware that most members of thetonare idiots, are you not?”
The seriousness with which he posed the question made her laugh. “Maybe.”
He pushed out a breath and set his glass aside. “I like you a great deal, Athena.”
“Really?”
“To be sure, you do get the strangest notions sometimes, and I do believe you’ve got a great deal to learn about life and how to manage your willfulness so you don’t put yourself or others in danger. But as a person, I think you’re a gem. I’d hate to see you lose your sparkle.”
Athena’s lips parted in response to his words. She wanted to thank him and yet somehow doing so seemed insufficient when he’d just given her the biggest stamp of approval she’d ever received. Coming from him, from the man whose life she’d ruined, it meant the world. It made her eyes sting and her throat close up tight, so rather than speak, she simply nodded her appreciation and finished her food. The prospect of leaving his side instilled in her the strangest feeling of discontent. In fact, she feared she would miss him terribly once they parted ways. More than that, she feared she would lose her opportunity to learn why her heart beat faster when he was near or why his opinion mattered as much as it did. Within her reach was the chance to figure out something important, and yet, she couldn’t quite seem to grasp it.
Chapter Five
ROBERT’S GUT TIGHTENEDas he and Athena approached Foxborough Hall. He’d never been prone to anxiety, but the thought of walking through the front doors he could see in the distance and coming face to face with Athena’s family, of giving explanations and then embarking on the most important endeavor of his life, made his nerves clang together.
“Tell me something,” he said. They’d had almost two hours in which to speak, and yet he’d managed to waste them on inane topics and introspection. Walking their horses through deep banks of snow, they turned them onto the tree-lined drive leading up to the house. “What is your hope for the future?”
