The crunch of their footsteps on the frozen ground echoed in the stillness as the afternoon sun slowly descended. James assisted her as they sat. She murmured her thanks, pale mist rising with each exhale. The wood was cold even through her skirts. James reached out, his gloved fingers covering hers, warm despite the winter chill. The intensity of his expression held her transfixed. She held her breath as the unanswered question hung in the air.
The playful ease between them had given way to something fragile like the thin layer of ice on the pond. One word, onemisstep, could result in irreparable cracks, and the surface would shatter.
James blew out a slow breath, a slight tremor in his voice. “I presume Lord Sutherland told you why I asked to meet with him today?”
“Yes, Father told me of your letter.” She gathered her courage. “Lord Brenton, forgive my forwardness, but after so many years of silence, why are you herenow?”
His attention fixed on something beyond the path, and his fingers shifted subtly over hers as the air grew heavy between them, thick with everything left unsaid. She couldn’t name all the emotions that flitted across his face. Grief, perhaps? But there was also a quiet anger, hidden just beneath the surface, something that seemed entirely out of place in a marriage proposal.
Finally, he answered. “I apologize for not visiting. Eventually, perhaps, I can explain my reasons. But there comes a time in a gentleman’s life when certain paths become . . . necessary.”
“Necessary?”
He cleared his throat. “Let us simply say I have found it to be . . . an opportune time to take a wife.”
A pause stretched between them, thin and brittle.
“You are speaking of an arranged marriage, then?”
Relief flickered across his features. “Yes, precisely. It is the sensible course, isn’t it? A steady one.”
A gust whipped the dead leaves across the path, and the chill bit through Kate’s pelisse as distant church bells echoed faintly across the estate. Her heart sank, and the open fields that stretched past the hedges, wide and unreachable, called to her. A practical arrangement. She was not surprised. She had not expected love or adoration, not when they hardly knew eachother. She shouldbe relieved. If that was all this was to him, it made following through with her decision easier.
She hoped to marry someday, but it would only be to a man who saw her clearly and accepted all of her. She did not know yet if this new James was that kind of man, but given their history, perhaps it was worth discovering. Time was the only honest answer she could give him now.
His hand gave hers a gentle squeeze, a familiar warmth that drew her back to him. “Kate, we have known each other since we were children. We were friends once, and I do believe we would suit as husband and wife.” He waited for an answer she was not ready to give.
If ever there was a time to be bold, it was now. Forcing her parents’ expectations from her mind, she withdrew her touch, her throat suddenly dry. James spoke first.
“Lady Katherine, would you do me the honor—”
“Wait!” she called out.
His brows rose.
The wind lifted the edge of her pelisse.
She spoke again, her voice soft but steadier than she felt. “I must speak before you proceed any further.”
James watched her with a sudden, quiet focus. “I will always prefer your candor to your reserve, Kate. Tell me what is on your mind.” He removed his hat and raked a hand through his hair, an unguarded gesture that unsettled her composure. It reminded her of the James of her youth, and it was far easier to resist a distant stranger than a man who mirrored the boy she once adored.
“I have a proposal of my own,” she forced out.
“A proposal? I was under the impression that was what I was doing.” A faint smile appeared. “Or am I unacquainted with a new custom that encourages the lady to do the asking?”
Kate’s determination wavered, then shifted into something sharper, more painful. He sounded calm and composed, exactly as she feared. That should have reassured her. Instead, it sounded a lot like certainty, not the kind that asked, but the kind that assumed. And she could suddenly see what that might mean.
A marriage that would be safe. Proper. Carefully ordered. A life where risks might be carefully removed before she even reached them, whether she wished it or not. It would not be a marriage of cruelty or indifference, but rather a life where love might mean quiet restraint.
What ifsafeslowly becamesmaller? The thought landed with uncomfortable clarity.
This was not how she had pictured James’s proposal, and she had imagined it more times than she would ever admit. In her dreams, the air had been warm, the sky bright and blue and filled with the scents of summer flowers. He had looked at her with affection, or perhaps something softer, like understanding.
She had felt chosen. Valued. Seen. Not cornered or managed. Not gently guided into a life that left no space for the parts of herself she refused to surrender.
And in those dreams, she had said yes, forgetting everything that was at stake.
Now, bitter wind nipped at her skin, and the pale sun was losing ground to the heavy winter clouds.
