“Seems I’m mastering them better than you. I’m not begging to be with you.”
He wanted to saynot yet. She was weak for him, their kiss told him he still had a chance if he could prove himself worthy. “You’ll never be invisible, not to me. Not with all the passion in your heart.”
“Not to Tramel either.” Her low voice said the truth he never wanted to hear. He’d not only lost her, but her heart had strayed.
He lifted her chin.
Guilt shadowed and darkened her eyes.
She started to run and go deeper into the woods, a vision of purple leaping into the golden leaves of autumn.
But Felton was frozen. He knew Tramel loved Cecilia, but he never thought that . . . she . . .
Watson approached. “The miss has gone rogue again. We need to keep moving, sir. This isn’t the place for a squabble. The coaching inns fill up fast.”
“Very well.”
Invisible.
All the feelings he had to swallow, the anguish at losing her love—Tramel had won.
He spun and charged Cecilia. “You heard Watson. We have to go. We both need a proper night’s sleep in decent beds. Then we start over.”
She ignored Felton and kept going.
“Enough of this.” He came behind Cecilia, hauled her up in the air. “A spy must stay on schedule.”
Felton slung her over his shoulder.
Cecilia was mad, but he’d achieved what he needed. He knew all the facts. Gladstone was evil, and the woman he loved had fallen for the duke.
CHAPTER46
CECILIA—WALKAROUND THEINN
Under the intrusive eye of Mr. Watson, I walked around the coaching inn three times. It wasn’t hard. The place was small. There was still good light in the day. It would be a shame to quit traveling today.
This wasn’t working.
Felton remained quiet for what felt like hours, then he told me more of his life as a spy. The man pretended that I hadn’t told him of my heart’s troubles.
Uneasy as I was, I was assured he’d given up. A man couldn’t forgive his wife’s heart going astray. Still, I said nothing of Noah. Felton deserved to know of his nephew, the boy who’d be his heir since he had no living son and his first cousin, Gladstone did. But what good would it do if Gladstone didn’t pay?
If I kept my mouth shut, Noah would be safe. If I had kept it closed in the woods, the duke and marquess, father and his son, might repair their bond before the good man died.
Slapping the fence in front of me, I startled a pig and what looked like a baby calf. The beasts seemed happy in the pen, munching out of a trough, grazing on the grass. Sort of hoped they weren’t about to be slaughtered.
“Lady Gantry,” Watson said as he approached from the left. His dark mantle was crisp, with a few open buttons. “Lord Gantry wishes you to stay closer to the inn.”
Blinking and stretching, I realized I’d walked quite far. I was another ten feet from thick woods. More rust-colored alders were before me, but the clean scent of emerald pines wiggled in the wind. “I’m not going to run again.”
“Ya sure about that, ma’am? Well, at least give Lord Gantry the courtesy of knowing ya left.”
“Watson, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“He didn’t know you’d left in December, not until wee hours later. Never seen him quite so disturbed. He thought you weren’t speaking to him and locked yourself in ya studio.”
“The closet with the window? It was locked? I told him goodbye. That wasn’t good enough?”
