“Maybe not the eighth. But seeing my brother happyisa wonder.” Her gaze softening, she reached out and tugged the thread around his wrist. “Best start following this, West. I’ve a feeling you are going to like what it leads you to.”
Chapter Twenty
After tearing hergown on a rosebush, sinking up to her ankles in a puddle, and having her bottom “accidentally” grabbed by Lord Ellis, Evie decided to sit on a bench and wait for her Prince Charming to come to her.
Lethimfend off the thorns and the mud and the lecherous old men. She’d just sit here, thank you very much, and count the stars.
She was nearing number eighty-seven when she heard the crack of a branch. The bench her string had led her to was isolated from the rest of the garden by a circle of shrubbery. There was a fountain in the middle, its marble basin reflecting the silvery light of a full moon, and a single stone pathway leading in and out.
While she’d been waiting for her (very late) prince to arrive, Evie had heard any number of couples successfully finding each other, their union generally marked with clapping…or, in a few notable instances, the rustle of fabric and telltale silence. She didn’t have a way to account for exactly how many guests still remained in the game, but she had a feeling it wasn’t many. For all she knew, she and her partner were the last ones left.
“Over here,” she called out when she heard another branch crack underfoot.
Rustling leaves, a muttered curse, and then…
“There you are.” Shooting her a disgruntled glare as he forcibly squeezed his large frame between a pair of boxwoods trimmed into narrow columns, Weston stumbled into the clearing and brushed himself off. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“Well I have been right here.Waiting,” she said with pointed emphasis.
Scowling, he plucked a shiny green leaf out of his hair. “The point of the game is that you follow your string. Not sit on a bench and have me do all the work. Do you have any idea how many damned bushes I’ve crawled through?”
Lifting her gloved hand, she made a show of studying her fingers in an attempt to disguise her surge of tingling excitement upon seeing him.
She had spent most of the day in the company of Rosemary. The cousins had made bows for Posy, and then ventured out to the stables to see the newborn foal who was already growing by leaps and bounds. During dinner, she’d found herself in a pleasant conversation with Mr. Greer, a charming businessman, whose knowledge of the rapidly developing railway industry had been both interesting and informative.
But from sunrise to sunset, even though she’d not spoken to him directly, she found her mind preoccupied with Weston. What he was doing. What he was thinking. If he’d proposed to Martha yet. There was no ring upon the lady’s finger, but with less than a fortnight remaining before the end of the house party, time was of the essence.
For everyone.
After her chat with Sterling at breakfast, Evie’s waning hopes that Weston might still come to his senses had been somewhat renewed. But she’d told him the truth when she’d said that she was not going to leave her heart in his care forever.
Perhaps not even for a fortnight.
Love required a certain amount of vulnerability…and faith. She had demonstrated both when she’d shared her feelings with Weston by the pond, and again in the kitchen. But she could not continue to remain defenseless indefinitely.
Shedidlove the earl. Of that, she was certain. But if he continued to deny that love, to turn it away, or worse, to ignore it, then she’d rather have her heart in her own care and be alone than leave it with someone who did not appreciate its value.
“I am sure I don’t know how many bushes you crawled through,” she replied coolly. “Nor do I particularly care. Can we return to the manor now? Is the game over?”
“The gameisover.” Weston’s shadow, long and lean, rippled across her as he stepped around the fountain and placed his hands on his hips, muscular thighs spread apart and head cocked ever-so-slightly to the left. “But we’re not returning to the manor.”
At the sheer intensity of his stare, her breath hitched. “We’re–we’re not?”
“No,” he said. “Not until we’ve gotten some things straight.”
“What things?” she whispered.
“It’s become obvious that we cannot continue in this vein. That there are…there are feelings involved. Strong feelings. Feelings that I cannot continue to ignore.”
This was it,she thought with a quiver of anticipation.
He is going to tell me that he loves me.
That he cannot wait to marry me.
That he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.
“Yes?” she prompted when he fell silent. “What else?”
