“Be a dear and get the stragglers to bed, West. I’m going upstairs.”
“Glass of water and a cold compress for when you wake up.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I am not foxed.”
“Then what are you?”
In love,she replied helplessly.I’m in love, and I don’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.
Chapter Fourteen
Anight ofsleep did not bring the definitive answers that Brynne sought. After she and Weston finished seeing off the last of the carriages, she considered confiding in her brother. It was a rare problem that they did not share. A benefit of being born at the same time…and often only having each other to rely on.
But it wasbecauseof that close bond she knew that Weston’s opinion wouldn’t be all that different from Lady Crowley’s. And while she had the courage to defy her former chaperone, she doubted if she’d be able to do the same with her twin.
“Are you leaving for London today or tomorrow?” he asked, neatly slicing a knife through the middle of his sandwich. They sat across from each other in the solarium at a table that felt infinitely larger now that it was just the two of them sharing it.
“Tomorrow,” she replied, absently spearing a pickled beet with her fork even though her appetite left much to be desired. “Or perhaps the day after. There are some things I need to tend to yet.”
He dabbed at his mouth with a linen napkin. “What sort of things?”
Even though she understood it was nothing more than idle conversation, her back still stiffened. “This and that,” she said, being purposefully vague. “Not to mention, I’ve yet to begin packing up my art supplies, and that’s a trunk unto itself. I’ll most likely join you at the end of the week.”
If I join you at all, she thought silently. Her grip on the fork tightening, she stabbed another beet with unnecessary force and it split in half, causing the metal edge of her utensil to clang loudly on the plate.
Weston sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “If you’re planning what I think you are, you’d best reconsider now, because I won’t stand for it.”
Her face paled. “You–you won’t stand for what?”
“Bringing that hellhound into town with us.”
Brynne breathed a sigh of relief.
“That hellhound” was her dog, Drufus. An impulsive purchase from a nearby farm (she already had two bassets, Ellie and Emma, who, at ten years of age, spent most of their days napping in the sun), he’d quickly grown from an adorable puppy into an enormous, rambunctious mutt with paws the size of saucers and all the grace of a bull in a china shop.
For the past two Seasons, she’d attempted to bring him to their manor in Grosvenor Square and the results had been…less than ideal. While Ellie and Emma were content to sleep on a divan in the music room, Drufus had gamboled around the entire house. Chewed shoes, knocked over tables, and dug holes in the garden that a dinosaur bone could fit in had all promptly led to his premature return to Hawkridge Manor.
Happy to chase the swans in the pond, accompany Mr. Grimsby on his daily rounds, and guard the horses in their fields during the day before sleeping in the barn at night, Drufus was far more suited for the country than the city.
While she would miss his presence and jester-like personality, Brynne had already decided weeks ago to keep him at the estate. It was where he was the most content. And anymore, he belonged as much to Mr. Grimsby as he did to her. The aging groundskeeper would never say as much, but he absolutely adored the hound and, on more than one occasion, she’d caught him slipping Drufus chicken livers that he’d specifically asked the cook to set aside.
“No,” she said, smiling. “I am not going to set Drufus loose on thetonthis year.”
“Thank God,” Weston said with feeling.
It occurred to her then, as it should have before, that if she went to Scotland, none of her three pets would be able to accompany her. Ellie and Emma were too old for such a disruption, and if Drufus were to get loose in the hills and valleys of the Highlands, then she’d never see him again.
Her position in Society, her family’s goodwill, and now her dogs…what else would she be giving up if she threw caution–and the weight of theton’sexpectations–to the wind and eloped to Gretna Green?
Oh,a tiny voice whispered.But what will you gain?
Ellie, Emma, and Drufus were happy at Hawkridge Manor.
But she wasn’t.
She never had been.
Yet if she didn’t leave now, would she ever have the daring to do it later?
