Chapter 17 #3
Her anger had dissipated, but she continued walking in silence.
James had as much as admitted he still cared for her—he must, or he would have left the past buried.
However, nothing good could come out of discussing it when he was to marry another.
From what Amy had seen, she did not think his intended would be a good wife for him.
She was not even certain Miss Prexley would be faithful. But James was no longer her concern.
He touched her arm, startling her out of her thoughts.
“When you marry, you will have to leave your father and sisters. You do realize that?” She sensed his attempts to meet her gaze from the side, but she kept hers trained forward.
“I don’t believe your mother expected you to devote yourself to such a degree that you give up your own life. ”
Amy lifted her chin. “Do you think I have not considered this? I have. But—” She stopped short. She was about to refer to their former attachment, and that she must not do. “But I hope that whichever gentleman I marry will live close enough to my family that I might continue to be there for them.”
“I see.” James walked in silence, and just when she thought he’d accepted her avowal, he spoke again.
“It might no longer be my right to speak in such a way, but you deserve to have your own life. Your father is an adult. Your sisters are fully grown. No one, man or woman, is born to live as a servant to others. Each of us is meant to pursue our own destiny.”
The words he spoke were so close to the unuttered cry of her own heart that Amy’s eyes filled with tears again, this time blinding her vision. She stumbled over something on the path and pitched forward.
In an instant—faster than she ever could have thought possible—James leapt forward to catch her and spun her back to him.
One arm curved underneath her shoulders in an iron grip, and the other clasped her waist as he leaned over her, his breath coming hard.
Her father’s cane dropped from nerveless fingers and clattered down the hill off the path.
He did not immediately move, and she could not.
Their faces were inches from each other, and she saw first his alarm over her near fall.
As the seconds ticked by, his shock transformed into a longing.
She saw in his eyes the years of attachment and deeply buried love rise to the surface.
He held her as though frozen, until longing melded into desire—desire in his eyes that she was certain was mirrored in her own.
The air around them went still, and even the rustling sounds of the woods ceased.
He blinked, and his gaze lowered ever so slowly from her eyes to her lips, where they stayed.
A bird trilled from a high branch, and Amy closed her eyes in anticipation, weightless in his arms.
Abruptly, she was pulled into an upright position, causing her head to spin.
“Forgive me.”
She blinked, attempting to adjust to the sudden change. His voice was gruff, and he did not look at her. “Please remain here while I collect your father’s cane.”
Amy’s knees were weak, and her head was empty of all coherent thought.
She stumbled to lean against a tree trunk on the side of the path and tried to make sense of what had happened.
It took James time to collect the item, and in those moments she was incapable of doing more than forcing her heart to beat at its normal rhythm.
When he returned, he held out his arm, and this time she put her hand on it.
They were near the end of the trail, and they continued on toward the opening at the bottom in silence.
When it seemed necessary to speak through the awkwardness that had enveloped them, Amy attempted an air of normalcy.
“My father has said that Mr. Hughes’s prescription does not seem to be working.”
“Mr. Hughes only believes in the value of drinking the water. But for rheumatic complaints, it is necessary to bathe in it to receive any benefits.” James’s voice sounded clipped to her ears. He did not offer his services to help her father.
“Ah.”
His tone had not encouraged her to pursue any other line of conversation.
At a different moment, she might have asked him if he would visit her father and convince him of the idea, but as it was, tears hovered on the edge of her vision.
She needed to make it safely to her rooms, where she could sort through her feelings away from scrutiny.
The Promenade opened up in front of them, and a few people were walking on it. Amy slipped her hand from James’s arm as he wordlessly handed her the cane.
“I will see you to your hotel,” he said.
Instead of having the quiet walk in the woods she had longed for to restore her mind, she now had even more emotions to make sense of. She shook her head.
“I will be fine on my own. Thank you for your company.” Amy saw the hesitation on his face and wondered if it was because she refused his escort or because he was as overset by their embrace as she was.
She only knew that if she spent another second in his company, she might break into fragments like brittle glass.