Chapter 18 #2
“I… I wish you to know… I… I care for you, sincerely, more than I intended, more than I thought possible, more than I ought this early in our friendship.” He took a deep breath.
“My affections for you run deeply, beyond physical attraction. You are the wittiest, cleverest, boldest woman I’ve had the privilege to know, and I…
I want to court you, Phoebe. Properly. With your permission. ”
Her lips parted, as though to speak, but then her expression changed, a subtle tightness she hid behind a shy smile of uncertainty. Again, he felt that peculiar tug in his chest, but he could not understand it.
When she did not reply after a long stretch of silence, he asked, his heart in his throat, “Phoebe? Is something wrong?”
Too quickly, she answered, “No, oh, nothing is wrong. I only—” She looked down at her hands, clasping them together. “It’s simply… very sudden.”
Of course. His heart cinched. He had overwhelmed her despite his wish not to do just that. He had moved too fast and should have given them more time. After all she had been through…
“I understand,” he said. “Truly. You needn’t answer me now. We have all the time in the world.”
“I appreciate that.” Her fingers trembled. “This is a great deal to consider.”
Consider. His hope wavered but did not extinguish.
She had not rejected him or recoiled. Only…
he had rather hoped, after the garden, she might be so overcome she would wrap her arms around his neck and…
well…. This was not the reaction he had hoped, but it was the reaction he should have expected from a woman who had been so deeply wounded before.
“Of course. Take all the time you need,” he said.
Flexing her fingers, then lacing them again, she took a step towards the door. “I should… go.”
His pulse stuttered. “Phoebe—”
She offered a soft smile, polite and composed, painfully unlike the Phoebe who had kissed him beneath the linden tree hours earlier.
“Thank you for your honesty,” she said with a slight bow of her head.
And then she was gone.
The door shut behind her soundlessly.
Graeme stood still, rooted, the air of the study shifting around him, sending a faint chill down his back.
Slowly, he lowered himself into the desk chair, staring at the place where she had been standing moments ago.
He had confessed his desire to court her.
He had offered everything he dared. Instead of leaning towards him, she had withdrawn.
Perhaps he was being foolish and asking too much too soon.
She had not been angry or disgusted, anything that signified rejection.
She had only needed time. And why not? He must have frightened her with the depth of his feelings, for she would know as well as he what courtship meant.
No idle garden flirtation. Was it that Freddy’s ghost still lingered between them?
He dragged a hand down his face. It could not be because she thought of him as a tradesman. It could not.
“She needs time,” he said to the empty room with feigned confidence. “Of course I will give her time.”
Every instinct urged him to race after her and pull her into his arms, but he would wait. He would be patient. He would show her with patience and consistency that this was not a passing fancy.
The hours crawled.
By the time the sun began its slow descent on the day following his courtship proposal, Graeme had replayed every breath of their conversations, from the kiss in the gallery to her request for time to consider. The words frayed.
He had not seen her since she left the study.
Not in the corridors. Not in the garden.
Not in the gallery. Either she was dodging him to bide more time, or she had sequestered herself in her chamber to avoid him.
This did not bode well. Where had he gone wrong?
Had she not encouraged him during their garden assignation, he would think he had misread her reactions and insulted her, but she had encouraged him. She had wanted more. Her words.
He had not eaten a full meal since she left the study. He had not done any work either. Listless, he wandered.
After the longest day of his life, Graeme found himself drifting towards the study, his feet carrying him without decision.
The door yielded beneath his hand. The room was dim, washed in the pale lavender of dusk.
If his heart thumped a little faster in hopes of spying a particular young lady waiting for him, he would admit it to no one, especially after finding the room empty.
Not even the essence of orange blossoms lingered, as though she had never been there.
How different the air felt. Heavy. Stale.
He stopped halfway between the door and the desk, lost.
With the steward taking his place in the new study, and the estate solicitor soon to return to Lobelia Hall to resume his place in the old study, where was Graeme to reside?
One of the libraries, perhaps. Or he could tell the estate solicitor or steward to move their desk.
Now that he was thinking on it, with the earl’s impending arrival, he should extend an invitation to his trade solicitor, Mr. Brant Ellison, although the man might prefer to stay in London to see to business matters—too many solicitors, he mused.
For that matter, what was he to do with the family trade now that he decided to reside at Lobelia Hall permanently?
All these points he should have decided by now, but he had been too distracted by a certain bold woman with sooty lashes. Graeme sank into the desk chair and stared at the scattered papers, untouched since his encounter with Phoebe.
He stared, unseeing, his thoughts whirling.
He should write to his mother and sister. A letter was long overdue. They would need to know he had decided it was time for the earl’s arrival.
He stared, unseeing.
Yes, he should write to them.
He sighed.
Paper. He needed paper to write a letter.
He stared.
Then he saw it. Peeking from beneath the topmost ledger was a corner of cream paper. His eyes widened. His breath sharpened. His heart thumped.
The codicil.
It was not revealed for all to see, tucked as it was under the ledger, but the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as a shiver snaked down his spine.
He never left important papers unguarded.
Not ever. Until now. A dull shock moved through him.
He had been so consumed by thoughts of her, so rattled by her tenderness, that he had forgotten prudence altogether.
Fool! Careless fool! One moment’s distraction, and I left the most dangerous paper in the estate lying half-exposed!
Had she seen it?
He did not dare move, suspended between dread and disbelief, hands gripping the arms of the chair.
Searching the desk, his eyes flicked this way and that.
Not even the faintest sign of disturbance.
Why would she have seen it? He tried to rationalize the situation.
There would have been no reason for her to sit at the desk, no reason to sift through the papers.
More pointedly, if she had seen it, she would not have withdrawn behind polite smiles, not Phoebe, rather she would have railed at him as soon as he walked into the room, scolded him for not telling her right away.
Shakily, he exhaled.
If she had seen it…
If she had read it…
His throat tightened.
She would know the late earl left her a fortune. She would also know Graeme had concealed it from her.
He pressed a hand to the back of his neck. The room blurred as panic swelled.
No, he reasoned once more. She would have said something. Phoebe would not hide indignation. She would not retreat to her chamber. She would confront him.
Would she not?
Massaging the back of his neck, he tried to think, tried to recall her exact words, exact reactions.
The inability to meet his eyes, the reluctance to speak, the eagerness to be away from him…
none of these gave the smallest reassurance, not from the woman who had said earlier that same day, “Tell me now if I’ve imagined it meaning more. ”
If she had seen the codicil, she would know she did not need him or any man.
She was free. She was free from her father, from Freddy’s shadow, from marriage altogether.
She could live as she pleased, independent, beholden to no one.
What a temptation that must be for a woman who had been trapped her entire life, far and away more tempting than a tradesman’s proposal for courtship.
What place did a humble clerk have in her heart when she was independently wealthy?
He wanted her to have freedom, to have her own life, her own choices, her own future. He wanted her to choose love with no expectations, no debts, no coercion. He wanted this above all things. But… he feared she had already chosen independence over love. And his hands were tied.
Need coursed through his veins, the need to go to her, to storm into her suite and plead she consider him. Would both fates not be ideal? Money and love? She could have both, he could argue.
No, no, he needed to give her time and space to make her own decision. She must choose freely if she wanted just the inheritance or if she would consider taking a chance on love, and this must be her decision fully. He had kept this from her long enough.
His gaze drifted towards the window where the last threads of daylight slipped behind the grove.
Why bother preparing for the earl’s arrival now when everything he hoped to build with Phoebe was uncertain?
A chill in the air shivered through him.
He could do nothing except wait. If she wished to speak with him, she would come.
If she wished to choose him, she would come.
If not… well… this was her choice to make, even if that choice broke his heart.