Chapter 23 #3
She had learned that he hated pears, that he had once fallen out of a tree as a boy trying to impress his cousin and broken his arm, that he still woke sometimes convinced he was on a rolling deck.
He, in turn, had learned that she had once tried to ride a river pony bareback and ended up in the Tay, that she cried at tragic ballads even as she mocked them, that she could not abide brandy but would drink whisky without flinching.
The road had stripped away a layer of formality.
She had come to trust him in that narrow, practical way travelers trust anyone who shares their dangers.
To spot a bad rut in the road, to share a canteen, to watch her back when a crowd grew rough.
Beyond that she had felt something bud. Not fully open, not fully safe, but there.
Which made the knowledge of what awaited in York sit all the worse. She had not forgotten the conversation beneath the inn window. Every beat of her heart since had seemed to tap out the rhythm of Edward’s words.
He does not trust me unless I pass a test. And when I pass what will that trust be worth. It is like only having faith in God if you are granted a miracle first.
Lord Deverell was somewhere behind those walls. With his accusations. With his memories of a woman called Isla Drummond who was not her. Edward carried the intention to test her. To make her prove herself to him. She could feel it between them like an extra passenger on the trap seat.
Henry, perhaps feeling the same weight, had grown quieter as the city grew closer.
His arm was around Elizabeth’s waist, steady, but his usual stream of commentary had dwindled to the occasional quip.
Elizabeth, for her part, seemed content simply to hold on and watch the world pass, face alight whenever Henry turned his head. Isla envied them their simplicity.
She shot a sideways glance at Edward. He was watching the road, but she could tell his thoughts were elsewhere.
His jaw was set a fraction tighter. There was a line between his brows that had not been there when he was describing the misbehavior of midshipmen.
She forced her gaze forward again. York loomed larger.
“So,” Henry said at last, breaking the silence, “shall we take the great city by storm? I feel sure York is unprepared for the arrival of a duke, a duchess and a future Mrs. Ashford.”
Elizabeth laughed softly. “We shall scandalize the Minster.”
Edward made a noncommittal sound. At the next rise the crossroads appeared.
One road bent off toward the city gates, where carts and riders already queued.
The other skirted the town’s outer fields, a narrower route that ran past a scattering of trees toward what looked like a smaller settlement further on.
Isla tightened her grip. Her heart drummed.
This is it then. Shall I tell Edward his proof can go hang. If he cannot trust me for who he sees in front of him then … I want no part of him.
The choice rose like a wall in front of them. She clucked to Morrow and guided the trap toward the left-hand fork which was marked by a signpost pointing to York in neat black letters. Her stomach flipped.
I do want a part of him. I want all of him. And if I must prove myself then … damn it all, then I do what I must!
Best to get it over with. Best to have Lord Deverell’s gaze on her and see it fail to recognize her. Best to force Edward to look between them and choose. Her nerves jangled, but beneath them there was a hard little core of resolve.
“Isla,” Edward called.
She did not look back. “We will be through the gates before dark if we do not dally.”
“Isla,” he repeated.
Something in his tone made her draw Morrow to a halt.
She turned in her seat. Edward had reined his horse to a stop at the very center of the crossroads.
He had not moved toward either fork. His cloak hung still around him, the wind stirring only the ends.
He sat very straight, hands light on the reins, as if the horse were the least of what he was controlling.
Henry drew up beside him, frowning.
“What is it?” Isla asked. Her voice did not quite come out as steady as she would have liked.
Edward’s gaze flicked to the city, then back to her.
“I find,” he said slowly, “that I have very little desire to spend the evening wedged in a noisy inn with twenty other travelers and half the soot of Yorkshire in my lungs.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
He nodded toward the right-hand fork. “That road will take us round the city. There is a smaller inn, a few miles on, that Rearden and I stayed at years ago. It is not fashionable. It is, however, clean, and the mutton pie was not lethal. I suggest we go there.”
Isla stared. “You wish to … skirt York.”
“Yes,” he said.
“But.” She groped for a neutral objection. “Supplies. Your business.”
“My business,” he said, “can wait.”
Henry looked between them, brow furrowing. “Wexford, I thought …”
“I know what you thought,” Edward said, not taking his eyes from Isla. “I know what I thought. I am thinking something else now.”
The world seemed to narrow to the space between them. The road, the city, Henry and Elizabeth, the clatter of distant carts all faded. Isla’s heart hammered so hard she was sure the mare could hear it.
“You would not find Deverell there,” she said. It came out almost as a question.
“No,” he said, not questioning how she knew of his plans. “I would not.”
“And you do not wish to,” she said.
He took a breath, held it, let it out. “No.”
Henry’s shoulders eased, a smile ghosting across his mouth as if some tension he had been carrying silently had slackened. Isla swallowed. A warmth uncurled in her chest, slow and incredulous.
“It is almost as if,” she said carefully, “you have decided you do not need whatever answer he would give.”
“Almost,” he agreed.
Henry cleared his throat. “For what it is worth,” he said, “I heartily support any plan that avoids cities. Libby has had her fill of crowds for the year, and I have had my fill of bad wine.”
Elizabeth gave a soft agreeing noise that could have meant anything. Isla steadied the trap.
“Well,” she managed. “If Your Grace would prefer country air, I am not opposed. I have slept in worse places than a country inn.”
Edward’s mouth quirked. “So have I.”
He wheeled his horse toward the road that circled the city.
Morrow, sensible beast that she was, followed his lead without waiting for Isla’s formal cue.
York’s walls drifted slowly away to their left.
Isla kept her eyes on the bend of the new road, but she was aware of every small, almost imperceptible release inside her, the loosening of a knot she had not known was so tight.
The test had been coming nearer with every mile.
Now it receded, not gone from the world but no longer set like a trap in their shared path.
He had chosen to trust what he had seen.
He had chosen her. She kept her face as composed as she could manage.
Edward’s horse drew level with the trap again.
He did not speak immediately. When he did, it was not of Deverell or York.
“Do you think the mutton pie will be as you remember?” she asked lightly, because someone had to say something that was not weighted with everything.
“God, I hope not,” he said. “If it is, we may find ourselves testing Henry’s capacity for wagon-driving sooner than anticipated.”
Henry made a wounded noise. “I will have you know I am an excellent nurse. I have kept more than one colonel alive through fever.”
“Let us hope you are not called upon to practice on me,” Edward said.
The small exchange broke the tension further. They rode on, leaving York behind.
***
The inn Edward had remembered proved to be exactly as promised: modest, clean, and occupied principally by men whose hands bore the callouses of honest work rather than cards.
A fiddler sat on a stool near the hearth, coaxing melodies from his instrument that made Isla’s foot tap without conscious thought.
The landlord, massive and genial, seemed delighted to have quality under his roof without the attendant fuss that sometimes accompanied it. They took a corner table, ate stew thick with barley and carrots, and drank ale that tasted of hops rather than desperation.
For a time Isla simply sat and let herself be content. Henry and Elizabeth could not stop smiling at one another. Every time she looked up, their faces were turned toward each other, some private remark passing between them. It should have been cloying.
It was not. It was restful. Proof that such things could exist, even if imperfectly. Edward, across from her, relaxed by degrees. The lines at the corners of his eyes smoothed and the set of his shoulders eased.
When someone cleared a space in the middle of the floor and the fiddler shifted into a livelier tune, people began to dance.
Not with the careful, arranged precision of a London ball, but with the easy, rough joy of villagers who had known one another since childhood.
A tall farmer spun his wife with more enthusiasm than grace; two children attempted to copy them and nearly fell over their own feet, giggling. Isla’s heart squeezed.
She had danced like that as a girl. In barns and cleared parlors and once in a field under the stars, the music a fiddle and a thin whistle, and twenty voices raised in song. She found her fingers tapping the table again.
Edward followed her gaze. “I apologize,” he said dryly. “The entertainment is not up to Ravenscroft standards.”
“Ravenscroft standards,” she said, “could use the improvement. No one has fainted once this evening.”
The fiddler launched into a reel Isla knew as well as the sound of her own name.
Without allowing herself to think, she pushed back from the table and stood.
Edward’s brows rose. “You are going to dance.”
“Yes,” she said. “So are you.”