Chapter 23
Bryn Hir lay somewhere beyond the next hill.
William had known that for the better part of an hour, yet the knowledge had done nothing to make the distance pass more quickly.
The four horses climbed steadily beneath a gray afternoon sky, their pace slower now after nearly two days of hard riding. Rosalind rode several yards ahead beside Isabella, both women showing remarkably little sign of the exhaustion William knew they must feel.
Isabella’s disguise had attracted more than a few curious looks along the road. Rosalind’s presence had attracted considerably more concern from him.
He had stopped voicing it sometime yesterday.
Mostly because every time he asked whether she needed to rest, she gave him a look suggesting she was considering whether Bryn Hir might be reached more quickly if she simply murdered him and stole his horse.
He smiled despite himself.
Two days. Somehow, they had passed both impossibly slowly and far too quickly.
Perhaps it was the company. Perhaps it was because William had spent nearly every mile trying not to imagine what they might find when they finally reached the estate.
His smile disappeared.
Algernon.
There had been no escaping his brother’s name during the journey, even when none of them spoke it.
The letter remained tucked safely inside William’s coat. Edmund Carlisle’s boots had been left behind, but William could still see the stamped initials inside them.
E.C.
Evidence of a deception his own brother had apparently helped construct.
He had spent most of the first day searching for other explanations.
By the time they settled at the first inn that evening, he had run out of them.
Gabriel had found him sitting on the edge of one of the narrow beds in the room they had been forced to share, staring at nothing.
“You are doing it again,” Gabriel had said.
William had looked up. “Doing what?”
“Attempting to solve every possible disaster before any of them have occurred.”
“I prefer preparedness.”
“You prefer tormenting yourself.”
Gabriel had tossed his coat over the back of a chair before sitting on the other bed.
For once, William had lacked the energy to argue.
“What if Algernon knew everything?” he had asked. “Not merely where Eastmere was being held. What if he arranged all of it?”
Gabriel had been quiet for a moment.
William had stared at his hands.
“I keep thinking there must be something we have missed. Some explanation that makes all of this less…” He had struggled for the word.
“Terrible?”
William had laughed without humor. “I was going to say impossible.”
“It stopped being impossible when we found the letter.”
“Yes.”
That was precisely the problem.
He had risen and crossed to the small window overlooking the inn yard. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, Rosalind and Isabella occupied another room.
“I cannot stop thinking about what this has done to her,” William had admitted.
“To both of them. Rosalind and her mother have spent weeks believing Eastmere abandoned them. They thought he had chosen another woman. Rosalind has questioned everything she knew about her father because someone wanted her to.”
“And you think that is your fault?”
“No.”
Gabriel had waited.
William sighed. “Not rationally.”
“Ah.”
“Do not sound so pleased.”
“I enjoy the rare occasions when you recognize your own stupidity before I am required to point it out.”
William had ignored that. “He is my brother, Gabriel.”
“I know.”
“If Algernon did this…”
Gabriel had not offered an easy reassurance. That was one of the reasons William trusted him.
Instead, his friend had leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“Then we deal with that when we know it.”
“And if Eastmere is—”
“We deal with that when we know it too.”
William had looked at him.
“One problem at a time,” Gabriel said. “We reach Bryn Hir. We find Lord Eastmere. We discover who is responsible. Then you may have whatever crisis you please.”
“How generous.”
“I thought so.”
William had smiled then, reluctantly.
Gabriel was right. It had not made the questions disappear, but it had made them easier to carry.
The horses crested another rise, bringing William abruptly back to the present.
Bryn Hir was still hidden from view.
Rosalind shifted in her saddle ahead of him, and his attention went to her immediately.
Which had happened rather a lot during the journey.
Far more often than he cared to admit.
The previous afternoon, a pheasant had burst suddenly from the brush beside the road. Rosalind’s mare had shied violently, dancing sideways before rearing just high enough to send William’s heart into his throat.
He had been halfway toward her before he realized she did not need him.
Rosalind had shortened the reins, leaned with the mare’s movement, and brought the animal under control before William could reach her.
When Rosalind noticed him beside her, breathless and undoubtedly looking more alarmed than the situation warranted, she blinked.
“William?”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Her expression softened. “Quite certain.”
He looked her over anyway, searching for some injury she had already assured him did not exist. Rosalind seemed to realize what he was doing, and a small smile touched her lips.
“I am all right,” she said more gently.
William knew that, yet he remained beside her for the next mile.
By then, there seemed little point in denying what had become increasingly obvious.
He wanted to take care of her.
Not because Rosalind needed taking care of. If the past several weeks had taught him anything, it was that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself. But knowing that did nothing to lessen the instinct that had sent him racing toward her the instant her horse reared.
She mattered to him. Whether she was safe, happy, cold, or exhausted after hours in the saddle mattered more than any of it reasonably should.
Somewhere along the way, William had begun collecting small pieces of her without meaning to.
The line between her brows when she concentrated.
The way she pressed her lips together when suppressing a laugh.
How she grew quieter when she was truly angry, and the particular brightness in her eyes whenever she discovered something everyone else had overlooked.
Even the way she said his name when she forgot she was supposed to be irritated with him.
That realization had followed William into the second inn the previous night and, unfortunately, Gabriel had been there to witness it.
“You are staring at the ceiling,” his friend observed from the other bed.
“I am trying to sleep.”
“You have been trying very aggressively for nearly twenty minutes.”
William turned his head. Gabriel lay with his hands folded behind it, looking entirely too comfortable for a man who had spent most of two days on horseback.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“Nothing.”
“That expression has never meant nothing.”
William should have kept his mouth shut. Instead, he asked, “Do you think I have ruined everything with Rosalind?”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. “Oh.”
“Forget I asked.”
“No. Absolutely not. I have waited weeks for this.”
“For what?”
“For you to become interesting.”
William threw a pillow at him, which Gabriel caught easily against his chest.
“I am serious.”
“I know.” His laughter faded. “All right. Tell me.”
William looked back at the ceiling. “When we began this ridiculous arrangement, I thought it would make everything easier. My mother would stop presenting eligible women to me, Rosalind and I could investigate without inviting gossip, and eventually we would end it. That would be that.”
“And now?”
William thought of a peach-colored sky, Rosalind laughing in the sunshine as they played battledore, and her hand finding his when everything he believed about his father had begun to fracture.
“Now I cannot imagine not seeing her.”
Gabriel said nothing, which somehow made it easier to continue.
“I look for her whenever I enter a room. I hear something amusing and wonder what she would say about it. I remember things because I want to tell her later.” He gave a faint, humorless laugh. “Then I remember the courtship was never real.”
“I suspect friendship still permits conversation.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“No,” Gabriel said softly. “I know.”
William closed his eyes. There seemed little point in avoiding the truth any longer.
“I think I am falling in love with her.”
The admission should have frightened him. Instead, it felt almost inevitable.
There had been no single moment when everything changed. Rosalind had simply worked her way into his life piece by piece until the pretense between them had become the least honest part of their courtship.
And now he might never discover whether she could feel the same.
Shame followed the thought almost immediately.
Tomorrow they would reach Bryn Hir. Rosalind’s father had been missing for weeks, and they had no idea what condition they would find him in. He might be frightened or injured. He might have suffered in ways William could scarcely bear to imagine.
They did not even know for certain that he was alive.
Yet William was lying there worrying about whether Rosalind might ever love him.
He dragged a hand over his face. “God, I am selfish.”
Gabriel frowned. “Why?”
“Because her father may be suffering in that house, and part of me is worried about what this will mean for me.”
“That is hardly all you are worried about.”
“No. But it should not be there at all.”
William pushed himself upright, unable to remain still. “If Algernon is responsible, Rosalind will have to live with what my brother did to her family. She has already spent weeks believing her father abandoned them because someone deliberately made her believe it.”
He paused, struggling against the possibility he had been avoiding since London.
“And if we find Eastmere hurt because of him, I do not know how she will ever look at me without some part of her remembering what Algernon did.”
“You are not your brother.”