Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Dietrich
Dietrich waited until the carriage had rolled out of sight before turning to Ella and the horses. Now to get Ella home.
“Have you had much experience riding before?” he asked. She had looked very stiff on the horse earlier, and hadn’t she asked him for riding lessons?
Ella turned pink. “No,” she admitted, “but I didn’t want to admit that to Beatrice.”
Dietrich laughed. “That does not surprise me whatsoever, knowing you,” he said. “I can’t believe she just threw you up there.”
“She thought I could ride,” Ella pointed out.
“Well, you made it here in one piece,” Dietrich said.
“Thanks to the efforts of Brownie,” Ella said, patting the mare on the nose, “but I don’t know how to get back on the horse without a mounting block, and I certainly don’t know how to make her move. She just followed Beatrice.”
Dietrich grinned. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you home.”
“But how do I get up there?” Ella asked, looking at the horse in consternation.
“Here,” he said, moving behind her slowly. He didn’t want to scare her off. Ella was surprisingly like one of his horses—if you moved too fast, she might bolt, and he didn’t want to do that.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Should I?” Ella asked, looking over her shoulder.
He grinned. “Maybe not, but we’re going to do this anyway. I’m going to cup my hands for you. You’re going to step into them and swing your other leg over the horse’s back. Fortunately, you’re wearing a split skirt. I’m assuming it’s Beatrice’s?”
“It is,” Ella said. “She asked if I knew how to ride sidesaddle, and I told her definitely not. So she got me this split skirt so I could ride astride.”
The outfit may not have been hers, but it looked absolutely stunning on her.
It was a rich, dark blue with a silver filigree running up and down the bodice.
The split skirt was flowy enough to hide the fact that it was split if one didn’t look closely enough, and the color set off her blonde hair and made her glow.
“We’ll have to get you used to riding sidesaddle at some point,” he said. “But for now, since we have no mounting block and this is only your second time on a horse, we’ll continue to ride astride. But I will teach you how to ride sidesaddle. Don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Ella said dryly.
He laughed. “My apologies for assuming,” he said. He cupped his hands, then paused.
“And I’m sorry for earlier,” he said. “I know I already apologized, but I do want to apologize again. It was never my intention to blindside you with the duchess coming along, and I couldn’t say no.
I had hoped to surprise you with your little sisters, but I know it was much more intense than you were expecting, and I am sorry. ”
The words came out much more easily than apologies usually did. When she wasn’t bickering, she was surprisingly easy to talk to.
“Thank you,” Ella said, the words softer than he’d expected them to be. “Now can I get on the horse? I’d like to get this over with.”
“Your wish is my command, my lady.”
“Don’t do that,” she said sharply.
Dietrich froze. “Don’t do what?”
“Call me ‘my lady.’ Isn’t that what you—” She shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
Dietrich let out a small noise. “You’re going to have to get used to it. I can’t walk around calling the duke’s daughter ‘Ella,’ no matter how much you want me to.”
“But I don’t want you to call me that,” she admitted softly.
“After we tell them, I won’t have a choice,” Dietrich said, just as quietly. “I don’t think you understand that part.”
“I don’t want it to be like that.”
“But you want to find your family.” So she didn’t have a choice.
He clasped his hands and held them out, not looking at her face. Ella placed her boot into them, and he boosted her up so she could get into the horse’s saddle.
It was true. Once she was no longer Ella, everything would change, even if she didn’t want it to.
He coached her through holding the reins properly and getting the horse to move forward, and before long, they were on their way to Eldenwilde.
It was not a long ride. The clearing was perhaps closer to Eldenwilde than it was to the duke’s estate, and they passed the ride in silence until they were close enough to see the gates.
“Thank you for today,” Ella said, turning to look at him. “I appreciate it more than you know.”
Everything had changed today.
He could no longer ignore the fact that she was someone he could have fallen for, in another world.
He had held her in his arms, and braided her hair, and helped her dismount—and every moment of physical interaction had only driven home the fact that she was the first girl he’d ever felt something for.
He knew what it was like to have a friend who was a girl—he’d grown up with Beatrice as his best friend.
This was different.
“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly when she looked at him oddly. He had taken too long to respond.
“You’re right. I need to tell them,” she said.
“Everything will change.”
The words escaped before he realized they had. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it.
“I know,” she responded.
It seemed that being near him was enough to turn any woman into nobility—first Sophia, then Beatrice, and now Ella. He should avoid Thea if he didn’t want her to leave the Cozy Cat Café because, clearly, it was his influence.
If only it hadn’t happened to Ella.
As they approached the house, Dietrich dismounted, letting a groom take the reins of his horse, and hurried over to Ella’s side before anyone else could help her.
If anyone was going to help her down from a horse, it would be him.
She looked down at him, her eyes full of trust, and it was all he could do not to kick himself for starting this. He should have left well enough alone.
But then she put her hands on his shoulders, and he helped her down from the horse, her body sliding down his.
Instead of pulling away, she stood there, waiting.
If she had been anyone else, he would have let her go—but he couldn’t.
He took a step back. “I think we should tell them soon,” he said, looking down at the ground.
It was easier that way. He didn’t have to see the disappointment in her eyes.
“I agree,” she said. “We could take a carriage to pick up Beatrice, if you want to tell them now?”
“Now is one option,” Dietrich said. “But you don’t have to if you’re not ready.”
Ella looked at him, her blue eyes piercing through his soul.
“I thought you wanted me to tell them,” she said quietly.
He did. And he didn’t. He didn’t know what he thought or what to say.
Of all the times for his heart to betray him, now was an awful time.
“You need to tell them. I know you do. I just can’t help wondering what could have been if things were different.” The words were sticking in his throat.
“If you didn’t work for my father?”
“If you weren’t a lady, and if your father wouldn’t have my head for even looking at you.”
“You’re not really scared of my father,” she said, glancing at him sideways.
“No,” he admitted. “Not at all. Your father is wonderful, and I’m so glad I work for him.
He has been very good to me and my mother, and I know he’ll take care of you.
And that is what matters. It doesn’t matter that there’s a possibility of something between us, or that I’m starting to feel like you might be the first girl I could fall for. And...”
He stopped. Why was he saying this? What could she do about any of it?
He couldn’t do this to her.
“And it’s not fair to you to tell you any of this, so I’ll stop.
You deserve the world, you deserve to find your family, and I can’t be the one holding you back.
Because you, Ella, are perfect. And the duke has been missing you your whole life, and I won’t be the one to stand in the way of his happiness.
I won’t be the one to keep him from finding his daughter.
“So, yes, I think we should tell them now, and I think you should go live your life with your family. I will go back to working in your father’s stable and pretend that I haven’t enjoyed every moment we’ve spent together in the past few weeks.
“And I think—”
Ella threw herself at him, her hands grabbing his shirt and her lips pressing into his with a ferocity he never would have imagined from her.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight before realizing what was happening and trying to let go. But she only pulled him closer, kissing him harder, until he gave in and held her close, letting himself feel for just a moment what it would be like if Ella was his.
It felt wonderful.
It felt right.
It felt perfect.
Until she pulled away. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at her feet. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Dietrich reached out to lift her chin so she was looking at him. “Perhaps not, and yet, I don’t regret it.”
He let his hand fall away and watched as she gave him a half-hearted smile before her hand disappeared into her pocket, as it often did.
“What do you have in there?” he asked. Perhaps he could distract from how awkward it now felt.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just something I’ve had since I was a child that I rub when I need something to do with my fingers.”
She pulled her hand out, and her fingers uncurled. There, in her palm, was the little pumpkin he had given to Lady Eliana when she was only three.
His heart stopped.
“I don’t know where I got it,” she confessed, turning it over in her hand, her thumb rubbing against the surface.
“But it’s a little pumpkin. You can barely tell anymore.
The carvings that used to be deep have worn down over the years because I play with it so much.
I got anxious a lot when I was with my stepmother, and having it helped,” she admitted.
“May I?” Dietrich asked, his throat dry as he held out his hand.
She handed it to him.
He turned it over, and there, on the bottom, was the tiny “D” he had scratched into it.
“This was the first thing I ever made,” he said, his voice thick. “I gave it to you because you wanted to play ball with it, and it made me laugh. I figured I could make my mother a different one. She’s not much for pumpkins anyway. My father had just taught me how to carve.”
He ran his fingernail through the faint groove left on the “D.” “I never thought I’d see it again.”
His eyes snapped up to hers. “Lady Eliana.” He knelt on one knee and bowed his head, then stood.
She stood frozen, her eyes wide.
“We must go tell your father,” he said. “This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are Lady Eliana Vaughn. And I know I said I would give you time, but I can’t anymore. Not after this. I’ll get a carriage.”
And with that, he turned and walked away, heading for the stables.
His heart broke in two as he left her alone in the courtyard because, while she would never be alone again, she could never be with him.