Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Dietrich
It had been a week since he had come back to work, and Dietrich had successfully managed to avoid Ella.
He had seen her a couple of times, but each time, he had been far enough away from her to make his escape before she could talk to him.
Which was a good thing, because if she talked to him, he didn’t think he would be able to walk away—not when all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her again.
It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t known her long enough to fall in love with her, and he wasn’t even sure why she had kissed him in the first place.
He’d gone over it time and time and time again, trying to puzzle it out, but the only thing he’d gotten for his troubles was a headache and cuts when he lost concentration and his knife slipped while he was carving…something in a bad attempt to distract himself.
He didn’t even want to think about how many times he had caught himself carving a pumpkin before he had thrown the block of wood into the fire.
But it was growing warm enough now that fires would no longer be needed, and he would have no easy way to dispose of his failed carvings, at least in his office. He could always sneak into the kitchen and throw them into the fire there—as if that wouldn’t be suspicious.
No, he had to stop thinking about her, and that meant he had to stop seeing her.
He tucked his pocketknife back into his pocket and sat down at his desk.
He needed to pay the farmers for the grain they had delivered this week, which meant he needed to send an invoice to the steward with an accounting of how much they had received.
But as he was looking through the list of supplies they had received that week, his office door opened, and Ella appeared.
His mouth dried up as he took in the sight of the girl he had been avoiding for two weeks. She was wearing the same riding outfit that Beatrice had lent her, bringing back all the memories of the moments they’d spent together on that fateful day.
Including the moment she’d kissed him.
He swallowed hard and stood as she looked at him with her hands on her hips and said, “I need another riding lesson.”
Dietrich shook his head. “Unfortunately, I am busy this afternoon, my lady. But one of my men can help you if you wish to go riding.”
“I don’t want one of your men. I want you,” she said. “Are you going to tell me no?”
The look on her face was practically daring him to tell her no.
“And what would you do if I did?” he asked, stepping closer. It was dangerous getting closer to her, but he was drawn to her like a magnet, and he couldn’t stay away.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say no, and I wouldn’t have to think of it.”
He couldn’t hide his grin. “You still don’t know everything you’re allowed to do, do you?” he asked.
She sighed melodramatically. “No,” she admitted. Her voice became plaintive. “I don’t know anything yet, and it’s all very frustrating.”
Dietrich laughed. “You sound like you could use a chance to clear your head.”
“Which is why I’m here,” she pointed out. “I want to get out of here for a bit. Can you bring me back to the picnic clearing? I want to know what they were talking about when my father said I used to go there with you.” Her voice grew quieter.
“You still don’t remember,” he said.
She shook her head as Dietrich studied her.
“No, but I want to. I want to remember y—” Her voice cut out before she could finish the word you.
Or at least, that’s what he wanted to think she was going to say.
“My childhood,” she said, words faltering as if she knew that he wouldn’t believe her.
“But if you won’t take me, then I shall look rather silly traipsing back to my room wearing this when everyone knows I haven’t been gone long enough to have been on a ride. ”
Dietrich glared at her. “Are you trying to manipulate me into taking you on a ride so you don’t look bad?”
“Is it working?” she asked, her voice perking up.
Dietrich sighed and closed the distance between them. “You’re learning how to be a proper noble, I see,” he said, looking down at her. Not that they had a large height difference, but it was large enough that she would have to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him again.
It was dangerous being this close. If she had done it once, she could do it again. But part of him didn’t care. Part of him wanted her to do it again—to push her luck and kiss him in the doorway of his office, as if no one was there, as if they weren’t going to get caught.
Her gaze traveled to his lips, then back to his eyes, and her lips parted. But before she could do anything, footsteps sounded in the stable behind them, and she stepped back to allow him to walk through the doorway.
“Come with me, my lady,” Dietrich said as John came around the corner. “We’ll find you a nice mare to ride.”
John shot him a look over Ella’s head, and Dietrich frowned at him.
John didn’t know what he was talking about, and neither did his mother.
Ella was only here because she needed to get out of the castle—not because she wanted to spend time with him.
He brought her down to Vanilla’s stall. “I think this mare will do nicely for you. She is very sweet, just like her name,” he said, gesturing to the name on the front of the stall door.
And more importantly, she was gentle enough to use with children, which meant she would be gentle with an inexperienced rider.
“She’s very beautiful,” Ella said, running her fingers over the dark brown mare’s nose. “I like her already.”
“You’ll like her more once we have a mounting block for you to use,” Dietrich said. “Let me get her saddled for you.”
It was only a few minutes more before Dietrich and Ella were on their way through the gate, and this time, it felt right—because he was going with her, and he knew that she would be safe with him.
They rode in silence until they reached the picnic clearing. He could have said something, but he didn’t. Simply being with her was enough.
Dietrich dismounted first, moving over to help Ella, with Turnip’s reins held loosely in his hand. He put her down quickly and took a step back, unwilling to let himself linger the way he wanted to.
Ella took a deep breath and frowned at him. “I don’t like it,” she said finally. “I don’t like watching you put distance between us. I thought we were friends. You’re still friends with Beatrice, even though she is now nobility.”
“It’s different with you,” was all he could manage to say.
“Why is it different?” she pressed. “I’d hoped that we could at least remain friends.”
“Beatrice has never kissed me,” he pointed out.
“So because I did, we can’t be friends?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he said, the words coming out in a whine that would have made his mother cackle.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know that we can’t be friends, and I don’t know why you brought me out here to say all of this because it’s not going to make a difference.
You and I are too different, and there are lines that we cannot cross and bridges that we have to burn. I don’t know why we’re here.”
“I don’t know, either,” she admitted. “I just needed to get out of there for a minute, and I knew you would help me. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks, and I just needed a minute with a friend, even if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.”
Dietrich sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want to be your friend. I just...”
“You just don’t know how to be friends with Lady Eliana the way you were with Ella,” she finished for him, her voice tinged with sadness. Then she walked a few feet away, bending over to pick a dandelion from the ground.
She began plucking the petals out one by one, looking down at them and avoiding looking at him. “And I can’t change your mind?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dietrich said. “I’m very sorry.”
He knew that his mother and John would be upset with him for pushing her away, but it wasn’t their business. It wasn’t their life.
They were not the ones who had made the mistake of letting her walk away as a child and not going after her. He couldn’t take her away from the duke again.
“I’m at your service when you are ready to return home,” he said, turning away from her and brushing Vanilla’s nose soothingly.
It was only a moment before Ella took a deep breath. “I am ready to go home.”
Her voice was quiet and small. He was the one who had made her feel that way, and he hated himself for it, but he was not willing to change his opinion.
Ella was where she belonged, and where she belonged was not with him.
He helped her mount Vanilla, cupping his hands and giving her a boost before mounting his own horse and leading the way back home.
They rode in silence, and when they arrived in the courtyard, one of the maids was waiting for her.
“Your father wishes to see you,” she said as he helped Ella dismount and stepped away from her. “We must hurry.”
“What’s wrong?” Ella asked as she hurried after the maid.
Dietrich couldn’t hear her response, and while he wanted to know what the issue was, it was none of his business.
He had no claim on Ella, and she would have to manage her own problems without him.