Chapter Ten
"His Grace is waiting for you in the stable yard, miss. He asked that I inform you the moment you arrived."
Lillian paused at the entrance to the Wynthorpe stables, her heart executing a small, treacherous flutter that she firmly instructed it to cease.
She was not a schoolgirl. She was a woman of three-and-twenty who had long since learned to govern her emotions with practical good sense.
The fact that she was about to spend an unspecified amount of time alone with the Duke of Wyntham, without Rosanne's cheerful presence as a buffer, was not cause for fluttering.
It was, if she was being entirely honest with herself, cause for something rather closer to terror.
"Thank you," she said to the groom, pleased that her voice emerged steady and unremarkable. "I shall go to him directly."
The stable yard was bathed in the golden light of mid-morning, the cobblestones still damp from an early mist that had since burned away.
The air smelled of hay and horses and the particular crispness of autumn; that scent of decay and renewal intermingled, of endings and beginnings happening simultaneously.
Lillian saw Daniel before he saw her.
He was standing beside a handsome bay gelding, adjusting something on the saddle with the focused attention of a man who needed to occupy his hands.
His riding clothes were immaculate, dark coat, buff breeches, boots polished to a mirror shine, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that spoke of tension rather than ease.
He looked, Lillian thought, like a man preparing for battle rather than a morning ride.
Beside his gelding stood Minerva.
The mare's coat gleamed like burnished copper in the sunlight, her dark eyes intelligent and calm.
She was already saddled, a lady's saddle, Lillian noted, of excellent quality, and her bridle was adorned with a single blue ribbon that matched, almost exactly, the color of the riding habit Lillian was wearing.
He had noticed. He had noticed what she wore, and he had remembered, and he had chosen accordingly.
The flutter in Lillian's chest intensified. She advised it, somewhat desperately, to be quiet.
"Miss Whitcombe."
Daniel had seen her. He straightened, his hands falling to his sides, and for a moment they simply looked at each other across the length of the stable yard.
The morning light caught his features, softening the sharp angles of his jaw, warming the dark depths of his eyes.
He looked, Lillian searched for the right word, uncertain. Almost nervous.
It was strangely reassuring to know she was not the only one.
"Your Grace." She crossed the cobblestones toward him, acutely aware of every step, every rustle of her riding habit, every beat of her foolish heart. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."
"Not at all. I was merely..." He gestured vaguely toward his horse. "Attending to some adjustments."
"Of course."
Silence fell between them, thick with everything that remained unspoken. Lillian found herself studying the blue ribbon on Minerva's bridle as though it were a text requiring careful analysis.
"I thought you might prefer Minerva," Daniel said, breaking the quiet.
His voice was a shade too casual, a shade too controlled.
"You seemed to have an understanding, when you met her in the stable yard some time ago.
She can be temperamental with unfamiliar riders, but she appeared to take to you. "
"You remembered."
"I remember most things." A pause. "It is a curse of a methodical mind. Details accumulate whether one wishes them to or not."
Lillian looked up at him and found him watching her with an expression she could not quite decipher.
There was something beneath the careful neutrality—something that looked almost like hope, or perhaps like fear.
With Daniel, she was beginning to realize, the two emotions might be closer than one would expect.
"The ribbon is a nice touch," she said, because she had to say something, and the truth seemed as good an option as any.
Color crept along his cheekbones. It was, Lillian thought, possibly the most endearing thing she had ever seen.
"That was…… The groom must have..." He stopped, apparently recognizing the futility of denial. "I noticed you favour blue. In your gowns. Your ribbons. I thought Minerva might appreciate the coordination."
"Minerva might appreciate it."
"She is a horse of discriminating taste."
"Naturally."
The corner of his mouth twitched; not quite a smile, but the suggestion of one, hovering at the edges of his expression like a guest uncertain of its welcome. Lillian felt something warm unfurl in her chest.
"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing toward the horses.
"By all means."
A groom appeared to help Lillian mount, and she settled into the saddle with the ease of long practice.
Minerva shifted beneath her, testing this new rider, and Lillian took a moment to establish her seat; firm but not rigid, confident but not domineering.
The mare's ears flicked back, listening, and then forward again, apparently satisfied.
"She likes you," Daniel observed, swinging onto his own mount with a fluid grace that Lillian tried very hard not to notice. "That is unusual. She barely tolerates most of my grooms."
"Perhaps she senses a kindred spirit. We are both, after all, creatures of discriminating taste."
This time, the twitch at the corner of his mouth deepened into something that was almost, very nearly, a genuine smile.
"Indeed," he said. "Shall we proceed? I thought we might ride through the eastern portion of the estate; the wilder land, away from the tenant farms. The views are particularly fine at this time of year, and we are less likely to encounter..."
He trailed off, but Lillian understood what he did not say. They were less likely to encounter other people. Witnesses. The curious eyes and wagging tongues that would transform a morning ride into a subject for gossip.
"That sounds lovely," she said.
They set off at a walk, the horses' hooves crunching softly on the gravel path that led away from the stables.
The morning was beautiful; one of those perfect autumn days when the sky was so blue it seemed almost impossible, and the trees were dressed in their finest gold and crimson, and the air held just enough chill to make the sunlight feel like a blessing.
For several minutes, they rode in silence.
It was not an uncomfortable silence, Lillian had grown accustomed to Daniel's economy with words, but it was weighted with anticipation.
They were alone now, truly alone, for the first time since.
.. Since ever, really. Every previous interaction had been mediated by Rosanne's presence, or the formal structure of a social gathering, or the interruption of servants and duties and the thousand small intrusions of daily life.
Here, on this quiet path through the golden woods, there was no one else. No escape. Nothing but the two of them and whatever was growing between them.
"I should apologise," Daniel said abruptly.
Lillian glanced at him. "For what?"
"For yesterday. For the..." He made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass their entire conversation in the green sitting room. "I said things that were perhaps too..."
"Too honest?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Yes. That."
"I was not aware that honesty required an apology."
"It does when it creates complications."
Lillian considered this. They had reached the edge of the formal grounds now, and the path was narrowing, leading them into a stretch of woodland where the trees grew close together and the light filtered through the canopy in dappled patterns of gold and shadow.
"May I ask you something, Your Grace?"
"You may ask. I cannot guarantee an answer."
"Do you regret it? Being honest with me?"
The question hung in the air between them, fragile and dangerous. Lillian watched his profile; the strong line of his jaw, the furrow between his brows, the way his hands tightened almost imperceptibly on the reins.
"No," he said finally. "That is the problem. I should regret it. Every principle I have lived by tells me I should. But I find that I do not."
"Then why apologise?"
"Because I do not know what comes next. Because I have no experience with….With whatever this is. Because I am, as I believe I mentioned yesterday, terrified of allowing myself to feel things, and you seem to have a talent for making me feel them anyway."
The confession was delivered in his usual clipped, controlled tone, but Lillian heard the vulnerability beneath the words.
He was not simply speaking of attraction, she realized.
He was speaking of something deeper, something that threatened the very foundations of the life he had built for himself.
"For what it is worth," she said quietly, "I am rather terrified as well."
He looked at her then and something passed between them that required no words. An acknowledgment, a recognition. The understanding that they were both standing on the edge of something vast and unknown, and that neither of them was certain whether to step forward or to flee.
"Perhaps," Daniel said slowly, "we might simply ride. For now. Without expectations or apologies or the need to define what this is."
"That sounds remarkably sensible."
"I have occasional moments of sense. They tend to occur when I am on horseback. Something about the rhythm, I suspect."
Lillian laughed; a genuine laugh, that was brought by the unexpected glimpse of humor beneath his severity. Daniel's expression flickered, and this time the smile that crossed his features was real and unguarded, transforming his face into something softer, warmer, infinitely more approachable.
"You should do that more often," Lillian said.
"Ride horses?"
"Smile."
The smile faded, but something of its warmth remained in his eyes. "I shall endeavour to practise."