Chapter 16
“Eric?”
The sound of her own voice disappeared beneath the thunder of approaching footsteps.
Adelaide barely had time to turn before he reached her.
One moment she had been admiring the valley spread beneath Wolverton, tracing the winding ribbon of the river with her eyes and wondering how many generations had stood in precisely the same place.
The next, Eric’s hands closed firmly around her upper arms, his grip startlingly hard as he pulled her backward with enough force that she stumbled into him.
She caught herself against his chest with a sharp gasp. “What—”
He did not answer. He continued moving her several more paces away from the overlook before finally stopping, his breathing noticeably uneven.
Adelaide stared up at him. His face had gone utterly colorless. His eyes remained fixed on the cliff behind her as though he expected the ground itself to move.
“Eric?” She reached instinctively toward his sleeve. “What has happened?”
His gaze shifted to her so abruptly that she almost stepped back. “You cannot stand there.”
The words emerged rougher than she had ever heard them.
“I…” She looked over her shoulder. “I wasn’t near enough to—”
“You cannot.” The interruption came faster this time. More forcefully.
She blinked. “I don’t understand.”
For several long moments he simply looked at her. His hands still rested around her arms, though she suspected he no longer realized they remained there. His fingers had loosened only slightly, enough that she no longer felt trapped, yet not enough that he had truly let go.
She had never seen him like this. Something behind his eyes had withdrawn so completely that she scarcely recognized him. “You’re hurting me.”
The words escaped quietly, and Eric looked down immediately. His hands fell away as though burned. “I…” He swallowed. “I apologize.”
She rubbed one sleeve where his fingers had pressed through the fabric. The marks would almost certainly fade within the hour. The memory of the fear on his face would not.
“You frightened me.”
His jaw tightened. “I know.”
“Then tell me what happened.” She searched his expression, hoping to find some explanation waiting there.
Had the ground shifted?
Had he seen loose stones she had missed?
Instead she found only a wall. As though whatever had seized him belonged somewhere she could not yet reach.
“I was only looking at the river.”
“I know.”
“You pulled me as though—” She stopped.
As though I had already fallen. The thought settled strangely between them.
Eric drew one slow breath before speaking again. “It is not a safe place.”
“It seemed perfectly—”
“It isn’t.” The firmness returned without the earlier sharpness. “It never will be.”
She frowned. “But the overlook is part of the estate.”
“It is.”
“Then surely people walk there.”
“They do not.” The answer came immediately, and Adelaide studied him more carefully. His shoulders remained rigid beneath his coat. Even now, several yards from the cliff, he continued glancing toward the edge instead of allowing his attention to settle completely upon her.
She had the peculiar sensation that he was no longer seeing the landscape before him.
“Eric?” Her voice softened. “You needn’t explain everything today.”
His eyes finally met hers.
“But I cannot help if I know nothing.”
For one fleeting instant she thought he might answer when she saw the unmistakable hesitation in the slight parting of his lips. Then whatever decision he had almost reached quietly disappeared. “I require a moment.”
He stepped back, increasing the distance between them until his expression became easier to compose, and then inclined his head politely, almost formally, before turning toward the house.
Adelaide watched him walk away, and he never once looked back.
The atmosphere changed almost immediately.
A footman arrived scarcely ten minutes later with quiet instructions that His Grace requested the blankets be relocated nearer the orchard, where the ground was flatter and the shade more comfortable.
The earl accepted the change with little more than a shrug.
Even Theodore seemed content to treat it as an ordinary adjustment.
Only Adelaide remained standing where she was, watching the servants fold away the picnic as though nothing unusual had occurred.
Elise wandered over, carrying another handful of daisies, and slipped one daisy into Adelaide’s hand. “He looked sad.”
Adelaide glanced toward the house, where Eric had disappeared entirely. “I know.”
“Why?”
Adelaide closed her fingers gently around the flower. “I wish I knew.”
She had seen grief before and worry. But what had crossed Eric’s face beside that cliff had been something altogether different. It was a different kind of fear.
She looked once more toward the distant overlook before following the party toward the orchard.
The wind stirred the long grass exactly as it had only minutes earlier.
Nothing appeared unusual, or at all to explain why a man as measured as Eric had crossed an entire meadow as though every second mattered.
“You look as though someone has stolen your favorite horse.” Theodore’s voice was gentle enough that Adelaide did not startle when he lowered himself onto the blanket beside her.
She let out a quiet breath she had not realized she was holding. “I’m afraid I haven’t any favorite horses.”
“Then someone has stolen something.”
She managed a small smile. “You’ve always believed you could read me far too easily.”
“I’ve earned the privilege.” He reached for an apple from the picnic basket, turning it thoughtfully between his hands before taking a bite. “I’ve also learned you’re remarkably poor at pretending everything is fine.”
Adelaide looked toward the orchard where Elise was chasing butterflies while the earl watched from the shade of an old ash tree. “I don’t know what happened.”
“The cliff?”
She nodded. “Theodore… he looked frightened.”
“Eric?”
She nodded again. “I’ve never seen anyone react that way.”
Theodore’s expression grew thoughtful. “I noticed.”
“He would scarcely explain anything.”
“He may not be able to.”
She turned toward him. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” He hesitated before offering an apologetic smile. “I don’t know the man well enough to answer honestly.”
She accepted that.
“It wasn’t anger,” he continued quietly.
“No.”
“It wasn’t directed at you.”
“I know.”
“Then perhaps whatever frightened him had very little to do with you at all.”
The observation settled somewhere inside her. She had reached much the same conclusion herself, though hearing someone else speak it aloud eased a portion of the uncertainty she had been carrying since the overlook.
Before either could continue, footsteps crossed the grass behind them. Violet approached with her usual measured grace, having exchanged her apron for a simpler shawl now that the midday meal had concluded.
“I hope I haven’t interrupted.”
“Never,” Adelaide said warmly. “Come sit with us.”
Violet smiled before lowering herself onto the blanket opposite them. For a few moments conversation wandered toward ordinary things. The earl’s appetite. Elise’s determination to collect every wildflower within half a mile. The unusually mild weather.
Yet Adelaide found herself watching rather than speaking. She noticed Theodore first, and how his attention drifted toward Violet almost unconsciously.
Whenever she spoke, he listened with complete focus, his expression softening in ways it had not during conversations with anyone else that afternoon. It was subtle enough that another person might easily have overlooked it.
She had known Theodore nearly her entire life and recognized the look. It was the same one he wore as a boy whenever he admired something too much to touch.
Violet, however, never quite returned it. Not because she disliked him.
Every time Theodore addressed her directly, excitement flickered briefly across her face before she carefully composed herself again.
She never encouraged, yet neither did she truly withdraw.
It reminded Adelaide of someone standing behind a locked door while quietly wishing they possessed the courage to open it.
“You’ve settled well at Wolverton,” Theodore remarked.
“I have been fortunate.”
“You deserve better than fortune.”
Violet looked down at the grass. “I have more than I expected.”
“You should expect more.” The words escaped him so naturally that he appeared not to realize he had spoken them aloud.
Violet’s fingers stilled around the edge of her teacup. “I’ve learned expectations can be dangerous.”
Theodore’s smile faded only slightly. “So can living without them.”
Neither spoke after that. Adelaide looked away before either had noticed she was observing them.
How had I missed it before?
Then again, Theodore had spent most of the past year abroad. During the years before that, Violet had always found reasons to leave the room whenever he arrived at Talbot Park. At the time, Adelaide had assumed little of it.
Now she wondered how many conversations had never happened because one of them lacked courage while the other possessed too many reasons to refuse.
She rose quietly. “I think Father has escaped everyone.”
Violet looked up. “He has wandered toward the pond.”
“Then I ought to rescue him before he convinces himself he requires another walk.”
Theodore smiled. “I’ll remain here.”
“I suspected you might.”
He gave her an innocent look that convinced absolutely no one. Adelaide laughed softly before leaving the two of them beneath the oak. She did not look back immediately. When she finally did several moments later, Theodore was saying something that made Violet smile despite herself.
A genuine smile. Beautiful enough that Theodore looked briefly as though he had forgotten every other person in England. Adelaide smiled to herself and continued toward the pond.
The afternoon slipped peacefully toward evening.
She spent nearly an hour beside her father, listening to stories from his youth she had somehow never heard before. By the time she rose, intending at last to find Eric and speak honestly about the morning, the house had settled into the comfortable rhythm that often followed a day outdoors.
She expected to find him in the library, but he was not there. Nor was he in his study or the morning room.
A passing footman apologized politely. “I’ve not seen His Grace since luncheon.”
Eventually Adelaide found herself in the servants’ corridor near the kitchens, where two housemaids were folding freshly laundered linens.
“Excuse me?”
Both women looked up immediately.
“Have either of you seen His Grace?”
They exchanged a glance so brief it almost escaped notice. “No, Your Grace.”
The hesitation was slight, but enough to make Adelaide pause. “I wished only to speak with him.”
The older woman turned back to the linen, but the younger remained facing Adelaide.
Her face twisted with indecision as she waited for some kind of instruction.
As the older woman hissed for her to get back to work, Adelaide took a step toward them.
“Do either of you know why His Grace might have been cross with my being near the cliff?”
The younger maid looked back up at her then. “I was not here before, but there is talk that the last lady who walked those cliffs—”
“Mary!” the older maid said, as she dropped a wet sheet rather harder than necessary.
“She never came back,” the younger girl continued quickly before dipping low, throwing her linen back into the basket, and disappearing back into the servant’s hall.
The older maid dipped low as well, begging for pardon and disappearing into the servants’ hall calling after the younger maid loudly.
Adelaide turned away from the kitchens and wandered without direction for some time.
Never came back? She needed more information, and the urgency of obtaining it had slowly crept into every bone in her body.
As she reached the main staircase almost nearly an hour later, voices drifted faintly from the servants’ passage behind her.
“…I told you she would ask.”
“Mary shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It does not matter.” The whisper dropped lower. “His Grace was very clear.”
Adelaide stopped. Another voice answered, too quiet to distinguish. Then came the first again. “If she asks again…” A long pause followed. “…we know nothing.”
Then the deliberate silence of people realizing someone might still be listening fell over the entrance hall.
Adelaide remained where she was for another heartbeat before continuing up the stairs as though she had heard nothing at all.
But one thought refused to leave her. Eric had not only avoided the truth but had made certain no one else would tell it either.