Chapter Nine
Hyde Park in the early morning possessed a quality of stillness that the afternoon crowds would soon dispel.
The fashionable hour would bring carriages and riders in their dozens, all engaged in the elaborate theatre of seeing and being seen.
But at this hour, the park belonged to those who actually wished to ride and feel the wind on their faces and the power of a good horse beneath them, rather than merely to parade their finery before an admiring audience.
Martin urged his horse to a canter, relishing the burn in his muscles and the rush of cool air against his skin. He had slept poorly yet again and the exercise was a welcome remedy to the restlessness that had been plaguing him relentlessly him since the letters' arrival.
He was not looking for Vanessa. He was simply riding. If their paths happened to cross, it would be pure coincidence.
This was the story he told himself as he guided his mount along the eastern paths at precisely half past eight.
The morning was grey and damp with mist still clinging to the hollows, the scent of wet grass and earth hanging heavy in the air. A few other riders were abroad, an elderly gentleman on a sedate bay, a young buck showing off his new hunter, but the paths were largely empty and quiet.
Dangerous, a voice in his head whispered. You should not be here.
He ignored it.
He saw her before she saw him.
She was riding ahead, perhaps fifty yards distant, her groom trailing at a respectful distance behind.
Her habit was deep green velvet, well-cut and quietly elegant, and her seat was excellent as she rode with the easy confidence of someone who had spent countless hours in the saddle.
Her hair was escaping its pins, as it always did, russet strands catching the morning light like threads of copper.
For a moment, Martin simply watched her.
There was something about seeing her like this, unguarded and completely unaware of his observation that made his chest ache.
She was beautiful, yes, but it was more than that.
It was the way she moved, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head as she turned to say something to her groom.
It was everything about her, every detail and every imperfection.
He wanted her. He had wanted her for six years. And now, knowing that she wanted him too, the wanting had become almost unbearable.
Turn around, the sensible part of his brain urged. Ride away before she sees you. You cannot trust yourself.
But his hands had already tightened on the reins. His horse had already slowed. And before he could convince himself otherwise, he was closing the distance between them, his heart hammering in his chest with an anticipation that was entirely disproportionate to the circumstances.
It was only a morning ride. Only a chance encounter in the park.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
She heard the hoof beats and turned in her saddle, her expression shifting from surprise to something more guarded as she recognized him.
"Lord Montehood." Her voice was carefully neutral, revealing nothing. "What a coincidence."
"Lady Vanessa." He brought his horse alongside hers, matching her pace. "You are abroad early."
"I might say the same of you. I did not take you for a man who voluntarily rises before noon."
“I am quite laden with secrets yet to be revealed.”
"Indeed…” She glanced at him sidelong, something unreadable in her expression. "I confess I have not observed much evidence of that."
"Perhaps you have not been paying attention."
"Perhaps there has been nothing to observe."
They rode in silence for a moment, the only sounds the soft thud of hooves on packed earth and the distant call of birds.
Martin was acutely aware of her presence beside him, the rustle of her habit and the faint scent of rosewater that clung to her hair and the precise angle of her chin as she gazed at the path ahead.
He had imagined conversations with her a thousand times.
In his imaginings, he was always smooth, always clever, always in perfect command of himself and the situation.
In reality, he found himself at a loss for words and uncertain, afraid of saying too much or too little, terrified of betraying the secret he carried.
He thought of her letters…of the passage where she had described imagining conversations with him.
I have imagined a thousand conversations with him, she had written.
Brilliant, witty exchanges in which I am clever and charming and he finally sees me as something more than Edward's little sister.
In reality, I become tongue-tied and awkward, and he looks at me with that polite disinterest that makes me want to scream.
Polite disinterest. Is that how she perceived him? He had thought himself careful as he had cultivated a manner of easy friendship that revealed nothing of his true feelings. But "polite disinterest" was not what he had intended at all.
The irony was almost unbearable. They had both been playing the same game, hiding their true feelings behind masks of indifference, convinced that the other did not return their regard. They had both been torturing themselves, and each other, for years.
If he had known, would things have been different? Would he have found the courage to speak? Or would he have remained silent, bound by his faithfulness to Edward, by his own conviction that he was not worthy of her?
He did not know. He suspected he would not like the answer.
"You seemed distracted at dinner the other evening," Vanessa said, breaking the silence. Her voice was carefully light, but there was an undercurrent of something beneath it, curiosity, perhaps, or concern. "I wondered if something was troubling you."
"Distracted?"
“You regarded me with such fixed astonishment that I felt compelled to consult my glass, fearing some monstrous transformation had occurred in my absence.”
Martin felt heat creep up his neck. He had been staring. He had told himself he was being subtle, but apparently his subtlety left much to be desired. The knowledge that she had noticed…that she had been aware of his attention made his stomach tighten with a mixture of embarrassment and hope.
"I was merely... lost in thought," he said. "Estate matters. Tedious business."
"How convenient that your estate matters required you to stare at me across the dinner table."
"I was not staring."
"You were. Edward noticed. He asked me afterward if I had done something to offend you."
Damnation. If Edward had noticed, things were worse than he had feared. Edward was many things; loyal, good-natured, occasionally oblivious, but when it came to his sister, he could be surprisingly perceptive.
"I apologise if I caused you any discomfort," Martin said stiffly. "It was not my intention."
"I did not say I was discomforted. Merely... curious." She turned to look at him directly, and there was something in her eyes…a question, perhaps, or a challenge. "You have been behaving strangely of late, Martin. At the ball, at dinner, and now here. I find myself wondering what has changed."
Everything, he thought. Everything has changed. I have read your letters and I know what you feel for me, and I cannot erase it from my memory, and I have no idea what to do with this knowledge.
"Nothing has changed," he said. "I am precisely as I have always been."
"Then perhaps I am only now noticing what was always there." She looked away, her profile sharp against the grey morning sky. "Or perhaps I am imagining things. I have been told I have an overactive imagination."
"Who told you that?"
"You did. Three years ago. At the Worthington ball."
Martin frowned, searching his memory. "I do not recall…"
"I had expressed an opinion about Lord Byron's personal life, and you said that I clearly possessed more imagination than judgment. You were quite cutting about it, actually."
He remembered now. She had been defending Byron against accusations of moral turpitude, arguing with passionate conviction that an artist's personal failings did not diminish his art.
Martin had disagreed, partly because he genuinely held the opposing view, and partly because arguing with Vanessa was the only form of intimacy available to him.
He had not realised his words had stung.
The memory surfaced now with painful clarity of Vanessa's face falling, the spark of hurt in her eyes before she had masked it with a laugh. She had covered well, but he had seen it. He had simply chosen not to acknowledge it at the time.
How many other wounds had he inflicted without knowing? How many careless words had landed like blows, chipping away at her confidence, feeding her conviction that he did not regard her?
The thought was deeply uncomfortable.
"I did not mean…" he began.
"It does not matter. It was years ago." Her voice was light, but something in it suggested otherwise. "I have since learned to keep my imagination to myself."
The words landed like a blow. I have learned to keep my imagination to myself. And now her imagination, her private thoughts and feelings and desires sat in his desk drawer, exposed and vulnerable, read by the very man she had been hiding them from.
He was a villain. He should tell her. He should confess everything and throw himself upon her mercy.
Instead, he said nothing.
They rode on.
***
The path curved ahead, winding through a copse of oak trees whose leaves were just beginning to turn gold at the edges.
It was a pretty stretch of the park, quiet and secluded, and Martin found himself wishing they could ride on forever suspended in this moment where nothing had been spoken and nothing had been ruined.
But peace, in his experience, was always temporary.
It happened quickly. A rabbit bolted across the path, a flash of brown fur directly beneath Vanessa's horse. The mare startled, rearing with a frightened whinny, and Vanessa caught off guard lost her seat.