Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I thought you didn’t ride?” Elizabeth asked when she dismounted Buttercup and found Frances in the stables, wearing her riding habit, about to set off on her last ride before their return to London.
“Nathaniel has been teaching me.”
“Really?”
“I believe he said it was a liability if I couldn’t ride.” Frances rolled her eyes.
“I’m surprised he has you out on your own if you’re just learning.”
“I don’t want him to think me incompetent with my slowness, so I convinced Mr. Brimley to walk the horse around the fence while I sit atop.”
“I’m sure Nathaniel wouldn’t mind doing that for you. Though we were always taught by…oh.”
Frances felt herself blushing at the memory of Nathaniel’s body pressed against hers, arms around her waist to reach the reins, his warm breath tickling her neck every time he gave her instructions.
“Do you want to ride? I thought you were categorically opposed.”
“I must admit it is rather enjoyable. More so when—”
“You’re in his arms,” Elizabeth finished after Frances stopped herself.
“When I don’t have to be afraid of falling off as well as everything else,” she corrected.
“Apologies, I’m used to speaking my mind without thought here.”
“As are most Sutton women.” She sighed.
“You’re one of us now.”
“Begrudgingly,” Frances said under her breath.
“On your part, or his?”
“I meant to say that in my head.”
“Happens all the time,” Elizabeth assured her.
“I only ask because if you begrudge it, I don’t know how to help, but if you think he does, I can assure you he doesn’t.
A wife who can’t ride when you can means freedom to a man.
There’s no liability when we have carriages.
He’s giving you that freedom because he wants you to enjoy it, and easier to have your company on certain excursions than if you needed a carriage.
And, of course, because he enjoys teaching you. ”
“You don’t understand—”
“You might not. He probably doesn’t. But I most certainly do.”
With that, Elizabeth walked off, and Frances tried to remember if Elizabeth had ever given the impression of being cruel, or enjoying the suffering of others. Because if she understood as much as she thought she did, the only reason she would give Frances false hope was to be cruel.
Nathaniel watched Frances from the window and tried to be glad. He’d wanted her to ride, and there she was, riding, but it hurt. No, his teaching skills were hurt, not him. After all, it was better this way. For all parties.
“Mr. Brimley asked you first, didn’t he?” Elizabeth walked into his study, still wearing her riding clothes.
“Of course. He tells me everything pertaining to the horses and stables.”
“Are you implying Mr. Sparrow confers with Patrick, or…”
“No, I think you are most definitely the man of Lotham.”
“Good.” She sighed, then took a seat. “Are we talking about it?”
“About what?”
“Ah, denial, then. But I do think we should.”
“I don’t,” he argued, turning back to watch Frances.
“You can tell James. It doesn’t have to be me.”
“There is nothing to talk—”
“You like her.”
“She’s my wife.”
“Those don’t often go hand in hand.”
“Jo was the love of my life, Lizzie. As I am still living, there is nothing to talk about. And Frances understands.”
“Does she? Or did you just tell her how things were going to be?”
Lizzie knew him better than he wanted her to.
“I gave her the choice,” he insisted.
“Was a husband who loves and desires her on the table, or did you offer this against being at the mercy of her father’s ambition?”
“I didn’t offer what I can’t give.”
“Then it wasn’t a choice, Nate. It was the lesser of two evils.”
“She is Lady Lark. She runs a household, my family is hers, she has a greenhouse, gardens, whatever else she wants.”
“Except you.”
“Neither of us want that,” he protested.
“My marriage was infinitely worse, on all counts, but there were similarities in the beginning, if I’d—”
“Don’t you dare.”
The fury rose in him as it always did when he thought of what his sister endured while he was too busy drowning his sorrows to notice, but she’d never likened him to her husband before.
“No, I would never compare you to him, it’s more—”
“Don’t you dare even suggest that anything that happened—that what he did to you was anybody’s fault but his. That you could have done something to prevent it. If he hadn’t died, Lizzie, I swear, I would have killed him.”
“I simply meant…Never mind.”
“Frances is…I can’t say she is the greatest person I know, because our family has my heart, but she is included with all of you.”
“I know. But I’m pretty sure she loves you.
And even if she came into this knowing you loved someone else and aren’t over it, that you never will be, she will always be hoping you’ll change.
That you’ll fall for her. That she’ll get a chance to be truly happy.
Whether she ever tells you, or just holds it inside and blames herself for all her shortcomings, she’ll never not want more. ”
“I never told her,” he reluctantly admitted.
“What?”
“About Jo.”
“You said you gave her the choice?” she verified.
“Yes, but…”
“You didn’t tell her why?”
He shook his head, unable to utter the words now that he saw the look on his sister’s face.
“You told a woman that even as an earl with a literal duty to marry and produce heirs, you would marry her out of a noble sense of duty, but under no circumstances would you deign to get heirs off her, and didn’t tell her why?”
“I told her not to worry, that—”
“That you have absolutely no desire for her, and she is as worthless as her father always told her.”
Elizabeth looked at him in a way he’d hoped no one would ever look at him, but as she spoke, he knew she was right.
He was as horrified and disgusted with himself as she was.