Chapter 16 #3
She picked up her pace a little, gently urging the mare forward. “Your aunt was right. You do change when you are in Surrey.”
“Yes?”
“You are utterly insufferable.”
They rode on a while in silence, until they arrived at the bend where the road forked. One path led to the forest—Ockley Greens beyond that—and it was where the men had ridden ahead without them.
“I have missed this,” Rosalie said quietly, as though she had not even intended Gabriel to hear. “Riding... We do much riding by the coast in the summertime.”
She looked toward the horizon, the wind dancing the loose strands of auburn hair around her face, color on the high points of her cheeks where the air had nipped her skin.
“I miss Cornwall.”
“Why?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s natural to miss the places of our birth.
But in my case... the quiet. There is a meadow of heather on a cliffside, overlooking the sea.
I retreat there to read. It is glorious in the summer.
In early summer, my sister and I would go gooseberry picking.
But I suppose... I miss the flowers most of all. ”
Part of him wanted to ask why she was divulging all this to him. He was impressed at how easily she accessed these happy memories. He could barely remember a time before his twenty-first birthday.
Deciding to fall into the memory with her, his heart lurched involuntarily as he pictured her reading in the meadow. And then the trail of thoughts led elsewhere, and his eyes went there too, down the untrodden path.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She looked at him, visibly surprised by the question. “That depends entirely on what you intend to do with the answer.”
He smiled and turned his horse off the main track, down the path he had walked since he was a boy. After a moment’s hesitation, he heard her following.
The path was narrow and lined with trees.
The ground was uneven underfoot. Eventually, they came out of the trees into a meadow he had not visited properly in years, though he had ridden past its edges a hundred times without turning in.
This time of year, it was exactly as he remembered it: waist-high grass turned silvery green in the midday light, threaded with cowslips and marigolds, and great expanses of something fragrant and purple.
He turned his horse to look at Rosalie, who lingered between the trees. She looked around quietly, gripping the reins. His horse was weary, like his aunt had predicted it would be, and he dismounted beside Rosalie and invited her to do the same.
Her gloved hand fit perfectly into his as she landed on her feet.
Standing in the grass, he let his eyes drift to the lavender threaded through with violets. The smell clung to his lungs, but he breathed deeply as he released Rosalie’s hand.
Rosalie took a few steps away from him. “Is something wrong?”
When he looked up, she was staring at him. The sight took his breath away when he had only just found it again. “No... My mother liked these flowers. The lavender, and the violets. I had almost forgotten it grew here.”
“It has been warm this year,” Rosalie said, leaning down to inspect a patch of wildflowers. “The lavender is young, but it should not even be out yet... I like lavender very much.”
“You do?”
She smiled. “Much more than roses.”
Rosalie removed her riding hat and returned to him. They looked over the meadow together. A curl had come loose at her temple, stirred by the wind moving through the meadow. He reached out and tucked it back before he had thought better of it, his fingers grazing the warm skin of her cheek.
She did not step away. Memories of the night before flashed before his eyes.
“Last night,” he said in a low voice, “I do not entirely remember what I said to you. This troubles me. Did I say something I should be embarrassed about?”
Rosalie considered his question for a while. “You said some things. But I cannot tell you whether you would be embarrassed by them.”
“Why can you not just recite them for me?” he half-teased.
“We have never done things simply, you and I,” she said.
“No, we have not.”
He was close enough now to see the exact color of her eyes, that clear, unplaceable gray-green-blue.
He was leaning toward her before he had really permitted it.
Her breath caught audibly, and he thought, “This is what I really want; I suspect I wanted it last night, and that is what she is too afraid to tell me. I am an animal, unruly...”
“Hallo!” James’s voice suddenly cut down the path behind them.
Gabriel cursed under his breath and stepped back. Rosalie was quick to move, returning to her horse and climbing into the saddle. He wiped a hand over his mouth, grieving what might have been, as the sound of a horse approached.
When he arrived, it was at a gallop. “Good Lord,” James said, relieved. “What led you here?”
“We lost ourselves,” Rosalie said when Gabriel remained quiet. “Thank you for retrieving us.”
Without warning, she spurred her mare forward and disappeared down the path.
“I fear I interrupted something,” James said, dropping from his saddle. “For better or for worse?”