“No.” Ella’s voice was tight and so soft that Rowena could scarcely hear it over the wind that whistled past them. “We’re not, and that’s the problem. You’ve married my brother.” Turning wide eyes on Rowena, she rushed to add, “Which I don’t object to in principle. It’s just . . . the method. And though I know my brother made his decisions of his own will, and though I believe you both when you say you weren’t complicit in setting him up . . . I suppose it took my heart a while to catch up with my head on the matter.”
“Of course it did.” Had it been Annie forced into a marriage with someone utterly unsuited to her, Rowena knew she would have been much slower to forgive and accept than Ella. “I dinna blame you, Ella.”
“And that’s just the thing.” They paused at a fork in the path, and Ella motioned to the left. “The Rowena I knew as a girl certainly would have blamed me. She would have railed at me—she would have demanded I give her a fair chance to prove herself. What happened to that Rowena in the ten years since we first met?”
Rowena blinked and pulled her coat closed tighter. Had she ever really been like that? Quick of tongue and confident? It seemed she’d always lived in fear of her father.
But no, she knew she hadn’t. For the first decade of her life, she had been as bold as he had been kind. His shadow had just cast itself over her past, dimming all the good memories. “I dinna ken.”
Ella let forth a gusting sigh and led them around another turn. “Perhaps we’ll figure out the answer together, then.” A wall loomed ahead, the path turning either left or right. This time Ella came to a complete halt, and her brows knit. “Right, I think.”
“Ye think?”
“Well, I told you I always take a wrong turn or two, but it’s no matter. Even if we get lost, it won’t take more than twenty minutes to find our way out.”
Rowena pressed her lips against a smile. Ella could get lost in her own garden as a child, and it didn’t appear that her sense of direction had improved any. “I’m not so sure those clouds will hold off for another twenty minutes.”
“A little rain never hurt anyone.”
Not in the heat of summer, perhaps, but the air was far from warm today, and Ella’s silky jacket wouldn’t provide much by way of protection.
Thunder rumbled its agreement.
Ella drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “Definitely to the right. I’m absolutely certain.”
Rowena followed, but she somehow wasn’t surprised when they arrived at a figure of a frog wearing a crown and looking at them as if to say, “Hello, fly. You look delicious.”
“Oh, drat.” Ella narrowed her eyes at the frog. “Don’t look at me that way, Edmund. You never turn into a prince no matter how many times I’ve kissed you.”
A laugh slipped from Rowena’s lips, the first in far too long. “Ye’ve named him?”
“We always seem to meet this way.” She stomped forward and planted a kiss upon the frog’s granite nose. “Do at least send a princely friend of yours along, won’t you?”
Rowena folded her arms around her middle to hold in the warmth. “Perhaps he will.”
Her grin bright and unfettered, Ella spun back around and all but skipped back the way they came. “The left. I knew it was the left.”
Rowena followed, even as a few stray raindrops plopped onto the flagstone path on which they trod. “And how long will you wait for your prince, Ella?”
“As long as it takes.” She flashed a smile, but it was more muted than Rowena expected. “And you have found yours already. I do realize the circumstances are storm-ridden. But I cannot wait to see how the Lord turns it to sunshine for you.”
Sunshine to fill the dark, empty places . . . A lovely thought. But probably more fairy tale than reality. “Perhaps.”
The wind gusted and ripped through the path, nearly snatching Ella’s toque from her head. She held it down with a laughing shriek. Rowena made no objection when Ella increased their pace, but though they’d corrected their first mistake, all too soon they stood before another decision.
Ella looked at the three-pronged fork with flinty determination but a distinct lack of certainty. “I got this one right last time. Or was it the time before?”
They’d be lucky to escape the maze before supper.
Ella held out an arm as if brandishing a sword. “Full ahead, matey.”
Rowena followed with a chuckle. “I’m beginning to think it no accident that Miss Abbott chose reading over venturing into a maze with you.”
“I don’t know why. Life is far more entertaining with a few deviations from the set course.” She linked their arms together again. “Who would have thought that you would someday be my sister? But here we are. A detour to a whole new path, but one the Lord planned out all along.”
The path led them quickly around a corner, with another in sight. Rowena stopped, tugged Ella around to face her. “Maybe in a few years we’ll all understand it. Appreciate each other. But ye needna pretend now. Our friendship was already a decade out of date, and the kernel of it that may have survived was crushed by how this all happened. I understand that.”
“Well, I don’t.” Ella raised her chin, and she would have looked regal had the wind not been blowing the feather of her hat directly into her face. “I was wrong to hold myself reserved. I have apologized, and I will not fall back into that mistake. You have my word.”
But could they really recapture the friendship they had once enjoyed? So much had changed in their lives since then.
They turned the corner, and Rowena jumped a foot in the air at the angry Neptune rising from the granite wave, his trident in hand.
Ella didn’t bother hiding her laugh. “That must be the very look I wore the first time he threatened to turn me into a mermaid. I barely escaped without a tail—I’m certain of it.”
Rowena pressed a hand to where her heart threatened to thunder out of her chest. “What happened to frogs?”
“This is the worst of them—and the grandest.”
The rain went from sporadic drips to an earnest patter.
“Ella!” Brice’s voice echoed over the hedges, dripping more with frustration than concern. “Have you lost yourself in the maze again?”
His sister clapped a hand over her mouth, though the giggle still slipped past. “Not just myself, I’m afraid. Will you be a doll, Brice?”
Though he seemed some distance away, Rowena still heard his sigh. “Where are you? Wonderland?”
Wonderland?
Ella grinned. “Whitby has the most delightful White Rabbit in one corner, and then the Queen of Hearts and Gryphon in subsequent ones.” Louder, she called, “No, dearest, I made it all the way to Neptune this time! With only one wrong turn before now!”
“Bully for you. Couldn’t you have had your go at it when it wasn’t raining?”
“Well, it wasn’t raining when we started out, you dolt. And how was I to know it would let loose now, when it’s been threatening in vain for all the last day?”
“Oh, Ella-bell.”
“Your wife and I are getting wetter by the moment, brother mine!”
A muted mutter sounded. “You dragged Rowena out here? Are you all right, darling? Your foot?”
“Fine.” She tugged Ella back the way they’d come. She may not know where to go at the three-pronged fork, but she knew they’d better get back to it.
“I can come in and lead you out, lend you some support if it’s aching. Just stay put and—”
“No!” She must have surprised the siblings with her vehemence. It startled even her. But for heaven’s sake, if she couldn’t even walk on her own two feet out of a shrubbery maze, then she might as well toss herself into the North Sea and be done with it. “Just tell us which way at the triple fork.”
He paused long enough that she wondered if he’d heard her. Or if he couldn’t remember either. But when he said, “Left,” he sounded certain. “Then another left, straight through the following fork, and your third rig
ht will bring you out.”
Ella ticked it off on her hands, her expression comical. “Left, straight, right, right. Right?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ella, just let Rowena lead.” His laughter moved off. He was either heading to the exit or to where he could better call out instructions to them should they need them.
Hopefully the latter. Hopefully she’d be able to slip out sooner than he expected and make her way back to the house alone. Disappear. Leave Ella to laugh with her brother over what was apparently a traditional mishap. The dressmaking group ought to have cleared out of her suite by now. She could go inside, change into dry clothes, perhaps have Lilias run a hot bath. Vanish. If only until tea.
Ella caught her hand and held it tight. “Will you forgive me? For how I’ve been acting? I must know before we head back in.”
How was she to answer the soft, earnest words but with a smile? “Think nothing of it, Ella. Please.”
“We can start anew. Not just as friends but as sisters.” Her smile was so bright, it was a wonder the rain clouds didn’t break up in light of it.
“I’d like that.”
“How are we doing, ladies?” Brice’s voice came from the opposite side now, closer to them than she would have guessed he could get so quickly.
She shouldn’t have resented his nearness. If it weren’t for his help, who knew how long they’d have wandered in the rain. Still. She could do nothing, it seemed, on her own. “Perfectly, sir, thank you.” She tugged Ella onward.
It took only a few more minutes to navigate the turns, and the rain wasn’t falling any harder. She felt only mildly damp under her wool jacket and straw hat—though, to be sure, Ella looked considerably worse for wear, and she went flying past her brother with a laugh as soon as they exited the mouth of the maze.
He had an umbrella, and for a moment he looked ready to chase his sister down and force it upon her. But she was already halfway back to the house, so he must have thought better of it. He held it out to Rowena with a grin. “I ought to have warned you. She has to try, every time we visit.”
Rather than step under the shelter and thereby to his side, Rowena merely turned to follow, albeit at a reasonable pace, in Ella’s footsteps. “No doubt ye didna think a warning necessary, what with my foot. And the fact that, until today, yer sister has scarcely spoken to me.”
He matched his pace to hers and came close enough to hold the umbrella over her head. Whether she wanted him to or not. “I’d noticed that. I was actually looking for her to ask her why she was acting so.”
Her legs just stopped, her knees locked, her arms folded over her chest. “Ye think us incapable of sorting things out without your interference?”
Brice stopped too, though a step ahead, and turned to face her. His brows were knit, but only halfway. As though he were afraid to commit to a facial expression. “No. But sometimes we all need a helpful prod or a listening ear.”
He looked so caring, so genuine, so handsome. Why did it make frustration boil up inside? “Or a few directions, aye, to make sure the helpless ladies can find their way out o’ the terrifying shrubbery.”
His brows drew the rest of the way into a frown. “You’re angry that I helped you out of the maze? My apologies, Rowena, if I deprived you of the adventure of it. But it is raining, and Ella—”
“I’m not fashed about the maze!” With a shake of her head, she sidestepped him and kept moving.
He leapt into her path again. And his eyes had gone annoyingly soft. “About the marriage, then?”
Blast him. Her breath shuddered when she pulled it in. “Ye’ve probably ne’er in your life felt powerless. Ye’re a duke, son of a duke, raised all yer life knowing what ye were and what ye’d do. Ye’re at no man’s mercy, free to make yer own decisions. Free to . . . to rescue the poor damsel who canna find a way out o’ her piteous life without you.”
The muscle in his jaw pulsed. He nodded. “I see your point. I asked you freely—you accepted under the most extreme duress. Your only choices seemed to be to marry me or be killed.”
“But I canna be what ye’d make me, Brice.” She jabbed a finger in the general direction of her rooms. “Frippery and finery—I dinna ken what to do with it, and I dinna ken how to act with such ladies, and I dinna ken . . . I dinna ken anything about how to fit into yer world.”
He eased her hand back down and held on to her fingers. His were warm. So very warm. Like his smile, framed by the same dimples his sister shared. “Here is all you need to know about being a duchess, darling—do whatever you please. There are very few who can tell you not to. Be whoever you want to be, and be it with confidence. Then watch others imitate you.”
She shook her head. “Can ye not see that’s the hardest instruction ye could give? I dinna ken who I am.”
“I don’t know who you are either, Rowena.” His fingers tightened around hers. “But I know who you’re not. You’re not who your father made you. You’re not who that Kinnaird fellow made you. You’re who God made you. And perhaps now you have been given the opportunity to discover who that is. Freely.”
The words sank slowly down, into her, lighting warmth in unexpected places. No father scowling at her and thundering about the clan. No Malcolm looming, ready to take and destroy. The beauty of the realization nearly blinded her.
Brice ducked his head a bit, caught her gaze. “And if you really want to spite them, do you know what you should do?” He leaned closer, pitched his voice low. “Thrive. Be happy.”
Yes. Prove to her father that she wasn’t worthless, didn’t deserve his ire. And Malcolm—she would prove to Malcolm that he hadn’t destroyed her after all. She didn’t bear his mark on her flesh, much as it sometimes felt like it.
She was free of him. Forever. Free to find with another what had been only an illusion with him.
Brice’s eyes glinted, dark and spiced, inviting her to believe. In him, in them, in the future.
Maybe she could. Maybe . . . maybe, just now, she did. And to prove it to them both, she surged up on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her lips to his.
The hand she’d let go of settled on her waist, holding her without pressing her closer. Warm, steady, easy. Much like the mouth that responded just as she needed—a welcoming taking, a gentle giving. The kind of kiss that made her blood sing, made sunshine touch her face. Made her remember that until a month ago, she had looked forward to arms wrapped around her. She had plotted ways to find a moment for a stolen kiss.
There all thoughts of comparison faded. He shifted, somehow, a subtle change in posture or response. She couldn’t be sure—didn’t much care. His lips caressed hers in a way totally new, a way that made singing blood hum, made her lips part to better taste him.
Oh, aye, he’d kissed a few too many girls before, and at the moment she didn’t care if he had done. Because now he was kissing her, and it was apt to melt her very bones. She invited him deeper, clung to him, pressed closer. His arm slid obligingly around her waist. Anchoring her, holding her.
Holding her, capturing her. Too close, far too close. He was on all sides of her, hemming her in, keeping her wherever he wanted her. Too big, too strong, too able to toss her to the ground at any moment, and she couldn’t fight, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Could only gasp and wriggle backward and know with all certainty that if she didn’t get away right then, she never would. She’d be sucked into the morass, tossed to the stones, dashed into the loch, and he’d—
“Rowena.” His arm had fallen away from her back. He touched her cheek softly and took a step away. “I’m sorry. Too much, too quickly.”
She had to shut her eyes against him and fold her arms over her middle to hold it all in. What a blithering fool she was. It had just been a kiss. Just a kiss. But her knees were shaking and her stomach was heaving and her throat still felt as though a hand had grabbed and squeezed and . . .
And he was apologizing, though she was the one who had thrown herself at h
im. Her own fault, her own stupidity, and now . . . What? At the best, he’d think her a tease. And that would be just as bad as the other option—that he thought her unhinged.
“Not yer fault.” Her voice sounded as tremulous as it felt, and thick with her burr, as it always was when her emotions ran above her education. “I just . . . I canna . . . I canna . . .”
“Shh.” His fingertips brushed her cheek again. “Will you look at me, darling? Just for a moment?”
It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to pry her eyelids open.
He offered her a tiny quirking of the lips, the kind that bespoke encouragement without a single word. “I don’t need to know what happened. I just need you to know that I’m not like him. I will never, never hurt you.”
He knew—knew or suspected—and as much as it shamed her and made the heat rush to her cheeks, she didn’t close her eyes again. But she did grant herself the reprieve of dropping her gaze away from his face, down to the V of his waistcoat, where his shirt and tie peeked out. Relief seeped through the chinks. He knew, or suspected, and he didn’t recoil in horror as from a piece of broken glass. He didn’t judge. He didn’t shove her away.
He just lifted her hand from where it rested on her opposite arm and pressed his lips to her knuckles. Then he wrapped her fingers around the umbrella’s handle. “There now. Go inside, warm up. And don’t fret.”
Oh, she would fret. There was too much to fret about for her not to. But perhaps . . . perhaps his reactions needn’t be on her list of worries. He’d been the one to pull away. He’d felt the change in her and respected it. He knew, and he didn’t look at her as though she were worthless. Perhaps . . . perhaps.
She gripped the umbrella tight and forced a shaky smile onto her lips. “Are ye coming?”
He shook his head and backed away another step, out from the protective canopy and into the steady rain. “You go ahead.”
She held the umbrella toward him. “Then take this. I’m already wet, and I can make it to the house in—”
The Reluctant Duchess Page 14