by Emma Lea
I was waiting in the anteroom when Alyssa arrived and she smiled and winked at me. I curled my lip in a snarl in return which only made her laugh.
“Lady Savannah,” Chase said, bowing over my hand. “So nice to see you again.”
I managed a small smile for him. “Hello Chase. How are you?”
“I’m good,” he said as he tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow. “What about you? How’re you holding up?”
I closed my eyes briefly and gave in a little to the pain. I liked Chase, but having him so close was a poignant reminder that Jed wasn’t here.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I miss him.” I covered my mouth with my hand. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Chase turned to look at me with pity in his eyes. I hated that.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I chased him away. It’s my fault he left.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Chase said. “He left because of me.”
“How is it your fault?” I asked, knowing this conversation was absurd. It didn’t matter whose fault it was, just that he was gone.
“There was an…incident,” Chase said as we walked into the dining room. “Before he came here. It was the reason he came here. I thought he was over it. I was wrong.”
“Caroline?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “What do you know about Caroline?”
I shrugged. “Just that they were engaged and then she betrayed him.”
Chase’s face went to stone. “She did,” he said as he pulled the chair out for me.
Great. Whatever I said had now alienated Chase. I wish I knew what was between the two of them. Maybe then I could make sense of what had happened between Jed and me. Maybe I could understand why one minute we were starting something and the next minute he was scowling at me and not turning up to dinner parties and riding lessons. None of it made sense.
“Lady Savannah.”
I turned to my right and tried to smile. “Lady Isabella.”
“It’s good to see you here. I didn’t think I would.” She took a sip of her wine while she looked at me. “I should have guessed that you wouldn’t let them win.”
I sipped my own wine, not quite knowing what to say in reply.
“Not that you need my approval,” she went on, “but I’m glad you stayed. I know there was probably pressure for you to disappear quietly and not make waves. I’m glad you didn’t.”
“You don’t think it’s unseemly for one of the queen’s ladies in waiting to be an unwed mother?”
“I think it’s life. I think things happen and in the past it would have been swept under the carpet in hopes that the men in our society didn’t have their delicate sensibilities offended. We both know that you are neither the first, nor will you be the last woman to raise a child on your own. The fact the father isn’t in your child’s life is either due to tragic circumstances or cowardly behaviour on his part. I think it’s appalling that a woman, in this day and age, should be made to feel ashamed of something that took two people to create and yet only one of them stood up and took responsibility. We should be shaming the father, not the mother.”
I smiled and some of the tension left my shoulders. I hadn’t wanted to come because it would remind me of Jed too much, but I was glad I did. My love life may be in tatters, but it seemed I had some support in other areas of my life. I could get over Jed. Lady Isabella just reminded me I had done it once and I could do it again.
“After party gathering in your suite,” Jeanette whispered to me as we said goodbye to the guests.
I shook my head. “Not tonight—”
“Queen’s orders,” she replied before walking off.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. I thought I’d avoided Alyssa’s interrogation, but I was wrong.
“It was stood to see you again,” Chase said, taking my hands in his and leaning down to kiss me on the cheek.
“And you,” I replied honestly. After the initial bump, we had settled into pleasant conversation. I genuinely liked Chase. He didn’t make my heart pound and my breath catch, but I enjoyed his company. “How much longer will you be staying?”
He huffed out a breath. “I don’t know. That depends on Mistborn.”
I scowled. “That blasted horse,” I said.
Chase laughed. “My sentiments exactly,” he said. “I’ll see you around.”
He walked away and I sighed.
“He’s delicious,” Hadley said from beside me. “Is there something going on between the two of you?”
I shook my head. “No. We’re just friends.”
She smiled secretly before moving off. I hadn’t made my mind up about her. She seemed nice enough and if the gossip was true, her family could rival the Binghams. I wasn’t sure of her as a lady in waiting, but it wasn’t exactly my place to make that decision. Margaret loved her, so that was something in her favour. I would need to reserve my judgement until I got to know her a bit more.
Priscilla slipped her arm through mine and drew me toward the doors. “Come on, let’s get this party underway. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a stiff drink.”
“I’m sorry to have caused you so much extra work,” I said as we left the dining room and headed for the elevator.
Priscilla waved my comment away. “Don’t even think about it. I can’t believe you managed to keep Archer and your father a secret for so long. I’m impressed. We all love Archer, so you don’t have to worry. Nobody has anything but admiration for you.”
I knew she was right. Each of the ladies had come to me at some time over the last couple of days and told me how much they loved Archer and how impressed they were with what I had done for my family. I thought it was little misplaced, but I wasn’t going to argue with it. I was just happy that it hadn’t damaged my friendship with any of them and I hadn’t lost my job over it.
“Right,” Alyssa said when we were all gathered in my sitting room with glasses in our hands—Alyssa’s noticeably non-alcoholic. “Spill. Who is he and do I need to order Benjamin to hunt him down and dispose of him?”
I smiled as the others laughed, but my heart clenched.
“It’s no one…it’s nothing.”
“Jed,” Margaret said, speaking up. Of course she would have to grow a backbone right when I needed her to keep her mouth shut.
The room went silent and everyone turned to Margaret who blushed furiously, her cheeks bright enough to be a signal beacon.
“Jed?” Alyssa asked, turning back to me. “My Jed?”
“Your Jed?” I asked, offended.
Alyssa raised her hands in surrender and a small smile played around the corner of her lips. “Sorry, I meant to say, Jed Fairchild, the horse trainer?”
I took a long drink and let the cognac burn its way down my throat, hoping it would burn away whatever it was that was clogging it. There was no way I could avoid or evade. Alyssa wouldn’t let this go, not now that she had a name.
“Fine, okay, yes.” I dropped my head. “Jed. The same Jed who is no longer in the country. The same Jed who probably isn’t coming back.”
“I don’t understand,” Priscilla said, looking between me and Alyssa. “How? I mean, I get that he’s good looking, but…” she looked at Jeanette helplessly.
“I think Priscilla is trying to ask how the two of you…met?”
Taking another gulp of the drink, which didn’t burn so much this time, I straightened my shoulders and made eye contact with each of my friends. “He was in the forest one morning and stumbled across Archer. That stupid horse spooked and threw him. He hit his head and I found him.”
Alyssa widened her eyes. “That was because of you?”
I shook my head. “No, it was all that horse’s fault. Scared the daylights out of me.”
“Okay,” Alyssa said slowly. “So it was love at first sight?”
I snorted. “Hardly. I think we fought mor
e than anything and then he kissed me.”
There was a soft sigh and all the eyes in the room went dreamy. I felt like snorting again.
“So what happened?” Jeanette asked, sitting forward.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. One minute we were agreeing to let whatever it was between us just happen and then he was pulling away from me. I know he was hurt in the past, something to do with a woman named Caroline who was his fiancée, but he never told me what, exactly. And for no reason whatsoever, he pulled away and then he left.”
“He was giving Archer riding lessons and let him help out around the stables,” Margaret said.
“He was?” Alyssa asked, her eyebrows high. “I need better spies, it seems.”
I smiled. “Archer adores him, which makes his sudden disappearance from our lives so much harder.”
“He didn’t leave because of you,” Alyssa said. “There was stuff he had to work out at home. His parents own a large horse farm in Kentucky. They’re a big deal and Jed has been hiding out here for two years. He needed to go home and get his business sorted.”
Now it was my turn to be shocked. “His family owns Fairview Park? I thought he was just a trainer there.”
Alyssa shook her head. “No, he’s the eldest son and from what I gather, his father has been badgering him to come home and take his rightful place, blah, blah, blah. From what I know of Jed, though, he didn’t want to go back. It surprised me when Cliff told me he was gone.”
I slumped in my chair. The little kernel of hope that I had been harbouring died a pitiful death. A part of me hoped he would come back. Truthfully, a part of me hoped he would decide he couldn’t live without me and come back for me and sweep me off my feet. Now that was an impossibility, however improbable it had seemed before.
“He’s not coming back,” I said dully, swallowing the last of my drink.
Chapter 21
Jed
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought we should talk.”
Caroline looked out of place in the stables. I didn’t think in all the time we were together she had ever stepped across the threshold. Oh, she rode, but only for appearances’ sake. She didn’t like it or horses except where they could give her a leg-up on her social climbing.
“I think everything that needs to be said has been said,” I replied, looking back down at the bridle in my hands. The simple task of cleaning and conditioning the leather in the tack room calmed me and helped me think. I didn’t need or want Caroline in here disturbing my hard-won peace.
“You won’t even let me explain?”
I snorted. “Explain what? My father paid you to marry me and promised you a bonus for every child you produced. And despite the lucrative financial boon you stood to gain, you still slept with my best friend. I don’t think I need further explanation.”
“I didn’t sleep with Chase,” she said.
“I know what I saw.”
“I tried to sleep with him, but he refused.”
“I saw the two of you,” I said. I wasn’t angry, I was just tired of all the lies and manipulations.
“What you saw was a man who was drunk and a woman trying to seduce him. He didn’t want me. He didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“He seemed very taken with you. I didn’t see a man refusing.”
“How do you even know? You saw the back of his head and me in my underwear!” She crossed her arms in a huff. “I went to him. He overheard your father and me talking and he was going to tell you. He was going to ruin everything, so I thought I could buy his silence.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, setting the bridle I had been working on aside.
“Believe it or not, I did—do—care about you.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Is it me, the man, you care about or what I can give you? How can you tell the difference? I loved you Caroline, or at least, I loved the woman you pretended to be.”
“We were good together, Jed,” she said. “You can’t deny that.”
“And it was all a lie.” I looked up at her. She was still beautiful but she no longer stirred my blood.
“It wasn’t all a lie,” she said softly. “Surely you know that. I couldn’t fake everything.”
“Maybe not, but there was enough subterfuge weaved through the rest of it that I don’t know where the real you started and the fake you ended.”
“Couldn’t we at least try again?”
I looked up at her in disbelief. “Seriously?”
She nodded and eagerly took a step into the tack room, ready to plead her case. “I missed you, Jed. It surprised me just how much. I was so focused on making your father happy that I didn’t stop to realise that I was falling for you. I didn’t want to sleep with Chase, but I couldn’t think of any other way to keep him quiet. It backfired anyway. He would never have betrayed you like that. You’re not an easy man to forget, Jed Fairchild.”
There were far too many revelations to process all at once. Could what she was saying about Chase be true? Had my anger at Chase been misplaced? But through all the confusion, I knew one thing absolutely. I wasn’t in love with Caroline and now, with the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think I ever was. I now knew the difference between lust and love. I may have not been in love with Caroline then, but I was well on my way to falling in love now. The object of my affection just happened to be half a world away and I had very likely thrown it all away because I was too blind to see what was right in front of my eyes.
I stood and Caroline’s eyes tracked me. She looked at me hopefully and I felt nothing but regret. Regret that I had ever let my male ego fall for a pretty face and pretty words.
“I know you think you care about me,” I said, “but I don’t believe you. I could never trust you and I know for sure I could never love you.”
“But how do you know?” she asked. “You loved me once.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I didn’t. I thought I did, but I was wrong.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, stepping forward and resting her hand on my chest. She looked up at me with big eyes, but they weren’t the eyes I wanted to see and her touch was not the touch I wanted to feel.
“Believe it,” I said, removing her hand and stepping out of her reach. “Because I’m falling in love with someone else.”
“Well it’s about damned time you admitted it,” Chase said, walking into the room. “Hello Caroline. Ruined anyone else’s life lately?”
Caroline narrowed her eyes at Chase and crossed her arms across her chest. “Always the faithful little puppy,” she spat. “Still following Jed around hoping for the crumbs from his table?”
Chase smiled easily and leaned against the door jamb. “I’d never take Jed’s sloppy seconds, or haven’t you realised that yet?”
Caroline opened her mouth to reply and I put my hand up to stop her. “Enough. Caroline, we’re done here. You can report back to my father that I haven’t changed my mind and if he wants you to be part of this family then Dan is still single.” She turned and stormed out of the room. I ran a hand through my hair and took a breath before looking back at Chase. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“That’s nice to hear, but it’s not why I’m here.”
“No? Not here to gloat?”
Chase stood and pulled an envelope from inside his coat. It was a thick, cream envelope and I could see a gold inscription on the front. “I’m just the messenger,” he said, handing it over.
“I can’t go back,” I said.
We had been arguing the point for the last hour.
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Chase said. “The queen was very insistent.”
Inside the envelope had been an invitation to the Winter Ball in Merveille and personal note from the queen requesting my presence. She had things to discuss with me, apparently.
“I can’t,” I said again, and tipped my head back. We were in the library and the glass of whiskey in my hand wa
sn’t doing much to dull the ache in my chest. “I can’t go back and see her and know that she will never be mine.”
“The queen was never yours,” Chase said.
I gave him a speaking glance and saw a spark in his eye. “You know very well that I’m not talking about the queen.”
He smirked and sipped his drink.
“You heard what I said to Caroline. I’m in love with Savannah. I can’t go back there and work in the stables and be so close to her knowing that she loves someone else.”
“And who is it that you think she’s in love with?” Chase asked, sitting forward.
I rolled my eyes and took a drink.
“No, seriously. Who is it that Lady Savannah loves? I’m really interested to hear your theory.”
“You,” I said. “She’s in love with you.”
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” I said, putting my glass down so that I didn’t throw it. “I’ve seen the two of you together.”
“You really can be a little dense at times, do you know that?”
“Deny it all you like, but I know what I saw.”
“Just like you knew what you saw when you caught Caroline trying to seduce me?”
I ground my teeth together.
“That’s right,” he said, a small gleeful note in his voice. “It wasn’t what you thought, was it? In fact, it was nothing like you thought. Any chance that maybe when you saw Savannah and me together you were wearing the same faulty specs? Do you think that maybe you jumped to conclusions?”
“You make her laugh,” I said, resigned to spilling my guts. I missed having a friend. I missed Chase and the easy rapport we used to have. It didn’t make it any easier to admit just how hopeless I felt when it came to Savannah. “All she ever seems to do is yell at me.”
Chase laughed. “She is a fiery one,” he said. “I like that about her and I would hazard a guess that you like that about her too.”
I smiled begrudgingly. It was true, I liked her sass and the fierce way she protected Archer.
“Savannah and I are friends,” Chase said softly. “Just friends. She doesn’t want more from me than that.”