A snort of laughter escaped before she could catch it. “Those ruffians.” Bullying boys who had turned into despicable young men, hellbent on making sure Lily remembered her place as a woman in a man’s world.
“They really thought they would beat you to the abbey ruins.” His dark eyes sparkled. “They’d forgotten you could jump creeks and hedgerows.”
Her lips curled up at the memory. “And when they finally arrived—”
“You were having a picnic, invited them to have some lemonade and everything!” He looked up at the sky and sighed. “You’ve always been glorious.”
Her chest was inexplicably warm, something glowing deep beneath her sternum.
He glanced at her with a fond smile. “From what I’ve heard from Simons, your stables are thriving.”
Her land agent told him about her stables? She knew they’d been in communication—Philip had to authorize payments and any changes to the property—but… “Did he offer that information or did you ask for it?”
He held her gaze for a moment before returning his attention to the trail and where it changed from packed earth and gravel to cobblestones. “I asked for it.”
She hated that response, but she suspected she would have hated the other answer even more. “But you never askedme. If you could write to Simons, why couldn’t you write to me?”
His jaw ticked as his lips flattened. “Would you have wanted to hear from me, knowing what you know now?”
Yes. She almost said it, then hesitated. Had she received a letter detailing what he’d been going through, what would she have done? She’d spent so many years hating him, she’d never considered that he might know of her anger and want to spare her further pain.
She wanted to press him; she wanted to flee. There seemed to be no good way to manage unpicking the knot of their past, no method for undoing everything that had gone wrong.
Perhaps it would be best not to try. “Yes, the stables are thriving. We had a rough go at the beginning, proving our mettle, but once we started winning at Haymarket, the gender of the breeder mattered less than the coin and prestige of victory.”
He nodded as they turned the corner onto Gloucestershire Street. “No one can argue with success.”
“Plenty tried.”
In her periphery, she noticed his spine straighten, and when she glanced in his direction, his jaw was set, his lips in a hard line. “Who? Give me names?”
She chuckled without mirth. “Do you plan to defend your wife’s honor five years too late?”
He exhaled in a rush, his chin dropping. “I should have been there, Lily.”
“Yes,” she whispered as the whitewashed façade of Fleming’s Confectioners came into view. “You should have.”
They dismounted in silence, Philip taking the reins from her and tying both of their horses off on the post in front of the massive window nearly as wide as she was tall. Despite being well into her third decade, Lily’s heart still beat a little faster, excitement building in her chest at the sight. Rows of glass jars filled to overflowing with toffees and caramels, bright taffies and crisp peppermint sticks. Mr. Fleming had strung garland among the jars and hung paper snowflakes from thread dangling from the ceiling,transforming the already magical shop into the stuff of childhood fantasies.
When they stepped inside, sugar filled her nostrils, and she sucked in a deep breath, as though she could capture and keep it for later, less-magical moments. Mr. Fleming looked up from his post behind the counter, and she was struck by how much older he was. Admittedly, she’d thought him ancient when she was a girl, and now his bushy white beard, rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes made him a doppelgänger for St. Nicholas himself.
“Can I help you?” He tipped his head to the side as though trying to place her.
Philip stepped forward. “Do you have any raspberry drops?” When Mr. Fleming answered in the affirmative, Philip grinned and looked at Lily. “You still love those, don’t you?”
She rolled her lips between her teeth and nodded.
A hot summer day when he was courting her, lying on a blanket beside the Thames under the shade of a willow. “Which do you prefer?” he whispered against her mouth. “A raspberry drop…” He slid the candy between her lips, the burst of tart berry chasing the sweet sugar. “Or a kiss?” Then his touch, the caress of his lips, so much sweeter—
“I’ll have two dozen,” Philip said, and Lily turned away, feigning intense interest in the offerings of Turkish delight. “Ooh, and the rock candy! Would Matthew and Reggie like these?”
“It’s sugar,” Mr. Fleming put in with a warm chuckle. “What’s not to like?”
Philip picked four stalks of crystalized sugar from the jar and handed them over the counter. “And your mother,” he said to Lily. “What is her favorite?”
Her words seemed caught in her chest. “I—the caramels, I guess.”
“Excellent. Two dozen of those, if you will.”
