“I shall,” Frances said, and as she wandered off to join her husband, Dominic, Hugo had no doubt that she would.
The question was, after a week in Selina’s company, what would his answer be? Could she be what he had been missing? Could she be the Frances to his Dominic, the Joan to his Laurence? The only reason he was finally considering marriage was because of the happiness of his friends, but was Selina the one to bring him that same happiness?
He guessed he had a week to find out.
The following afternoon, the sun high and bright in a cloudless sky, a warm breeze drifting through the oaks and the emerald grasses, Hugo found himself on an impromptu third outing with Selina.
He had not woken up with the intention of striking off one of the owed excursions, but the day had been so beautiful and heldsuch promise that he had asked her at breakfast if she would care to walk with him. She had hesitated at first, as he had partially expected her to, but in the end, she had agreed.
“After all, I do like the outdoors,”she had said with a casual shrug, as though it was of no importance to her.
Now, they found themselves walking side-by-side through a shady woodland, a stream babbling merrily alongside them, while blackbirds chirped and rabbits darted for the cover of dark-leafed bushes.
A polite distance behind, Evelyn and Selina’s chaperone walked in quiet conversation. Hugo strained his ears to try and hear what they were talking about, but he could only catch a snippet or two about some bird or other.
He was so invested in what Evelyn was doing and what she was saying that he had neglected to tend to Selina at all.Theywere walking in complete silence, and he had no immediate desire to remedy that, for he was rather enjoying the peaceful atmosphere, peppered here and there by the soft sound of Evelyn’s voice, piquing his curiosity.
“What were you like when you were at school?” Selina asked him suddenly, at a rather inopportune moment, for he had just heard Evelyn saying something about her brothers.
“I was like any other boy,” he said, more curtly than he had intended.
“I do not know,” he heard Evelyn say, cursing silently that he had missed the first part of the conversation, so that he might have some context.
Selina seemed surprised by his dismissal of her question. “I have no brothers, Your Grace, so I have no notion of what boys are like at such an age. Was it terribly frightening, to have to leave home and live somewhere else? Were the tutors as dreadful as I have heard?”
He glanced at her in confusion. Why was she suddenly so interested in his past? There had been ample time and opportunity for her to ask him such things, yet she had chosen to speak at the very moment when all he wanted to do was listen.
“It was… fine,” he replied with a shrug.
After all, he was not going to spill the harsh truth that being away at school was vastly preferable to being at home with his father. And that the only fear he had felt while he was at Eton was for his sister, hoping that she was not suffering under their father’s wrath while he was away. That was not something he told anyone, though Laurence and Dominic were aware, for they had been there at the time.
A makeshift bridge provided a crossing over the stream to where the path continued. Hugo came to a halt and offered his hand to Selina, though his eyes sought out Evelyn. The former took his hand willingly and shrieked as she leaped across the narrow stream, her touch lingering longer than necessary, which prompted him to withdraw his hand rather sharply. It was notdone out of dismissal, but because he worried that he was the one holding on for too long.
Next, he offered his hand to Selina’s chaperone… and ended with Evelyn, who had refused to meet his gaze since last night. Even as she took his hand, she did not look at him, though he saw the faint flush of pink in her cheeks as she jumped across the stream without incident.
She looks very pretty today,he mused, though he could not pinpoint what was different about her. Had she done her hair in a different style? It was impossible to tell with her bonnet in the way. Had she slept particularly well, the night of good rest brightening her complexion? No, he did not think that was it either.
Giving up on trying to figure out what had changed in Evelyn that day, he pressed on through the towering oaks and ash trees, marveling at how the hazy sunlight streamed in through the full canopy, dappling the forest floor beneath. There was something magical about forests and, for a moment, he missed the grounds of Ravenvale.
It was not often that he thought that for, even though it had been many years since his father’s death, the man’s ghost still haunted that place. Only around the estate, in the wildest and quietest corners, could peace be found, far enough away from the memories of that wretched man.
Selina caught up to him a few moments later, a hastiness in her steps that had not been there before. “It is beautiful here, is it not?”
“It is,” he replied, drawing in a deep lungful of the earthy, fresh air.
He assumed that would be the end of the conversation, his gaze flitting down in mild astonishment as he felt Selina bump into his arm. She was very close to him now and showed no sign of putting a more formal distance between them.
“This is much better than Hyde Park, is it not?” she said, her tone sweet and light… and utterly baffling.
It was like she had been transformed, and he could not understand why.
“Both have their merits,” he replied vaguely.
“This is what I meant about the artifice of London’s parks. There is none of that here. Everything grows as it pleases, everything is as it should be, and nothing is forced to behave purely for the pleasure of the masses,” she said with a contented sigh. “This is the wildness that I love so much.Thisis why I could spend hours outdoors and never grow tired, even in bad weather.”
It was probably the most she had said to him ever since she had won the auction. Continuing to walk and puzzling overwhat might have caused the sudden shift, he remembered what Evelyn had told him that night at the opera.
She does not like gentlemen who act too attainable. She prefers gentlemen who seem disinterested.
