“Well, she was there at the start of the hunt but… I do not believe I have seen her since. I am certain she will be with people she knows, and I saw her betrothed ride up just before everyone took off, so it stands to reason that she might be with him.” She cast him a shy look. “I am sorry I do not know more. I was too busy trying to stay in the saddle, for I am not… thebestrider in the world.”
“Then you should not be partaking,” Hugo snapped, feeling as if he had been pierced through the chest with a lead ball. “You should have listened to your friend.”
Betrothed? She did not say anything about a betrothed.He swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat.Is this man the kind who is honest, and open with his love? Was she describing him in the study?
His brain buzzed as if a swarm of wasps had made a nest in his skull, his interest in the hunt vanishing altogether. The hunt for a poor fox, anyway.
“She will be fine,” Selina insisted. “Come, ride with me.”
Hugo ignored her and stared hard at Evelyn’s brothers, waiting for one of them to at least pretend they were concerned. If Octavia’s whereabouts were unknown on a ride like this, he would have turned around already, racing back the way he had come, calling out her name until he was certain she was safe.
“Iwill find her, then,” Hugo said, his lip curled, cursing the cowardice and lack of compassion that Evelyn’s brothers had for her. “The two of you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
He did not stop to hear their retort as he wheeled his horse around and, with a squeeze of his thighs, urged his gelding back through the stream, retracing their steps in search of the missing Evelyn.
As he shouted her name at the top of his lungs, closing his bad eye so that he could survey the surrounding area better, fearing the worst might have happened to her, one word repeated over and over in his mind like a curse to drive him mad:Betrothed… Betrothed… Betrothed…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hugo was beginning to lose hope that he would find Evelyn, as he trotted through the forest, squinting at every movement that caught his eye. Maybe she had returned to the manor of her own accord. He prayed that was true, but there was an uneasiness in his chest that he could not quieten.
If she is not there, what then?He expelled a tense breath.I shall have to organize a search party.
It was a better use of horses and dogs, but he did not want it to come to that. Ideally, he would return to the manor and find her sipping tea in the drawing room, quite well and unharmed. It would take a herculean effort not to embrace her out of sheer relief, but he would do his best to restrain the impulse.
“Evelyn!” he yelled. “Evelyn, where are you?”
His ears pricked at the faint sound of a voice replying, “Over here!”
He turned his horse in the direction of the noise and shouted at her again, following the soft echo of her voice until, at last, he saw her. She sat on a rock in the shade of a willow at the edge of a fast-moving stream, where her horse was enjoying a drink.
“You?” she gasped, staring at him. “Why were you shouting for me?”
He led his horse through the stream until he was on her side, and slid down from the saddle. Even now, it took every shred of his willpower not to go to her and pull her into his arms, holding her in gratitude that she was all right.
“No one knew where you were,” he replied, moving closer to her.
She stood up, dusting off the seat of her skirts. “The mare was too slow to keep up, so we decided to just take a leisurely ride through the woods instead. We were having a lovely time, in truth.”
Until you arrived…He heard the part of the sentence that she did not say.
“You might have told someone,” Hugo said, his tone harsher than he had meant it to be.
“Who? There was no one around. Like I said, we were too slow to keep up,” she shot back, edging toward the mare in question, putting the animal between herself and him.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“What?”
He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “Avoiding me. You have not even looked at me since we parted ways the other day.”
It had been two days since her confession in the study. Since then, every room he entered, she left. Every time he glanced at her during meals, she would look anywhere but at him. When she saw him in the hallways, she turned and walked in the opposite direction, using the manor’s vast size against him.
Evelyn shook her head, stroking the mare’s nose instead of answering him.
“Tell me,” he urged. “Have I done something to upset you? Is it because I took you into that room? Is it an apology you want?”
“An apology would be a start,” she said quietly. “But it will not fix the problem.”
