“And if you don’t have to be?”
“I have to be.”
“Even if it means spending the entire day avoiding me?”
If only it were that easy. “Miss Shroud. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by not being garrulous this evening, but you need to accept that the person you chose to observe is not a talkative person. I’m used to spending all day with only a horse. I know it doesn’t sound exciting to you, and it shouldn’t. Nothing about me is exciting, and I have no desire to change that.” The pounding beat of his heart in his ears seemed to beg otherwise, but Miss Shroud couldn’t hear it. She might notice the way his lungs still filled faster than normal, or the way he kept his hands stiff at his side as if they might betray him and reach for her at any moment. But, at the very least, he hoped she couldn’t hear his traitorous heart.
Miss Shroud eyed him for several moments before finally sighing. “I’m sorry I’ve disturbed yer quiet life here. But don’t worry. I’ll be gone in a few days.”
“A few days? Not tomorrow? Didn’t you tell me you found what you came for?”
Miss Shroud narrowed one eye and her lip curved into a smile. “Are ye telling me I’m right? ’Tis your charms that have increased yer workload?”
“Definitely not.”
“Then why would I leave?”
Matthew shook his head and left her. He walked directly to Marge and started unhitching her. A few more days. He could survive a few more days with Miss Shroud. Once he’d given himself enough time to forget the way her soft brown eyes lit with excitement each day, he’d return home and face his family. He needed to stop running and make some decisions before he hurt them and Miss Bateman even more than he already had.
“No ‘good evening’ for me?” Miss Shroud asked. She hadn’t moved from where he’d left her.
“Good night, Miss Shroud.”
“And I’ll see ye in the morning?”
“I have to come and get Marge, don’t I?”
“Ye won’t run off and find somewhere quieter without me?”
He turned to her then, all the humor of her jest gone. She looked younger than she had only a moment ago. “I live here, Miss Shroud. You’re the one who is going to leave me.”
“But until then, ye won’t?”
He sighed. He could run. He could pack up his books and clothing and find another town to work in. But that edge of concern in her voice took away that choice. Their visit with the Garvis family had been a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix. Men were fascinated by women every day. They didn’t upend their lives because of it.
Well, he supposed some did. But he wasn’t one of them.
Besides, she looked so vulnerable, and he couldn’t do that to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Shroud.”
She nodded. “I hope so.” Her last words were so soft that if he hadn’t heard them from her lips over a dozen times in response to his previous sentence, he wouldn’t have known what she said. She started toward Mr. Bennion’s home.
“Miss Shroud.”
She stopped and turned back to him. “Why do you always assume I’m not going to be here in the morning?”
Her eyes bored into him. “Because it’s happened to me before.”
“Someone left you?”
She nodded slowly. And in that nod he saw the vivacious woman he’d come to care for crumble into a lost little girl. He wanted to rush to her and hold her in his arms, in an entirely different way than he’d been tempted to try earlier. Miss Shroud was hurting, and if she hadn’t said anything about his eyes affecting her, he would have done it. Instead, he did what little he could.
“I’m not going to leave you. You’re going to leave me. That’s been the plan all along. I’m not going to change it.”
He had so many questions about the way the light had faded from her eyes. Was it a man who’d left her? Perhaps the man whose locket she wore daily around her neck? Had he given it to her only to leave her? Was he the same man Mr. Miner mentioned? He hadn’t said she was in a relationship—only that she’d given her heart to someone else. But Mr. Miner had seemed to think it was a serious relationship, not an uncertain one. Maybe it wasn’t a man, but someone in her family? He kept his mouth closed. He wouldn’t ask her. The two of them had already overshared this evening.
One thing he did know—if it was a man who’d changed her typical confidence into fear, be it lover, brother, or father, Matthew would pummel him if ever given the chance.
CHAPTER 16
