“Ah,” said Vincent as if that were a surprise. “I suppose that would also be the case.”
I glared at him and didn’t give him the chance to explain his need for the word “also” in that sentence. “The captain and I are friends. That is all, and it has been a hard road getting to that point. Don’t use your imagination unnecessarily.”
“Was it my imagination that I saw him tearing after you after our game of forfeits? Did I simplyimaginethe way you tugged him back into the corner when he tried to leave? The two of you walked home together after church, did you not?”
“No, those things did happen. But your imagination is running rampant with our reasons for doing so.”
“Oh, it is,” he said with a grin.
“Well stop it.”
He laughed again, quieter this time. “I was going to apologize for putting you in such an uncomfortable situation that night, but I think I will withhold my apologies until after your house party is over. You may actually end up thanking me, and I hate to grovel unnecessarily.”
Did he think there was any world in which I would thank him for that humiliating experience? “The longer you wait, the more groveling I will expect.”
He glanced forward again. Charlie and Captain Calder had slowed their pace just enough that they would soon be within earshot. “I’m not worried.”
He clicked his tongue and trotted forward, coming up on the right side of Charlie and leaving me on my own. I couldn’t hear what he said to Charlie when he reached him, but whatever it was, it made my brother laugh.
We were only a few yards away from the top of the crest, and once we reached it Applewood would be visible below. Captain Calder stopped his horse, allowing Mr. Howard and Charlie to ride on ahead without him. He glanced back at Hattie, but she was still ensconced between his two friends.
I pulled my horse to a stop beside him. “We can wait for her. You should see her reaction as we crest the hill.”
Captain Calder met my gaze. Despite having spent the past hour in each other’s company, it was the first time we’d looked at each other during the ride. I knew it, and it was clear he knew it as well.
“I’ve heard your opinion of Applewood from Charlie.”
“You have?” The strange tension between us evaporated. “I’m not certain I’d trust his account of it.”
“You think I’m a terrible steward over it. It is shabby and overrun and only getting worse.”
I put a hand to my chest. “Well, that isn’t exactly what I said.”
“But it is roughly what you said. And you aren’t wrong. I know it looks like a home only years from falling to ruin.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen it that way. I do think it needs care, as Charlie has made uncharitably clear.” I eyed my brother with a scowl. What could have possessed him to be so blunt about Captain Calder’s home? “But it is a charming estate, Captain. Not a ruin waiting for time to claim it, but a sleeping castle, so alive and fairytale-like it pleads to me from the top of the ridge.”
It was a strange thing to say, but Captain Calder didn’t laugh or furrow his brows in confusion. A strange light gleamed in his hazel eyes as he clicked his tongue and brought his horse nearer to me. “What does my home say to you?”
I shrugged. “What else would a sleeping castle plead for? She wants you home. She wants to be woken up.”
Captain Calder’s chest rose and fell. I must have spent too many hours watching for just that movement because that rise and fall was magnetic. I counted two breaths before I tore my gaze from his chest and dragged it back to his face. His jaw was set and his eyes searched mine, but for what I had no idea.
With a shake of his head, he pulled Scout’s reins in Hattie’s direction. I crested the top of the rise alone where Applewood, as magical as ever, came into view.
It was tucked away at the base of a wooded hill, so different from Blackwell manor at the top of a rise. Our limestone was bright in comparison to the sandstone blocks, colored like honey and moss, that made up the exterior of Captain Calder’s home. One side was overgrown with ivy, and huge oak trees threw shadows over the side and back of the many-gabled home.
The front lawn had been cut since I’d last seen it, making the house look more alive than it had in a long time.
Ahead of me, Charlie and Mr. Howard had reached the road leading to Applewood and kicked their horses into a run.
I took one last look at the home below me and prodded my horse onward. I had no desire to see Hattie’s reaction to the estate, nor the look on Captain Calder’s face when she saw the magic of this place.
21
CAPTAIN JOHN CALDER
Harriet was inside Applewood.
