Page 72 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

“Then why⁠—”

“Please, Mr. Eastwood,” she said.

Mr. Eastwood, not Lyness, and he flinched. His flinch wounded her more sharply than anything her brothers had said. She had never wanted to hurt him. Never. But she could not give him an explanation she herself barely understood.

“I cannot speak of this right now.” Indeed, if she did, she would further shame herself by crying in public. She turned away before he could see the tears in her eyes. She started to walk toward the carriages rather than to her family. If one more person asked what was wrong, she would shame herself terribly with a sob.

Behind her, he tried to call out to her one more time. “Emily…what have I done?”

She did not look back. She waved her hand above her head. As though doing so would be enough to brush his concern away. She truly needed to think. She would speak to him—she would. But not while her heart was so raw she could scarcely breathe.

Lyness had been late.

He hated being late—his mind had tallied the minutes during the short ride from the house to the ruins—but Roman had needed him, and estate letters arrived unexpectedly, and his mother insisted he change his cravat. All inconveniences he accepted willingly.

But now, watching Emily back away from him as though a wall had risen between them, he wished he had sprinted all the way from their house on Castlegate if it would have changed this moment. Her silence hurt more than any spoken rebuke.

“Emily…what have I done?” he whispered after her, his voice swallowed by the open air and the roar of his pulse in his ears.

She did not turn. Her pale gown vanished behind a crumbling archway, the same arch where she had once carried a trembling canary in his hat.

He remained rooted to the spot, as though any movement might break what remained of his calm. He thought through it again, relived it in his mind—her expression, her tone, the dreadful formality of Mr. Eastwood. That had been like hearing a door close. Quiet. Final.

His mother’s voice drifted faintly across the grounds as she spoke to Emily’s parents somewhere beyond the ruins. Roman stood several yards away with Jack Sterling, both men absorbed in a low, tense conversation. The other brothers listening with solemnity carved into their features.

No one saw Lyness’s heart cave in, though his chest tightened painfully. He forced himself to breathe. His stutter, kept in check by sheer, exhausted will these past days, twitched at the edge of his tongue as though every word he wanted to say was doomed to come out in stammers and stops.

He turned away from the path Emily had taken, pressing the heel of one hand to his brow. Something had changed. And it was him she fled from. Had he frightened her? He had seen her every day, practicing restraint, not speaking his heart. Or so he thought. Perhaps he had pushed too much without knowing it. Demanded too much, too soon. He had been cautious—so cautious—but perhaps even his gentleness had pressed too heavily upon her.

Had he been careless? Too hopeful? Too ready to believe—after a lifetime of holding back—that someone as gentle and radiant as Emily might truly want him?

He shut his eyes.

Of course she would reconsider. Of course she would grow overwhelmed. He had announced their engagement with reckless speed in a crowded garden, for heaven’s sake. He had dragged her into a life she had not chosen—all under the guise of protection.

He’d meant to shield her. What if he had trapped her instead?

A flicker of memory struck him: her soft voice whispering, “I am willing.” The delicate weight of her hand on his arm as they walked the Knavesmire. The way she had looked at him before the trumpet call startled them apart.

All of it felt suddenly fragile. Breakable.

Perhaps she had never meant any of it as he had meant it⁠—

No. He would not dishonor her by thinking she spoke false. He lowered his hand and stared at the grass beneath his boots.

She had asked for time, he told himself. He owed her that much. Beyond that, he wanted to give her anything, everything, that she asked of him. But a part of him—small, terrified—whispered that time might not mend this. That she might withdraw completely. That she might go to Jack and say she wished the entire arrangement dissolved.

His chest tightened painfully.

He could withstand society’s mockery. He could endure gossip, whispers, even the ruin of his own hopes. But losing her before he had ever truly been allowed to keep her?

He swallowed hard, breath unsteady.

Roman’s voice came through faintly, as though through water or thick walls. “Lyness? Are you well?”

He straightened instantly. “Y-yes,” he answered, though his voice cracked on the single syllable. He schooled his features, the way he had done since boyhood. He had grown adept at hiding hurt before anyone could call it weakness.

Roman stood almost directly before him and frowned, taking a step nearer. “You look as though you have taken a knife through the heart, Lyness. What has happened?”