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“Breathe,” he directed once they were out of hearing. “You look as if you’re about to faint straightaway.”
She inhaled deeply. “Thank you for getting me out of there. I’m aware how much the family cares for me, but I can’t believe so much fuss is necessary simply because I made one bad decision.”
Asquith sent her a sidelong glance. “We’ve all failed you, I think.”
“No! Not in the least. I should apologize to you. I should never have pressed for permission to go with Lord Willard without talking to you first.”
“Perhaps not. But I should have been honest enough to warn you away from him, especially after he prevented Neville from asking you to dance at Almack’s.”
“There’s more to this than I know, isn’t there?”
“Yes.” He winced. So much more.
“Did you really buy a horse this afternoon?”
“I did.” Or at least that is what Hampton told him to say.
“Was that the only reason you couldn’t be found?”
“I would like you to see the horse.” Asquith avoided the question.
They walked out into the darkness, heading for the lamplight shining out from within the stables.
When they arrived, Asquith presented Calder with pride. Calder showed an interest in Millie. With a dip of his regal head, he condescended to let Millie touch him.
As she did, Asquith watched the tension drain from her shoulders.
“Everyone has pulled together to help me.” She ran her hand along the curve of the stallion’s cheek. His nostrils twitched. “I feel that weight.”
“Yes, but only you can decide what happens next.”
“Oh, really? Then, I’d like to go back to yesterday, please.”
“Would you?” Asquith asked.
“I thought I would,” Millie admitted.
He wished he could give Millie time to adjust to her new circumstances, but Neville, he was sure, was making the fastest transformation of his life. “Neville is going to propose. Tonight.”
“So I supposed.”
Were all the Wainwright ladies unable to sound the least bit happy about a marriage proposal?
“Do you know how you will answer?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m scared. I want—” She stared blankly as the horse nuzzled her hand. “I don’t know what I want. I only know what I don’t want.”
“What don’t you want?” he asked gently.
“I don’t want to wind up like my mother. I don’t—I can’t—live in a world like that. A world where I need permission for every breath. A world where I can’t think, can’t laugh, can’t move, can’t read without a man’s permission.”
Each of her sentences, angrily spat and increasingly emphatic, wore him raw. Lenora had made oblique comments about her parents, none so direct, so revealing.
Lenora had kept secrets from him, too.
“Was growing up at Willowhurst as bad as all that?” he asked.
She leveled a bitter look. “Only when my father was at home.”
