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“Do you think I’m so shallow?” I asked gently. “To equivalate my worth with my title?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“But it is. And for what it’s worth, I’m more than aware of my father’s belief about that. He’s expressed the same sentiment to me.” I pushed a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “But that’s not how it works. My useless brother will inherit everything, and I will have to leave eventually regardless. I don’t want to leave to some huge estate somewhere that isn’t my home. Arrow Woods is my home, and I would rather a shack on the river in a place I love than a manor in a place I don’t care about at all.”
Miles stared at me, shifting his weight from one foot to another.
“Why do you think all my father’s efforts have failed? It’s not like I’m barely twenty-one. I’m almost twenty-eight. He’s been trying for twelve years to set me up with someone, but I’ve never cared about them.” I swallowed. “I’ve never… wanted… to care about anyone the way I do about you.”
He drew in a deep breath.
“And if that doesn’t matter, then fine. But I don’t want to hear another word about any of this from you. Go back to how this was before the storm when you were rude and ignored me and pushed me away.” A lump was forming in my throat. “If not, then stop hiding behind something you know isn’t true and give this a chance.”
Miles rubbed his hand down his face, then held out his arms. “Come here.”
I didn’t move.
“Come here,” he repeated, his gaze fixed on mine.
Slowly, my feet carried me towards him. When I reached him, he pulled me into the largest, warmest embrace I’d ever been in.
And I knew.
This was what it felt like to be home.
“You live in a different world than I do,” Miles whispered to the top of my head.
“I know. And I do know it,” I insisted, wrapping my arms around his waist. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to live in yours.”
He sighed, cupping the back of my head, and turned his face into my hair. His lips pressed against the side of my head, and he whispered, “I just don’t know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – MILES
“Move.”
Mars the cat stared at me from her spot in the kitchen doorway.
“Move, cat.”
She raised her left paw and licked it, purring as she cleaned between her claws.
“Mars. Move.”
“She won’t move,” Grandpa called from the living room. “That’s her spot.”
“It’s a stupid spot,” I shouted back, stepping over her.
Which was when she decided to move.
Naturally.
I almost tripped over her as she bolted across the kitchen and into the spare room. “Mars!”
Grandpa chuckled from the living room.
I shook my head and filled the kettle to boil it. That bloody cat was going to be the death of me—her and Gabriella. Between the two of them, there was no way I was going survive the rest of the year.
I made two cups of tea and took them into the living room where Grandpa was already rummaging around in the biscuit jar.
“Where are all the custard creams?” he muttered, discarding a ginger nut on a plate.
“You ate them,” I reminded him.
“Why didn’t you bring any?”
“You didn’t ask me to.”
“I know why you forgot them.”
I couldn’t forget something I hadn’t been asked to bring, but all right. “Why’s that, Grandpa?”
He leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye. “You’ve been canoodling with Lady Gabriella.”
Well… I had.
Although I did have a slight aversion to the word canoodling.
But how the hell did he know that?
“Who told you that?”
“Edith saw you in the coffee shop on Sunday. Are you courting her?”
“It’s complicated,” I said slowly. “She is my employer’s daughter.”
“And a societal class or ten above us.”
“That, too.”
“Doubt she cares about that, though.”
“Your guess would be correct.”
“She never has.”
I frowned. “You know her?”
He chuckled. “Boy, I’ve lived here my entire life. Of course I know her. I remember when she was knee high to a grasshopper and collecting fifty pence pieces for a sponsored silence.”
“Did she ever complete it?”
“Not once.” He laughed. “Although I don’t suppose that surprises you.”
“Not really.”
“She was a good child. Always involved in everything that was going on. If there was a bake sale, she was the first to put her name on the sign-up sheet. If a craft fair was on, she was there with her little embroidered purse full of coins she’d earnt, dragging either her nanny or one of her family members around the church so she could buy things she’d ultimately never use but would donate to children who couldn’t afford it.”
I looked down at my hands, a vision of a tiny Gabriella dragging her aunt around the church.
“When she was a teenager, the local council proposed closing the play area in the park and building on it. She was the first to stand up and argue with them, even though she was only… oh, fourteen? Fifteen, maybe?” He tapped his chin. “She went to church and lobbied the reverend, handed out flyers to the congregation, even got the Women’s Institute group to petition the mayor.”
