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“Will you be back in time to return to London with me?”
“No. You go on. I will follow you in a day or so. I have a few things here to sort out.”
“What do I tell the Sainsbury’s?”
“I don’t care what you tell them. I haven’t accepted their invitation. They are quite wrong to assume that I am going to attend any function of theirs. I have things to do here,” Ryan replied with uncharacteristic briskness.
Norman opened his mouth to speak but was left staring at the empty room as Ryan stomped angrily out. By the time Norman left his seat and made his way over to the window he was in time to watch Ryan race across the landscaped lawn toward Sian’s house. He just had to wonder what his good friend would do when he got there, not least because he had forgotten to tell Ryan that the expected engagement announcement related to Martha, not Sian.
“Still, if it kicks you into doing something about the love you feel for her then it is worth a lie or two,” Norman muttered.
With one last rueful look out of the window, he then went in search of his room to begin to pack. Not that he intended to go anywhere. He just suspected that Ryan was going to need a bit more help before he managed to secure his elusive bride’s hand.
Ryan knocked on the door to Sian’s house and stepped back. He shifted from one foot to the other impatiently while he waited for it to be answered.
“I am afraid the master is not at home, sir. He should be back later,” the maid informed him when she eventually answered the door.
“Is Miss Sian at home?”
“No, sir. She has gone into the village with her sister. She will be back in an hour or so, sir,” Frances replied.
“Well, give her this, will you?”
“Miss Sian?” Frances looked down at the note the handsome neighbour gave her and nodded.
Ryan turned to leave, a little struck by how disappointed he was not to have been able to at least see Sian.
“God, I really must do something before I go out of my mind altogether.” He whirled back around to face the maid just as she was closing the door. “Tell me something.”
“Sir?”
/> “Is there an engagement announcement being made?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Frances replied carefully.
Ryan nodded. “Well, tell Arthur I will come and see him later but that he is to get the papers ready. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The maid closed the door and returned to her duties, but not before leaving the note on the table beside the front door.
Ryan studied the closed door and contemplated what to do now. He had no idea if he should go to London for a few days, if only to try to get his mind off Sian. He could then move on to other matters, like the purchase of her father’s shares in the cotton mill his father owned in Lancashire. But Ryan suspected that any attempt to get away for a while would be futile because he couldn’t concentrate on anything except Sian, and the urgent need to know if she was the one who was engaged.
“What I don’t know is what in the Hell I am going to do if she is,” he growled as he mounted his horse.
For the first time in his life, his wealth and status meant nothing. It would do nothing to help him secure the future he wanted; a future that might never be his no matter who his connections were.
“But I have to try. I must do everything possible to ensure that Sian isn’t sold to that oaf, Cedrick. Just how do I get her to agree to marrying me without hating me for still being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want?” Ryan knew immediately who would be able to give him a few sage words of advice: Norman.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ryan removed his pocket watch and looked down at it for what felt like the hundredth time in the last half hour. It was now an hour later than when he had asked her to meet him, and Sian still hadn’t arrived. He wondered if Frances had forgotten to hand his note to her when Sian had returned from her jaunt to the village. Whatever had gone wrong, it was clear she wasn’t going to meet with him as he had requested.
“Is it because you are celebrating your engagement?” While he knew she had objected vehemently to any prospect of being married to Cedrick, Ryan didn’t know if she had been commanded to agree to it by her father.
“I need to know.” With that, Ryan swiftly left the ruins and made his way through the woods in search of his horse.
The journey to her house was longer than his wait in the ruins had been not least because what he found at the end of the journey had the potential to make his life a lot harder than it needed to be. Ryan needed time to think about what he was likely to face.
