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"He'd not be quite enamored with me if he knew the truth," Lord Beckham admitted shamefully, his words short and stilted. Lady Havenshire smiled and sashayed in his direction, laying her head against his chest; he felt rigid, nervous, not reciprocating the gesture.
"Nonsense, he's been trying to marry me off to you since the moment old Henrietta began gabbing in his ear," she chuckled.
"We're not married yet, m'lady," he rather sharply pointed out.
"And? I'm a fiery spirit, after all. Father thought me unmarriageable. Perhaps you'll prove him wrong some day?" she said with a silly lilt to her tone, looking up at him with beaming, pretty eyes. It hurt him so greatly to see how much she had begun to adore him, for he knew what he needed to do. For her own good.
"...Perhaps," he said, after a long moment of tense silence. "We... we should return to the estate together, I believe."
"We should," she said with a joyous little giggle, collecting her messy riding clothes. He watched her, so much want in his eyes.
He didn't want to break her heart... but he knew she would be better for it. He didn't deserve her love.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"I've not been to this part of the estate in so long!" Nadia exclaimed as Shadow galloped lazily through the long fields of tall, swaying grasses. "Well... save for the brief few moments of Shadow dashing through it this afternoon," she chuckled. Her eyes bright and her expression full, she felt a contentedness in her heart she hadn't felt... perhaps in her entire life. This, she believed, must be what love feels like; this fullness pressing the inside of your chest, begging to be let out, and she wanted so dearly to simply scale the tallest rolling hill in the Emerys estate and let out a great cry that she had fallen deeply for someone so special, so different than the rest.
Shadow trotted along, whinnying happily as the clouds broke and the sun began to shine, just as night began to fall; a beautiful sunset soaked the sky, beams of brilliant orange and pinks cresting through deep-black clouds. Her heart filled with life and she looked to her lover's face, wanting to see if he was enjoying the sight on the horizon as deeply as she.
Instead, she found an expression she could only charitably described as... very troubled. She had noticed it in the cabin, though she wanted to say nothing; she had noticed it as muddy Pierre pulled himself out of the rain, as they began to trot through the forest. Her life had been turned upside-down, and in a wonderful way, by the man trotting along at her side, but he seemed only distressed at what had happened between them.
"Don't you love rainstorms, Marshall? They seem to be just about as deep and dark and gloomy as you are," she teased in a childish little tone, trotting up alongside him, again showing off just how skilled a rider she was compared to him. While these jokes and his own failure at matters equestrian had brought them smiles of joy and laughter only hours ago, since their moments spent together in the cabin something profound had changed about the man she had come to appreciate so deeply. She expected one of his deadpan, chuckle-worth responses to her little taunt, but she got nothing; he appeared utterly lost in his own thoughts, and when she drew too close for him to ignore her any longer, he startled from whatever dark reverie had cloaked his mind.
"Gloomy? I suppose," he said half-heartedly, giving a forced smile.
"Are you... quite alright, Marshall? Has the rain storm or... some other manner, of happening, put you off of our conversation?" Nadia asked with worry, fearing she had perhaps not been what he had hoped in their intimate moments together, her own insecurities playing deep at the creases of her face.
"I'm quite alright, Lady Havenshire," he responded, dour. Lady Havenshire? She didn't enjoy hearing him call her that, no. She wanted to hear Nadia, the same way he had crooned it as they lay together, cloaked in need for one another.
"Are you worried my father will be cross with you, Marshall?" she whispered to him. He trotted along on lazy old Pierre, sighing and shaking his head.
"I've no worries about your father, no. He seemed quite agreeable to any... arrangements, being made between us," he spoke obliquely. Arrangements? What manner of trouble had befallen the duke to speak in such a manner?
"What manner of arrangements did you have in mind?" Lady Havenshire prodded at him as Shadow paced ahead.
"...We'll discuss it another time perhaps, m'lady," Marshall insisted. Silence fell; it remained with them as they paced back across the moors, through the grasslands, making the trip back to the stables. The entire trip, made in silence, and the doubts began to return to Nadia's mind. She had been so sure, in those loving and lusting moments together in the cabin, that she had finally found something special, but she began to fear for herself. She remembered Ms. Mulwray's urgings in her youth - men are animals, who will take from you what they wish, and you'll never know that they've selfishly availed themselves to you until it's too late.
Nadia thought and thought on it, with only the occasional horse-clops and whinnies to accompany her worried introspection.
When they arrived at the stable they remained silent; she had begun to wonder if these same doubts had been what had driven Lord Beckham to silence. Monsieur Therriault emerged from the stables with a yawn, welcoming the pair back with a tired grin.
"You must've 'ad quite a long day, what with the storm!" he proclaimed with a devious grin. Lady Havenshire gave him a sideways glance and a nervous smile; Lord Beckham simply dismounted poor Pierre, who laid immediately in the dirt, much to Monsieur Therriault's chagrin. "Lazy creature!" he exclaimed.
"We found an old cabin out in the wood and took refuge and... talked," Lady Havenshire commented, her words empty and distant.
"Ah, talked, eh?" the horse-keeper said. Lady Havenshire looked back and noticed that the duke had already left and begun to scale the path back to the manor; she hurried along behind him without another word, only hearing Monsieur Therriault berating Pierre with a string of French expletives.
"M'lord! I... I had wondered, how you intended to handle the conversation, with my father," Lady Havenshire said breathlessly, "about quite... what we had been doing, during the rainstorm? I had not thought on it, until the stable-keeper just asked," Lady Havenshire tried to pry more jokes, or conversation, or anything at all from Lord Beckham, who strode unfettered towards the manor.
"Your answer seemed to convince Monsieur Therriault just fine," he answered nonplussed, before returning to silence.
"Are you certain everything is fine? You don't seem to be fine," Lady Havenshire insisted, her w
orry beginning to transform into ire. What business had he to treat her so cross after the afternoon they'd had together? She began to fear she had failed him in some way, as they crossed through the garden, the doors to the manor opening wide. Lord Havenshire sat on the couch, as if he had spent the whole afternoon waiting anxious for the pair to return.
"Ah! Lord Beckham, Nadia, it's a pleasure to have you back," he announced, in a manner transparent enough that she could tell it had been rehearsed. Defeated and tired, Nadia began to feel like an actress, dragged through a disastrous production by some manner of trickery. With a bit of confused venom, she glanced at Lord Beckham, who stood still in the doorway, watching her father; never looking into her eyes.
"Father, is Mary about?" Lady Havenshire asked.
