’Twas the most intelligence anyone had displayed since the two wagons stopped.
“Brilliant,” Patrick said, and climbed down.
“We’re really doing this?” Tavish clearly hadn’t expected that.
“Outta the wagon, old man.” Patrick ushered him out. “Go sit with that other antiquity over there. Cecily and I are going to solve a problem.”
“And is Matthew coming with me?” Tavish asked.
“Of course not.” Patrick gave him a look of exasperation. “He’s too bright to ride in the dullard wagon.”
Tavish held a hand up in a show of surrender. “I’ll ride with Ian if only to shut your gob.”
“Odd, the reason I’m riding with Cecily is so that you’ll shut yours.”
Patrick was in Tavish’s seat, his horses’ leads in hand a moment later. “Is now the right time to tell you that I don’t actually know the way home?” he said under his breath to Cecily.
She didn’t look concerned. “Just follow the boys. They’ve made this trek many times.”
Patrick did precisely that.
Cecily wasted no time addressing the topic at hand. “How difficult are things between you and Eliza?”
“Horrible. Honestly, horrible.”
She patted her baby’s back as they rode along. “What reason did she give you for this rift?”
“I kept something from her I shouldn’t have,” he said. “Now she’s worried I’m not trustworthy.”
“Are you?”
“I try to be. I’m determined to be.”
She looked in his direction as they spoke, though Patrick knew she was entirely blind. Did she do so out of habit or a sense of expectation?
“If keeping secrets is what caused her concern, then being forthright is most likely to counter that,” Cecily said. “Are there other things about yourself you haven’t told her?”
“We’ve known each other only a few months. There’s a lifetime of things I could share with her.” He would enjoy doing so, in fact. And hoped she would tell him about herself in return. “But I don’t know if I have things to share that are . . . ‘important’ enough to overcome this chasm between us.”
“You must have kept something quite significant from her.” Cecily, bless her, sounded more empathetic than judgmental.
“Aye.” He’d made a right mull of it all. “And it affected her daughter.”
“Mercy, Patrick.Thatwill make regaining her trust very, very difficult.”
“What should I do? I have to at least try.”
Cecily didn’t say anything as they rolled down the road. Patrick kept his gaze on the wagon ahead, trying to convince himself that his heart wasn’t dropping to his boots. What if he couldn’t fix things with Eliza? What if he’d ruined everything?
“Secrecy put you in this fix,” Cecily said. “Vulnerability seems your only chance of overcoming it.”
“You have my attention.”
“It’ll likely be very uncomfortable, and there’s no guarantee it will prove effective,” she warned him.
“Eliza is the most extraordinary person I know. She saw value in me when I didn’t see it in myself. She loved me when no one else did. No amount of discomfort will convince me not to do anything and everything I can to try to prove myself worthy of her regard.”
Cecily nodded in apparent approval. “Then let’s make good use of the remainder of our drive and sort this out.”
