“N-no.” She’d stuttered. Not a promising, bold start. She must continue forward with a stronger footing. She cleared her throat. “Doing so might be considered something of an … announcement.”
“If taking your arm is an announcement, it lacks … drama. We can do better.” He winked.
She ached to fall into his charm. She would not.
He must have sensed her reserve. He quickly smoothed out a halt in his steps. “I was hoping to speak with you on that point, actually.”
She stopped, her gaze trained on her daughters and the groom watching over them in the distance. Enough space between them and the storm to keep them safe.
“Excellent,” she said. “Let us speak of it, then, and end this to every party’s satisfaction.”
He stepped closer, crowding her on the path, his body a shadow eclipsing the sun.
Should have cooled her sweating skin, but she became an inferno.
“I would not think,” he said, his voice low as water lapping on a lakeshore, as soft as velvet, “to use the words end and satisfaction in the same sentence.”
She forced herself to face him. “I believe our brief liaison must come to an end.” She wanted to take the words back, to snatch them up and tear them to pieces, so she looked back at Bridget and Izzy, remembered their confusion and tears when their father had died, their loneliness before they’d moved to London, and wrapped her heart round with the metal that was her love for them. The boldest thing she could ever do was give everything up for them. Wasn’t it? Yes, yes it was. It had to be.
Because it was for them now. A recognition like a sabre to the gut. She used to think her adoration for Grant the shallow kind—a love of his body and his glitter. Lies. It sliced deeper. Always had. She did not care about how he looked and acted. She adored the man he was when in the shadows, not when he preened before all of London, showered in applause. She adored the man who liked to teach and who was good at it, the man who cared what she said and encouraged her to speak her mind, the man who knew what family meant—not necessarily those who gave one life, but those who helped one sustain it, make something wondrous of it.
She’d crossed a dangerous line somewhere, and she could not go back.
She took a step back from Grant, wrapped her arms around her waist.
He stepped toward her, a lethal dance. “I see no such thing. I do not see why we cannot go on into eternity with one another.”
Oh. A proposal. More or less. “There is no eternity between us, Mr. Webster.”
Behind his deep brown eyes, the cogs of his brain whirred.
When he did not speak, she rushed into the silence, speaking and stepping into the curve of the path at the same time, not hesitating to note if he followed. “We had a delightful time, but these things run their course. I fear … I fear …” She stopped, her limbs feeling dead and tingling. She could not play the coquette, the careless widow who ate men’s hearts for breakfast. Even bold, Freddy could not do that.
His warmth blossomed behind her, and his lips found the shell of her ear. “What are your fears? Let me take them. Do you fear I mean an eternity of midnight liaisons and hurried tuppings in dressing rooms? Because I promise you I do not. I mean something entirely more … permanent … than an affair.”
“I know.” He was a scoundrel, but a good-hearted one. He would never play with her.
“And I suspect you want something rather permanent yourself. Let’s not name it. The words send you scurrying away. Leave those words, and focus on me, Freddy. You want me. I know it. And for more than a golden moment in time.”
She turned, closing her eyes against the tears as much as against the sun. And the truth he spoke, the truth she knew well. “I cannot do this any longer. The girls … they grow attached. Too attached.” As did she. “I do not want them to get hurt.”
“Nor do I.”
“Watching them lose their father was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do. He may not have cared overly much for me—”
“The fool.”
“But he loved them. And they loved him. They are … beginning to love you.” She dropped her chin to her chest. “And you … you are the type of man who may not make it home for dinner one evening.” She turned and stepped away, backing down the path one tremulous step at a time. “William fell today. But one evening, it might be you.” He shook his head, stalking after her. “Surely you must see,” she continued. “Every night you cheat death. I’ve stood upon a horse. I know how bone-breakingly high it is. I know—” Her voice wavered, broke. “They have lost much in their short lives. I would secure them from that pain again. If I can.”
“That is my life, Freddy. It is not safe, but it is what I’m called to do.” He held his hands out to her, palms up. “I understand your fears, but—”
“Mama!” Izzy ran their way, wrapped herself about Freddy’s legs.
Freddy stared blankly at him a moment. She coughed the emotion from her throat and knelt to meet her daughter’s eyes. “What is it, darling?”
“It’s too hot. I want to go home.”
If they didn’t return home, she’d ask Grant to do something he’d never do. Quit performing. To keep himself safe. He’d just admitted riding was his calling. How could she ask him to give up what he loved? She stood, putting a hand on Izzy’s head. “Yes, let’s return home. Right away. Mama is hot, too. Mr. Webster, thank you for the lessons. The girls have bloomed under your tutelage, and they will be able to say a master equestrian taught them.” Surely he took her meaning—a dismissal.
