Shehadsaid that. But they had never spoken about Langley before. Not once. His question was thoroughly disorientating. Did Wolfstan know about her childhood infatuation? First Caroline and now him. Who next? Mason?
Heat colored her cheeks and she looked away. “Love is a strong word.”
“It’s a simple word,” Wolfstan countered. “A simple feeling.”
Rebecca shook her head and stepped around him, resuming the walk back to the manor. “Says the man who has never been in love.”
“Haveyouever been in love?”
Why was he harping on the subject? More pressingly, why did she not want to answer? Because she had never been in love? She’d been smitten with Langley yes, but could that be considered love?
Wolfstan seemed to wait for her answer, his gaze flicking at her every few seconds. She had no response for him. Could he be teasing her? He would not be aware of her inner conflict. So Rebecca offered him what she hoped to be a playful smile. “My heart is captured daily by the sunrise.”
He said nothing.
Not even a smile.
Lame, Rebecca. “I’m afraid my poor teasing has quite affected your mood.”
“It has not.”
Rebecca sent him a skeptical glance. He looked tense. Troubled. “You must be worried for Sergeant.”
“He will not have wandered off far. I’ll send a groom after him.”
Rebecca nodded and quickened her pace. The silence that stretched was suddenly awkward. An invisible chasm erected out of poorly considered teasing, she thought. But where had their banter gone wrong? His wild oats, whatever that meant? Langley? Lawd, the rod remark?
She frowned at him.
Something unsettling weighed on Wolfstan’s mind. Something that troubled him greatly. What could it possibly be? Rebecca wondered if he would confide in her if she asked. She wondered if she wanted to know at all.
Chapter 3
Wolfstan’s breath knockedback into his lungs the moment he followed Rebecca into the parlor. Life had a way of punching a man in the gut when he least expected the blow.
Langley’s easy grin infused a swift depth of fear into the beat of Wolfstan’s heart. This ungodly emotion was accompanied by a flash of annoyance at the vermillion flush that crept up Rebecca’s cheeks.
