She sighed. “I wasn’t running away.”
He nearly answered her sigh with a sharp exhale of relief.
“You’re heading the wrong way,” she said when he started to walk.
“Oh? So you were heading somewhere in particular then. Let me guess…the stables?” He glanced down at her, his heart leaping at her proximity. All he’d have to do was dip his head and he could taste her lips.
“How’d you know?” Her tone was wry and they shared a laugh.
“So some things haven’t changed then,” he said.
“When I’m living under that roof, it feels like nothing has changed,” she said. There was a hint of wry, humorless amusement in her tone that he despised.
The sooner he married her and got her away from her dreadful parents, the better.
Questions danced on his tongue. He was more curious than he dared to admit, but if there was one thing he’d learned about this new, grown Jane…she was wary.
And honestly, after that wretched meeting at the masquerade, she had good reason to keep her distance. But he suspected even if that interlude hadn’t come between them, she’d still have this wariness about her.
She reminded him of one of her precious horses in that regard. In some ways she was so strong and brave, but one startling sound from the brushes and she’d run off in fright.
He chose his next words carefully, evading the sensitive topic of her family and their engagement for the moment. “Is it the same when you’re at that school?”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “Pardon?”
“Madame Bellafonte’s, that’s the name of it, isn’t it?”
She nodded, and for a moment he thought perhaps he’d have to try again, but then she sighed and, much to his delighted surprise, she stopped trying to fight his grip and melted against his chest. “No, at school everything is different.”
“How so?”
“I have friends there,” she said. “Or…I did. They all went home for the summer.”
“All of them?”
“Mmm.”
They walked in silence for a while but when the stables came into view, she straightened. “Really, Luke, I can walk from here.”
He grudgingly set her down. He’d enjoyed the feel of her in his arms. So small and fragile, and yet so solid and warm that holding her made him feel anchored in some way.
In agoodway.
She brushed off her skirts and looked around them. “Do you think anyone saw?”
“Doesn’t matter if they did,” he said.
“Says you.”
He laughed. “Yes, says me.” He leaned down to be on her eye level. “Your future husband.”
She looked uncertain for a moment but then she laughed. “I wonder if that will ever seem normal.”
He grinned. “I imagine we’ll both get used to it…eventually.”
She linked her arm through his. “I supposed I’d best get used to this as well then.”
“Mmm.” It was all he was capable of. For the first time since they’d met as adults, she seemed to be warming to him. He was at once relieved…and terrified of making a mistake that would send her running.
