For the rest of the day, they danced around each other, both being careful not to trigger the other’s defenses by any inadvertent touch or brush of a shoulder or arm.
Having to watch his every move while, simultaneously, being so excruciatingly aware of her every breath was, he discovered, exhausting.
Consequently, the following day, he left her to complete her usual morning’s round of the businesses close to the Hall in the hope that their mutual awareness would ease sufficiently for him to make some progress, however slight, later in the day. Subsequently, by mutual arrangement, after luncheon, they set out—just the pair of them—to walk to the Osiery and the cider mill to discuss the proposed project with the Pooles and the Edgars and scout out the best site for the new storehouse.
Both rugged up against the chilly breeze, they walked briskly past the ruins and on down the path to the river. Looking around, he debated whether to speak now or later.
It was early March, and the first tentative signs of life were showing in the woods that bordered the path, but there was no one else in sight, nothing and no one likely to interrupt a discussion of a personal nature.
And yet…he was conscious of a reluctance to open his lips and speak—to take the risk he had to take and indicate his interest. After all, they had business to deal with; it wouldn’t be wise to create awkwardness between them ahead of their meeting with the Pooles and the Edgars. He—and Caitlin—would be better served by him waiting until they were on their way back.
Best I wait and broach the subject then.
Somehow.
Yet as the decision echoed in his mind, some small part of him disapproved.
Isn’t this what I always do? Step back from actually taking any step that might significantly alter my future?
He hid a frown as that small yet determined part nagged, irritated by his inaction. Introspection had never come easily, yet after several moments of consideration, he admitted that he’d developed a habit of waiting to assess how matters might play out rather than make any preemptive proactive move. In retrospect, that habit of waiting for something to happen had contributed in a fairly major way to his lack of any defined purpose in his life.
“Waiting for something to happen” was deliberately passive, and although he didn’t like even thinking of himself in such terms, he usually fell into that rut.
He couldn’t afford to this time. He wasn’t of a mind to risk “something happening” and Caitlin and the nebulous possibility she represented—one he hadn’t yet examined all that closely—slipping through his fingers.
She might well have family somewhere. What if one of them fell ill, and she was summoned home? It wouldn’t be easy or straightforward for him to leave the Hall to follow and plead his cause somewhere else.
He canvassed the potential problems as a way of screwing up his courage to the sticking point, yet in reality, it wasn’t courage he lacked but the will to act.
Today, he swore, he would turn over a new leaf and act rather than wait.
When they were on their way back, the instant an opening appeared, he would seize it and speak.
Just what was he going to say?
Beside Gregory, Caitlin fought a losing battle to keep her mind focused on the new storehouse. She’d given up all hope of dampening her senses to the apparently unavoidable impact of him walking beside her.
They were separated by a perfectly decent space, but that didn’t seem to matter. Since that moment she’d spent clutched in his arms, her sensitivity to him had escalated, and her senses’ clamoring had grown ever more insistent.
Indeed, the possibility that he was as interested in her as she was in him had eradicated any hope she might have had of reining in her thoughts and potentially foolish imaginings.
It was decidedly unfair that ladies were forced to play a passive role in such matters. If it were left to her, she would face the question of what might or might not lie between them head-on. And if something didn’t happen soon to clarify what he thought, she would lose all patience and demand to be told…
Oh, how that prospect tempted her!
In desperation, she wrenched her mind away from the entire subject of her and him and what might be and bluntly asked, “How big do you think the storehouse should be?”
He replied by asking how much space was currently devoted to the completed products of the two businesses.
The query allowed her to distract herself with calculating estimations based on the orders presently waiting to be fulfilled.
They were nearing the riverbank and the osier beds when Gregory pointed to a distant figure, rhythmically wielding a spade close by the bank of the swiftly moving Nene. “What’s William doing?”
She looked, then replied, “I suspect he’s digging out a dead willow. I gather that, in this season, while he won’t be cutting canes, there’s still a lot of tending and preparing and cultivating of the willow beds. Apparently digging out or at least breaking up the older rotting stumps allows the surrounding younger willows to spread and, ultimately, yield more shoots.”
“I see.”
They watched William as they continued along the path, then they and the path swung toward the Osiery, and they left William behind.
