“The look is more experience derived. I’ve been an agent of Drake’s for…” He raised his brows in patent surprise. “Almost twenty years.”
As he seemed faintly shocked, she allowed a moment to pass before nudging, “And the third thing?”
“My family’s business.”
She frowned, and he smiled. “Yes, despite being a branch on a ducal tree, we run a business. A well-established and distinctly profitable business, one known the length and breadth of the British Isles and, in the relevant circles, all through Europe.”
“And that is?”
“Horse racing.” His smile deepened. “My father is Demon Cynster, and while you probably won’t recognize that name—before your time—he was, still is, one of the foremost breeders of Thoroughbreds in Britain. Now Papa has retired, my older brother, Nicholas, manages the racing stable, and for a while, my older sister, Pru, managed the breeding stable, and I was her assistant. That position gave me a believable reason for traveling almost anywhere there are horses.”
“I see.” There was something in his tone that prompted her to ask, “Is your sister still in charge?”
His lips twisted in a faint grimace. “No. She married another Thoroughbred breeder and left to manage her new husband’s stable in Ireland.”
“So you’re now in charge?”
Almost reluctantly, he nodded. “I do love the work, but with Pru gone, the demands on my time are escalating. Nicholas can cover for me for short periods, as he’s doing at present, but…” He frowned. “At some point, I will need to… I suppose the correct phrase is ‘knuckle down.’”
She tipped her head and studied him, then deciding that yes, she wanted to know, prodded, “You said you love the work, but you’re clearly unhappy at the prospect of stepping into your sister’s shoes.”
His gaze focused on her face more intently than before, and for a moment, she wondered if he would answer.
But after several seconds, he replied, “It’s not the position—the shoe filling—that bothers me. It’s that the breeding stable is located at Newmarket, and Newmarket is far too close to London for my comfort.” With a degree of sourness, he explained, “The grandes dames, many of whom—as Drake recently pointed out—I’m related to, are forever trying to drag me into society, and I’ve never been fond of the social whirl.”
“Why?”
“To be candid, to me, attending parties and balls has always seemed a very large waste of my time.”
She felt fellow feeling stir and nodded. “You’re… for want of a better description, mission driven. You need some purpose to engage unreservedly with any activity, and to you, dancing at balls and parties has no real purpose, hence no allure.”
He blinked at her. “That’s… my reality in a nutshell.” He studied her in some surprise.
She smiled. “I understand because I’m much the same.” She raised her hands. “I never bothered with social circles, but instead, devoted myself to becoming my father’s right hand, because there was so much to do and so much I could achieve in that position.”
He nodded, his gaze steady on her face, as if she’d provided some snippet of information he’d been searching for.
Toby felt faintly flabbergasted. With unerring precision, she’d put her finger on what was, in effect, the determining impulse of his entire life.
In the same way as studying the island figuratively through her eyes had clarified his view of the place, speaking with her about his life had clarified that as well.
I need purpose.
He knew he did, but he’d never truly focused on that point before.
Some part of him knew, in a cynical way, that there was a reason she’d asked about his life, his background and occupation, yet by the same token, he knew her interest was genuine, and he hadn’t minded answering.
The truth was, he knew—deep inside where he couldn’t dodge the truth—that he stood at a turning point in his life. He knew all the details of his past, but he didn’t know his future. Until his most recent meeting with Drake, he’d assumed his future would simply be more of his past.
However reluctantly, he’d accepted that wasn’t to be and that whatever lay ahead would be very different from what had gone before.
Yet to this point—to this moment of sitting in the quiet dark and talking with Diana—he hadn’t had any real notion, not even a concept, regarding what he needed his future to provide. More, courtesy of their journey, any assumptions he might previously have made had been challenged and found wanting.
But the exchange with Diana had revealed, if not precisely his lodestar, then a compass he could use to discover it.
He’d always known that understanding the past was critical to successfully navigating the future. In this case, to elucidating what his most-desired future was.
What he couldn’t help but note was that, of all the people in his life, it was Diana who was assisting him in defining his ultimate goal.
