Though he offered her a smile, he looked to Cecelia as if it were her answer he really awaited.
Blushing, Cecelia nodded and echoed, “It would be most kind of you, Your Grace.”
She dipped her head then, fearful that if she gazed into his eyes for too long, she might say something she would regret. Or perhaps not, as the case may be.
“What of your horse, Your Grace?” she asked, turning to the animal, who had only wandered a little way to escape all of the commotion.
“I think he shall be grateful for a rest from having to carry me,” George said, offering her his arm.
When she took it, he guided her forward, collecting his horse by his reins.
“Shall we, ladies?” George asked, looking to her mother, and when she nodded, gripping her maid's arm as if it were all she could do to keep herself upright, they all started back towards the manor.
They walked in relative silence, though Cecelia suspected it was not out of lack of anything to say but rather George's wishing for them to have a quiet moment to come to terms with the shock of all that had happened.
And in truth, she wasn't sure she was quite ready to talk about any of it just yet.
Instead, she was glad just to have a quiet moment of peace, to walk along the bridge with the man – she dared tentatively to admit to herself – she had always wished to share this view with.
Guilt clawed at her stomach as she realized it ought to have been he whom she had told her story to about her father bringing her there when she was younger.
Yet, to her surprise, George stopped near the edge of the bridge, drawing his horse to a halt.
“Your father was right.” He sighed deeply, looking out over the river. “It truly is at its most beautiful at dawn.”
The lump that had begun to calm in Cecelia's throat thickened once more.
“How … when …” she stammered, unable to ask the question with any real comprehension.
George smiled down at her as he said, “He, my father, and I, travelled this bridge many times for business. My father always insisted yours was far too distracted by the beauty of things.”
“He always said life was not worth living if one did not stop to smell the roses once in a while,” Cecelia said.
And at the same moment, George said, “If one does not stop to smell the roses once in a while.”
Cecelia blinked up at him in astonishment, baffled by how he could possibly remember such a thing, tearing up at it also.
“You …” she gulped, struggling to form the words, “you miss him, too?”
George squeezed her hand to his side with his arm as if he wished to take it in his free hand but did not dare release the reins of his horse. His smile faded as he admitted, “I regret to say that perhaps I miss him even more than I do my own. Is that terrible of me?”
He glanced down as if he did not wish to see the judgement in her eyes, but, in truth, there was none.
She understood entirely why he might feel that way.
“You forget,” she pointed out, “I remember well just how cruel your father could be.”
George looked up in a flash as if surprised by her response.
“Then I am not a—”
Cecelia cut him off with a shake of her head, already knowing what he was about to say, “You are not a bad person.”
How could he possibly be? After all he had done, chaperoning her even though she had tested him to his last nerve, rescuing Catherine from certain death on the lake, coming to save the day right here on the bridge—
She thought, perhaps, the list might go on and on.
“Thank you,” she said, her bottom lip trembling a little.
