“I shall await you outside.” When she nodded again, he departed the cabin and prepared the horses as he waited. When she joined him moments later, valise and quilts on one arm, his children in tow, she wore an uncertain smile and a look that tingled an odd sensation through his fingertips.
The urge to paint.
A feeling he had not felt since Ruth.
The sight of her town house struck a strange chord within Georgina. She should have rejoiced to be home, where she need not fear for her life and the responsibility of others no longer encumbered her.
Yet—
“Shall I carry this in for you, miss?” The driver, whom Simon had secured at the village near the hunting lodge, pulled out her valise.
“No, thank you.” She took the bag herself and handed him extra coinage, then turned up the walk to the entry door. She untied her bonnet ribbons as she stepped inside.
The hall was quiet, the butler absent, the afternoon air warm and stale.
From the tulipwood hat rack against the wall, Agnes’ colorful hats still hung, as if at any moment she would come downstairs and slip one on.
Georgina forced her eyes away from them. She would instruct Nellie to box them and have them delivered to the Gilchrist residence. Agnes would want them. She loved them.
At least, she used to love them. Did she still care for any of the things she had before?
“Ah, you are home, miss.” Sweeping down the stairs, Nellie smiled at her with pinkened cheeks of relief and welcome. “I am so glad to see you returned. I cannot say why, exactly, but I felt sort of worrisome at your going. Did the visit with your aunt go well?”
She had run into the forest like a frightened highwayman escaping the law. She had slept in filthy, destitute lodgings, and she had lost both of her earbobs in the grip of a revolting maniac.
“Yes.” The answer should have been a lie, but it wasn’t.
Because as she climbed the quiet stairs in the too-quiet town house, her mind lingered back to last night. When she had looped an arm around little Mercy. When young John had smiled at her, dimples in his cheek, before she waved him goodbye this morning. When Simon had opened the carriage door, sending her home, the gratitude he could not speak a fire in his strong, kind eyes.
If she thought for one moment she could belong in such a family, she would accept Simon’s proposal and marry him as soon as the banns could be read.
But the children did not love her.
Simon did not love her.
And nothing in this world could keep them from leaving her, one day, even if they did.
She knew.
“We must talk.”
“If I thought telling you I was otherwise occupied would make a difference, I would.” Sir Walter finished sealing a letter and handed it to his clerk. He dismissed the man with a quick hand motion. “I see it would not. Come in.”
Simon strode into the room and planted himself before the desk, the confines of the wood-paneled office suffocating after a night in the forest.
“Well? If you are here to scold me yet again for my lack of scruples in saving your life—”
“Someone tried to kill me.” Simon dug into his pocket. He smacked the crumpled note onto the desk. “And I think the same person is behind Miss Simpson’s lies.”
“What is this?”
“I found it tacked to my horse’s stall this morning.”
Sir Walter smoothed the paper as he read, expressionless, though a vein bulged at his forehead.
The words still smoldered in Simon’s brain:“You shall lose more than your reputation if you do not cease your questions. The game is just beginning. Prepare for casualties.”
Lowering the worn note, Sir Walter’s jaw tensed. “Suffice it to say, you have a lot of explaining to do.”
