He looked at her a long moment without moving, without saying a word, without wobbling on his orbit.Without any sign of life at all.Then he turned and walked away.
There was nothing she wanted more than to chase after him.To pull him to her, bury her face in his chest and vow to stay with him for always.But where?In the middle of the vast ocean on a rocky ferry, inching toward India with no help for miles and no sign of land for months and months on end?Her flesh crawled.
All she could promise was to love him with all her heart, from right here in Christmas where she belonged.
Even if it meant living without him.
Chapter 16
The following morning, Christopher watched in silence as the castle’s footmen carried the last traces of his presence out of his guest chamber and down to his carriage.
He’d already returned the chariot, and the high-perch phaeton.It would be a long while before he had any inclination to take a jaunt in another one of those again.
He glanced at his reflection in the looking-glass.The smudges beneath his eyes would only get worse on the long trip down to London.He wouldn’t sleep well for a week.Or possibly ever again.
He turned from the chamber and plodded down seven flights of stairs.His holiday was over.Huzzah.It didn’t feel as though he were setting off on adventure.It felt as though he were descending the nine circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno.
A purgatory of his own making.
Another footman rushed up to greet Christopher as he reached the bottom step.
“Your carriage is just outside, milord.”The footman motioned toward the exit.“Your driver awaits at his perch.”
Christopher nodded.All was exactly as he had requested.
He despised it.
“Thank you,” he murmured to the footman, and pushed his way outside the castle.
There it was.His trusty coach.His trusty horses.His trusty driver.
A castle footman rushed forward to open the carriage door for him.“Staff has taken the liberty to place a warming brick inside so that you are not cold on your journey, milord.”
Christopher stared at the cloth-wrapped brick on the coach floor.It was a thoughtful gesture.
It wouldn’t make any difference.
The cold he fought did not come from the weather but deep inside his chest.Against all odds, he had finally found love.Now he was leaving, just like he’d always said he would.One month and done.Never a day longer in any one place.Mr.Adventure, off on his next journey.
Was this really the life he intended to choose?
“Sir?”the footman asked hesitantly.
“Thank you for the brick.”Christopher spun away from the coach and started walking.
“Will you be back?”the startled footman called after him.“Shall I keep your brick warm?”
“I don’t know,” Christopher said without turning around or slowing down.“Do what you think you must.”
That was what he was doing, starting right now.Doing what he must.
Gloria had accused him of running away.Of traveling not for love of adventure, but for the sake of leaving.
Even Penelope had likened Christopher’s restlessness to Nick’s rakish misbehavior.Flitting from affair to affair in order to guard his heart from something as permanent as love.
Perhaps Christopher had been playing the same game.Hopping from ship to ship, careful never to stay anywhere long enough to put down roots.Always in search of the next new thing because he was too afraid to risk falling in love with any one place or any one person.
He ducked his head to the wind.It didn’t matter how scared he was.Love had found him.He hadn’t been able to move fast enough to avoid being caught.Cupid had struck not in India or Paris or Rome or Russia, but right here in a tiny mountaintop village.
