He was lying in the courtyard, watching the chickens with interest, but when he saw her emerge, he stood and trotted over to her, giving the fowl a wide berth. “They won’t hurt you,” she told him.
He sniffed at her then buried his nose against her leg to beg for a scratch behind his ears. He too was clean and dry, and she would bring him in with her to make sure he stayed so for at least a day. But right now those distant mountains were calling to her. The rain she’d seen earlier had moved over the water of the sea, and streaks of sunlight burst through the clouds in shafts that looked like a picture out of an illustrated Bible.
“Come, Loftus.” Emmeline lifted her skirts, heavier and longer than she was used to, and started out. She’d walked perhaps a quarter mile when she realized the mountains were further away than they looked, and she was wearier than she’d thought. Perhaps tomorrow she would make the long trek. The grass on the small rise where she stood was dry, and she spread her skirts on it and sat, feeling the breeze on her face as Loftus chased birds out of the brush below.
“You always did love a walk,” Stratford said. She knew he was close by even before he’d spoken. Her skin had prickled the way it always did when he was near—and that was another thing she was just learning, how aware of him she’d always been.
She glanced over her shoulder to see him approaching from the house. He too looked clean and had changed clothing. The coat was a bit big on him, and she assumed it must have been borrowed from one of the Murray men. His blond hair had been slicked back, still a little damp, and she missed how it had grown long enough in past days to fall over his forehead. She craned her head upward to look at him when he stopped beside her.
“May I?” he asked, indicating the spot beside her.
She shrugged, which she knew was juvenile, but she did it anyway.
“You’re still angry with me,” he said, stating the obvious. But of course, he would want to identify her emotion correctly before he could strategize a way to approach her.
“I’m not angry, exactly,” she said.
He sat beside her, angled so he might see her face. “Then what are you? Exactly?”
Why not tell him? She never liked being vulnerable, but she’d already exposed her feelings to him—more than just her feelings—and this might be her last chance to tell him how she really felt. If Colonel Draven was half the soldier everyone said he was, he would be here in a day or two at most.
“I hurt you,” he said before she could say it. She glanced at him, surprised he’d identified her feelings so accurately. Stratford’s strengths were logic and reason, not emotion and feelings. “You feel rejected.” He raised his brows. “Yes?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “But it’s my own fault. I should not have—”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, cutting her off. “That’s your mother speaking. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are attracted to me and acted on it. I am attracted to you and acted on it. Those are logical behaviors.”
“I feel so much better now,” Emmeline said. “Thank you for explaining.” She started to rise, but Stratford laid a light hand on her arm.
“I do want to explain,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But you don’t want to marry me. I would prefer if you didn’t keep saying it over and over.” She gathered her skirts and pushed to her knees.
“Don’t you want to know why I can’t marry you? It’s not you, Emmeline. God knows, I would marry you in an instant. I’ve thought of it many times over the years.”
She sank back down, staring at him in disbelief.
He nodded. “That’s right. You might not have noticed me five years ago, but I noticed you. I’ve always noticed you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”
“I didn’t want you to see it, and I can be very good at hiding what I don’t want seen.”
“But why hide it?” she asked. “Especially now when you see that my feelings—Stratford, I love you.” The words were not easily spoken. They seemed to catch in her throat and then almost as though a dam had broken, came rushing forth. “I think I have always loved you in some way or another.”
“I wish that weren’t true,” he said.
Emmeline swallowed. “That’s not exactly the response I was hoping for.”
“Then my next words will not be overly welcome either. You are not the reason we cannot marry, Emmeline. It’s me. I’m not worthy of you.”
Eighteen
INES
Ines hadn’t been certain if she should accept the clothing Mrs. Freskin brought, but after her bath, she couldn’t force herself to put the dirty servant’s livery back on, so she pulled on the soft, brown wool dress and secured her hair in a long braid down her back. She wondered whose dress she wore. Though unembellished, the fabric was too fine for a servant. The stitching was precise and neat and the cut of the dress appealing. If only she had her bobbins and thread, she could have fashioned some lace for the sleeves and perhaps the collar to make it look pretty.
It was the first time she had missed her lacemaking in...well, perhaps ever. Since Catarina had taught her how to make lace five years ago, there had rarely been a day when Ines’s back and neck were not sore from bending over the pillow and working the bobbins. Her wrists ached constantly, and her eyesight had worsened when she tried to see at a distance.
Her room was small, but it had a window that looked out on the wild peaks of the Highlands in the distance. She admired it until she realized she was still damp and cold and wanted the fire. She hadn’t bothered with stockings or her tattered half boots and was sitting cross-legged before the fire when three loud raps startled her out of her thoughts. The door opened.
Without waiting for an invitation to enter, Lady Charlotte stepped inside and closed the door behind her. To Ines, the sound of the door shutting was like the clang of a dungeon door.
“My lady,” she said, rising from the floor and trying to curtsy.
“That’s not necessary, Miss Neves.” The woman’s green eyes traveled over her, pausing on Ines’s bare toes. “That dress was my daughter’s,” she said.
Ines looked down at the plain dress she’d been thinking of altering.
“She wore it when she was fourteen,” Lady Charlotte said. “Now the hem would brush her calves and the bodice would burst the seams. How old are you?”
“My family is fine-boned,” Ines said, avoiding the question of her age.
Lady Charlotte huffed. “You’re a wee thing, as the Scots would say. I’m amazed you survived the journey from London.”
Ines fisted her hands in the material of the skirts. “I am petite, not weak.”
Lady Charlotte lifted her brows dismissively then circled the room. It was a small room, only about a dozen steps across, so this did not take her long. “I see why he is attracted to you,” Lady Charlotte said.
“Who?” Ines asked, but she knew.
Lady Charlotte ignored the question. “I send a drab brown dress made for a child and you manage to look beautiful in it. In my younger days, I would have envied you.”