Mr. Hunt, I Presume (Playful Brides, #10.5)(17)

“You should care, Erienne,” he replied solemnly.

“But I don’t. I never have. I love you.” She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. He’d returned the kiss, passionately. They were going to be together forever.

“You love me too, don’t you?” she asked after the kiss ended, just needing to be reassured, to hear it again.

“Of course I do, Air.”

“And we’re going to marry one day, you and I.”

His only response had been to pull her closer into his arms and squeeze her tight.





*



They continued their code-filled correspondence over the next two years. Erienne resumed her lessons with her governess, and as her eighteenth birthday approached, she wrote Collin about the preparations for her going to court to make her debut. Mother, of course, had approved of those letters because she saw it as Erienne letting poor Collin Hunt know that she intended to marry someone of the Quality, as she should. But in the code within the letters, she’d continued to write things such as, I love you, Collin. I miss you, Collin. I cannot wait to see you again.

Collin had written back with news of his training and deployments and even his first promotion, one that failed to impress Erienne’s parents. “He’s still a Hunt,” Mother had said, turning up her nose as if she smelled something disagreeable.

As her debut approached, Erienne noticed that Collin’s letters arrived less often. She told herself he was preoccupied with his assignments, and she herself was terribly busy doing a hundred silly, unimportant things, like picking out the trim for her ball gown and choosing feathers for her hair for the debut at the palace. She wrote of these things to Collin, while his letters dried up.

Finally, the summer after her eighteenth birthday, after she’d made her debut and spent the Season fending off offers from a lot of useless gentlemen who’d never known a hard day’s work, Collin wrote to tell her he was coming home again.

Elation unlike anything she’d ever felt had exploded in her chest. Now that she was of age, they could marry. It would take some convincing of her parents, of course, but Erienne was confident that together, she and Collin would make them see how deeply they loved each other, and how intent they were upon spending their lives together.

The first night after Collin’s return, Erienne found the little scrap of paper tucked into a knot outside her bedchamber window. Meet me at the sycamore tree. That afternoon after church, she gathered her skirts and ran there.

Collin was there, as always, but now twenty-one years old, and looking as handsome as ever. Her heart skipped a beat. This was it. Their future could begin. They would never be separated again. She ran into his arms and he spun her around like he had two years ago, only this time when he let her down into the grass, he immediately kissed her until her head spun, too.

“It’s time,” she said breathlessly. “Time to tell my parents we intend to marry.”

He gathered her anew in his arms and kissed her once more. She hadn’t known it at the time, but it was to be their last kiss. God, if only she’d known. If only she’d been older, wiser, she would have handled the entire thing differently.

“I love you, Erienne,” he’d breathed. “I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too, Collin.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. The way he’d spoken sounded strange, off.

He hung his head. “But we cannot marry.”

“What?” The word came out of her throat in a whisper. She was certain she hadn’t heard him correctly. She couldn’t possibly have.

“We cannot marry, Erienne.”

She searched his face. Surely he was only teasing her. “What? Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“Collin …” She clasped a hand to her breast, struggling for air as if she were drowning. “What are you saying? You love me, don’t you?”

“I’ll love you forever, Air.” He traced the line of her cheek with one finger in that old, familiar way of his.

She swallowed hard. “Then why are you saying this? Why can’t we be together?”

“My life … in the army. It’s difficult, and I won’t be home much. I’m soon to be shipped off to the Continent. I will be in danger.”

She shook her head impatiently. “I know all of this, Collin. You’ve told me. I don’t care.”

“But you will care, Air. You will care eventually. You deserve someone who will love you and be with you, treat you like a princess. You deserve one of those suitors who has money and … a title.” His throat worked.

Tears stung her eyes like needles. She fought against them, clenching her jaw. “You know I don’t care about titles.”

“You deserve the best,” he said low, turning away to push his hands through his hair in a gesture of firm but melancholy resolution. “That’s not me.”

Tears flowed freely down her face. It was him. It was. Why did he refuse to believe that? She shook her head. “Don’t do this.”

“I should go.” His voice was flat, hard. He turned back to her abruptly, grabbed her hand, and pressed a small slip of paper into it. And then, just like that, he was gone.

She hung her head, hot tears squeezing through her lashes, and waited until she could no longer hear his bootsteps crunching through the twigs. Only then did she open her palm and flip over the tiny slip of paper.