Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(21)

“Well?” Devlin asked when she came back outside a few minutes later and blinked in the sunlight.

“It was as I hoped,” she said. “A tall, dark, handsome man and a love that will blossom very soon. But alas. He will leave me a short while later and go far, far away.”

“Dastardly cur,” he said.

“And not return for a long, long time,” she added.

“Ah,” he said, grinning at her. “There is to be a happily ever after, then, is there, even if you do have to wait a long time for it? Perhaps to her a week is a long time, and two weeks a long, long time.”

“And perhaps it is a year and a decade.” She sighed theatrically and laughed. But she was wishing she had not gone in there. For the handsome man with whom she was to experience love could not be Devlin, could he? Devlin would never go away from here. Duty would bind him to Ravenswood for the rest of his life.

“Your turn,” she said.

“Mine?” He set a finger to his chest and raised his eyebrows.

“I do not see anyone else close by,” she said. “Go in and find out about the dazzlingly beautiful woman who is about to step into your life and ensnare your heart.”

“Hmm,” he said. “That sounds like a wild story to me.”

But he went into the tent while Gwyneth tried to shake off a foolish feeling of unease. She was not going to do that ever again. She did not want anyone predicting her future, even just an entertainer in a dark cloak and hood, bent over her crystal ball.

“Well?” she asked him when he reappeared.

“No mention of a dazzling beauty or an ensnared heart, alas,” he said. “It seems I am a man of firm principle and am about to be faced with an impossible choice between a destructive truth and a corrosive lie. Whatever that is supposed to mean. Oh, and the choice I make will change my life and the lives of all around me forever.”

“Oh gracious. For the better?” she asked him.

“She did not say,” he said. “I think I ought to go back in there and demand some information about dazzling beauties. She is new here this year. The usual fortune-teller was indisposed. I would prefer the old one. This one sounds too much as though she might know what she is talking about. And who wants the truth at a summer fete?”

They both laughed.

“I had better go down to the lake and see if the needlework contests are being judged yet,” he said. “My mother always likes it when one or more of us join her there for it. Do you want to come too?”

She did. Oh, she very much did. But she did not want him to feel he was stuck with her. And she had promised herself that she would spend the day meeting and mingling with as many single, eligible young men as possible.

“I am going to watch the archery contests,” she said. “They will surely be beginning soon. I want to see if anyone can beat Matthew Taylor this year, though I doubt anyone can come close.”

The village carpenter had not been beaten in the annual contest for men since he first entered more than ten years ago, when Gwyneth was just a little girl. He was a bit of a legend in the neighborhood. Some other men admitted that they entered merely in the hope of coming in second.

“I will see you later, then,” Devlin said. “Enjoy yourself.”

He would mingle with everyone throughout the rest of the day and the evening, Gwyneth thought as she made her way to the poplar walk and the archery contests. It was his duty, as it was for the earl and countess and Nicholas and Ben and Philippa and even the younger children. She must not refine too much upon the fact that Devlin had spent all of half an hour with her after being drawn into the dancing lesson at the maypole. Now he was on his way to watch the judging of the ladies’ needlework contests, in which he could not possibly have any real interest. He was going because his mother would be pleased. And probably all the women who had entered their embroidery or lace or tatting in the various contests would be pleased too.

She had always known that Devlin was a man to whom duty was paramount. He performed it quietly and earnestly, but there was definitely kindness too in his dealings with others. At the children’s races he had stopped Eddie’s tears by having him remember that he was the best in his family at finding eggs. He was on his way to look at women’s needlework. Nicholas, she saw as soon as she turned onto the poplar alley, had come to watch the archers. So had the earl.

Drat that fortune-teller, who had indeed promised her love with a tall, dark, handsome man but had ruined the effect by adding those dramatic details about his leaving her for long years before she saw him again. She was sure the woman had meant years rather than days or weeks even though her words had been unspecific. It was not at all what one expected at the summer fete. And what she had predicted for Devlin was plain horrible. If it was true, then he was in for a lot of anguish. He was to be faced with one of those wrong-if-you-do, wrong-if-you-don’t sort of situations. Really, someone ought to have told that woman before she came here that no one expected or wanted her to be clever and mysterious and to frighten people half to death. People wanted her to make them smile and feel good about the future she predicted even if they did not believe for a moment that her rosy predictions would really come true.

Thomas Rutledge, Baron Hardington’s son, was coming to join her. “You are looking awfully pretty today, Gwyneth,” he said. “Pretty in pink. Can anyone beat Taylor, do you think?”