The Earl's Entanglement (Border Series Book 5)(63)

“I believe”—Sara looked up finally—“you were thinking like a leader.”

A leader. No one had ever used such a word to describe her before.

“Once,” Sara said, “when I was maybe ten and three, I wanted to accompany my father to London. He explained that there had been a rash of recent attacks and it would be safer for me to stay at Kenshire. It was a common enough refrain, so I should have been used to the disappointment. But I wasn’t.”

Emma adjusted herself on the chair, one of only two in the room. There was also an array of stools, but she was grateful for the cushion below her. “I saw the cart as a sign. My father rarely traveled with one, but he was bringing a gift of Scottish wool to the king.”

“You didn’t.”

“I thought it was quite a clever plan.”

“Until?”

“Until my father caught me, but not until nearly dusk. They’d planned to make camp for the night, but my presence changed their plans. Instead, he was forced to ask Lord Stanton for shelter.”

Emma didn’t understand.

“Lord Stanton had asked more than once for my hand in marriage. Each time my father refused. This time he was forced to do so in person. Though very few liked the old man, most respected his influence with the court. A powerful enemy, my father had called him.”

“So what happened?”

“My father sent me home with an escort the following morning, but not before he gave me a blistering for forcing him to keep company with someone who could, and did, cause problems for Kenshire for years to come. Although my father never chastised me after that. He didn’t need to. I understood, and learned from my mistake.”

“The lesson?” She thought she knew but wanted to be sure. In truth, she had done something rather similar when she was a child. Every year, when her father and brothers refused to take her to the tournament, she would spend the day sulking, angry. Though her mother had tried to convince her father to bring her with the lads, on this he’d proved stubborn. On the last Tournament of the North before the attack on Bristol, word got around that King’s Crown, the prized Arabian, would be coming, and Emma decided she could not accept her father’s decree.

But, unlike Sara, her father discovered her trailing behind them almost immediately, and even now she could hear his admonishment.

“Girl, back to Bristol immediately or you’ll earn the honor of being the first Waryn child to receive a lashing.”

The thought of her father actually carrying out such a threat, even if she didn’t believe he would, had made her turn around at once. When it came to her safety, the man was ruthless.

Not unlike her brothers.

Was it any wonder she had wished for an easygoing husband?

“I thought only of my own desire to go to London,” Sara continued, jarring her from her thoughts. “Before I hid in that cart, I did not consider that my presence would require extra men, an altered route, or an increased risk to those around me. Over time I came to learn how my father’s decisions impacted other people, but it was a new lesson at the time.”

“So why did you support Garrick’s decision to break the betrothal?”

Hayden made a soft cooing noise, and Emma stood to get a closer look. She was anxious for him to wake so she could hold him. But the sweet boy fell right back to sleep.

She sat back down and waited for Sara’s answer.

“His decision, your decision . . . they are not mine to make.”

“So you would not have broken the betrothal?” The pinch at her heart told Emma she already knew the answer.

“I didn’t say that, precisely. You know my own circumstances, between your brother and I.” Sara frowned. “I simply trust you, and Garrick, to make good decisions. And I would support you, no matter the cost.”

Emma froze. “The cost?”

Sara rocked Hayden, likely without realizing she was doing it. “You asked me what I’ve been thinking, and the incident with Stanton and the wool cart came back to me.”

Sara didn’t need to elaborate.

Emma’s cheeks tingled, tears springing unwittingly to her eyes.

“I cannot live without him. I can’t.” When tears spilled onto her cheeks, she wiped them away and tried to make them stop. “But perhaps I must.”

She hardly noticed Sara standing, but suddenly she was crouched next to her. Sara put one arm around her and pulled her close. After looking at dear, sweet Hayden’s sleeping face, Emma sobbed into her sister-in-law’s shoulder, only stopping when she felt the wetness of her own tears.

Emma pushed away and then looked into another set of eyes as blue as her own. Hayden was awake. She reached for him, and Sara handed her nephew to her. She held him against her, soaking in his sweet smell, a combination of his mother’s and his own.

“Perhaps,” Sara said. She didn’t elaborate.

“Emma?”

Both women looked toward the oak door, which had swung open. Geoffrey.

“Something is wrong?”

“I—” She couldn’t deny it.

“She will be fine,” Sara said with such finality that her brother, rather than questioning her, simply walked toward his wife and thanked her with a kiss. He then came toward her, taking Hayden before she realized what he had been about.