The Earl's Entanglement (Border Series Book 5)(69)

“You look happy, my lady.”

Her smile dropped. Trying not to think of Garrick, Emma concentrated instead on Reginald, who, she suddenly realized, looked as miserable as she felt. “Is all well, Reginald?”

Where were the stablehands?

Reginald extended his hand, so Emma gave him the reins. “Nay, my lady.”

And this was just one of the many reasons she liked the lad so much. Good manners dictated that he should respond in the affirmative, but Reginald always spoke his mind. Geoffrey encouraged him to do so, and she was glad for it.

“Your brother is none too pleased with me.” Reginald reached up to calm Nella, who was pawing the ground anxiously. She knew food and rest were just moments away.

“Why?”

Reginald looked down at his feet and shrugged.

“Reginald?”

Nella let her frustration be known.

“I had best be getting her inside,” he said.

Emma stared after him in confusion, vowing to speak to her brother about it later.

The courtyard was nearly empty, and by the time Emma stood at the front door, darkness had fallen in truth. Pushing the door open, a guard greeted her.

Should she flee to her bedchamber?

Nay, there was no escaping him for long, so she entered the great hall, stopping at its entrance to watch the frantic preparations for dinner. Weaving her way through the maze of servants and trestle tables, she sought out the warmth of the fire in the far corner of the room.

“You must be freezing.” Sara’s voice lacked any anger or recrimination.

Emma looked up and couldn’t help but stare. “You look beautiful.”

Indeed, her sister-in-law had begun to wear some of her old gowns; the wardrobe made for her while she carried Hayden had been packed away for now. Dressed in a perse blue gown with no adornments save a gold belt, she looked quite different than when Emma had last seen her, in her boys’ breeches.

“Thank you.” Her response was always the same. While Emma tried to explain why she looked a certain way, Sara never did so. She accepted compliments the same way she did criticism. With poise and grace.

“My hands are most especially cold.” She glanced over Sara’s shoulder and peered around the hall.

“He’s preparing for dinner.”

“Is he angry?”

“Worried,” Sara corrected.

Emma rubbed her hands together, resisting the urge to turn around. If she truly did stick her bum in the fire, it would have the servants’ tongues wagging for weeks.

“You said in your note that you ‘had to know.’”

“’Twas a successful trip then,” she responded, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice.

Sara stuck out her hands as well. As they warmed themselves by the fire together, a flurry of activity behind them, she and Sara remained silent.

Emma refused to think about what he’d done to her before their fight. As many times as the image of him kneeling below her came into her mind, she shoved it away. He’d given her pleasure without asking for any in return. She knew enough from Edith to understand the selflessness of his actions. She’d just begun to summon the courage to ask how she could please him in return when—

“What happened?”

She looked up, grateful to see Geoffrey walking toward them. She would tell the tale once and be done with it. “I know it was not the wisest of ideas to ride to Clave—”

“Alone. Unescorted. Emma, do you have any idea—”

She would not be waylaid. “But as I wrote, I simply had to know. And most of the journey was on Caiser land. I—”

“Could have gotten killed.”

Sara leveled a sharp glance at Geoffrey, trying to silence him, but this was not her fight.

“Geoffrey,” Emma said, trying not to raise her voice. “Not now.”

“Go ahead, Emma,” Sara encouraged her.

She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t say the words aloud. It was over. Had Garrick truly intended to fight for her, he would already have done so. He’d waited for a reason. And for those same reasons, she had to let him go.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, turning away. They called her name, but she didn’t care. She walked briskly, heading out of the hall and through the corridors. She just couldn’t make herself tell them all. She’d been so stupid. To think he would forsake everything . . . for her? Who was she to ask such a thing of him?

“Emma, wait!”

She wanted to keep running, but Geoffrey would only follow her anyway. So she stopped and turned. But he didn’t censure her or continue to lecture her.

Instead, her brother opened his arms and she went to him. Her eyes filled with tears as he wrapped his strong arms around her and patted her back. “The pain will go away.”

She didn’t believe him but didn’t wish to argue the point either.

“Shh,” he said. Emma allowed the tears to flow then.

For Garrick. For her parents. For everything.

“I know, Emma. I know.”

She shook her head against his chest.

“Aye, I do. When I thought I’d lost Sara for good . . .”

Emma sniffled.

“Love can be as harsh as it is beautiful.”

Despite herself, Emma giggled.

“What is so amusing?”