wavy glass. “Oh, dear.”
“So you see, it’s impossible for you to leave.” Ginny smiled and looped her arm through Maris’s. “We shall take good care of you, I promise. Your people will put two and two together and not expect you to come home in all this. Isn’t that right, Reyn?”
He was standing in the doorway, looking blacker than the sky outside. If he’d indulged in a cigar or a glass of port, it hadn’t seemed to relax him.
“Reyn, tell the countess she must stay the night. You can drive her home first thing in the morning,” Ginny wheedled.
“Of course.”
He didn’t sound willing to do anything with her. Perhaps that was a relief. All his marriage talk would stop, and that was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“Are you going to join us for a cup of tea, Reyn?”
“I think not. I’m headed to the stables. Thunderstorms spook the horses, Brutus in particular. I won’t have him kick in his box.”
“Heavens, you’re not going to sleep out there, are you?” Ginny asked.
“I might. Countess, do excuse me. I’ll return you to Hazel Grange at your convenience, tomorrow.”
Another rumble of thunder punctuated his words, and he was gone from the doorway before Maris could reply.
Well, damn. When Maris had been a girl, she and Jane had shared a pet, a raggedy little terrier much like Ginny’s Rufus. The dog had somehow acquired a thorn in its paw, and when Maris held him so Jane could attempt to remove it, the dog had bitten both of them quite badly. Henry had patiently explained to them that wounded animals often turned on those who tried to help them, but had the poor dog put down anyway. Maris had cried for days, and it was the only time in her life when she hated the Earl of Kelby.
Reyn reminded her of that long-ago animal. Somehow she would help him anyway, and pray he didn’t decide to bite her, too.
The violence of the storm had subsided, but the rain drummed steadily on the stable roof, reminding Reyn of an endless military tattoo. The horses had finally quieted, and he’d sent young Jack to bed above the mares’ building. Reyn lay on a lumpy pallet in his office, the wick of the lantern turned low. The mess on his desk lay as a rebuke to his folly. If only he’d cleaned up before Maris had visited. Idiot that he was, he’d been cleaning himself up, bathing and brushing, buffing his boots, donning a new coat.
It wasn’t his body that needed attention, but his mind. Now that Maris knew the truth about him, there was no point in letting himself think about their future. There was none.
It would be all right, or at least good enough. He had a useful occupation and Ginny was on the mend. To look at her, one would never know she’d ever been as sick as she was. Her lungs would never be strong, but if she was careful, that old drunk Dr. Sherman said she might even bear children one day. Reyn would miss her when she moved to the vicarage, but he’d managed most of his life being alone, even in a crowd.
In the midst of his troops, he’d guarded himself, masking his embarrassment at being so deficient. No one had guessed. He was skilled in duplicity. He should have lied to Maris, but his betraying tongue had run away with the truth.
He turned, scrunching up the folded horse blankets he was using as a pillow. He’d need another bath before he took Maris home. And that would be the last he would see of her. There would be no teas or dinners, no “chance” meetings at their boundaries. She would be going back to Kelby Hall eventually to have her child, and he would try to forget them both.
He tossed and turned, knowing he would find no comfort in his own bed, either, so he wasn’t asleep when he heard the latch lift and the light footsteps moving across the packed-earth floor. Reyn sat up, smoothing the tangle of his overlong hair.
He could see her peering through a gap in the homespun curtains that gave him privacy in his little office. What did she want? Surely she had not brought books to teach him tonight.
She rapped on the window, and gave him a hesitant wave. Reyn fought his desire to put a blanket over his head and pretend he didn’t see her.
“May I come in?”
Reyn could say no. Should say