“I will see you tomorrow,” he repeated.
She nodded, since it seemed to be required, and she didn’t see how she was meant to avoid him, anyway.
And she wanted to see him. She shouldn’t want to, and she knew she shouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t help herself.
“I suspect we will be leaving,” she said. “I’m meant to return to my uncle, and Richard…Well, he will have matters to attend to.”
But her explanations did not change his expression. His face was still resolute, his eyes so firmly fixed on hers that she shivered.
“I will see you in the morning,” was all he said.
She nodded again, and then left, as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. She rounded the corner and finally saw her room, just three doors down.
But she stopped. Right there at the corner, just out of his sight.
And she knocked three times.
&n
bsp; Just because she could.
Twelve
In which nothing is resolved.
When Gregory sat down to breakfast the next day, Kate was already there, grim-faced and weary.
“I’m so sorry,” was the first thing she said when she took the seat next to him.
What was it with apologies? he wondered. They were positively rampant these past few days.
“I know you had hoped—”
“It is nothing,” he interrupted, flicking a glance at the plate of food she’d left on the other side of the table. Two seats down.
“But—”
“Kate,” he said, and even he didn’t quite recognize his own voice. He sounded older, if that was possible. Harder.
She fell silent, her lips still parted, as if her words had been frozen on her tongue.
“It’s nothing,” he said again, and turned back to his eggs. He didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want listen to explanations. What was done was done, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Gregory was not certain what Kate was doing while he concentrated on his food—presumably looking around the room, gauging whether any of the guests could hear their conversation. Every now and then he heard her shifting in her seat, unconsciously changing her position in anticipation of saying something.
He moved on to his bacon.
And then—he knew she would not be able to keep her mouth shut for long—“But are you—”
He turned. Looked at her hard. And said one word.
“Don’t.”
For a moment her expression remained blank. Then her eyes widened, and one corner of her mouth tilted up. Just a little. “How old were you when we met?” she asked.
What the devil was she about? “I don’t know,” he said impatiently, trying to recall her wedding to his brother. There had been a bloody lot of flowers. He’d been sneezing for weeks, it seemed. “Thirteen, perhaps. Twelve?”
She regarded him curiously. “It must be difficult, I think, to be so very much younger than your brothers.”