With a look of utter mischief, Toss declared, “I refuse to play another measure if Charlie is the only one dancing.”
“I beg your pardon,” Artemis said with barely enough laughter to offset the warning in her tone.
“A lady is always a joy to watch dance,” Toss said. “A gentleman . . . far too often a misery.” He folded his arms across his chest and looked at Scott belligerently. “Be a sport. Dance a spell.”
“Dancing with you would be a decided misery,” Scott said in return.
Laughter filled the room. But Toss held firm and reiterated his refusal to play should Scott not join in.
Scott turned to Gillian, his expression apologetic. “He isn’t likely to give up. You and I have waltzed before, so it’s at least familiar.”
Familiar and all too fleeting. “You aren’t opposed to the idea?”
“Not at all.”
“At all?” She wanted that to be true.
“As I’ve said, I like dancing with you.”
He went through the motions of the dance, executing it well and appropriately. Gone was the friendly intimacy of their last attempt. She still liked dancing with him, but she realized there would never be another waltz like the one they’d shared in the gazebo. Their few days alone in this house with Mrs. Brownlow had been a step away from reality, a veritable fantasy. She’d never get that back entirely.
The dance ended, and he walked with her toward the sofa.
“Perhaps if Toss agrees to play again tomorrow evening, we can request the Sir Roger de Coverley,” she said, hoping her heartache didn’t show.
He saw her seated. “I will be leaving in the morning, actually. Though I will make certain to look in on Mrs. Brownlow before I go.”
In the morning. She’d known he needed to leave. She’d made certain he was able to. Something in her, something foolish, had believed he would stay.
In that moment, she realized a difficult and painful truth: she had fallen in love with him. She’d lost her heart entirely.
And he was leaving.
Chapter Nineteen
My dearest sister,
I am soon to arrive at Thimbleby, and I haven’t the least idea what to expect. Our uncle was so insistent that I listen for weeks on end to his ramblings about the Sarvol estate, the land and house, what I owed to the family legacy. Never would I have suspected he had left out of his unnecessarily thorough instructions the existence of another property for which I would be responsible. I confessed to Miss Phelps my suspicion that Uncle Sarvol left off this information in a deliberate effort to undermine me. You and I both know he was more than capable of doing that and worse.
When I return to Nottinghamshire, I would like to have you and Harold join me for supper at Sarvol House. I cannot promise you a fine or even filling repast, but a good friend I made at Brier Hill pointed out to me how ridiculous it was to wish for my dear sister and brother-in-law’s company without doing anything to facilitate time together when you two live so nearby. I mean to rectify that error.
I have missed you. But I do not mean to continue missing you. Expect me to make an utter nuisance of myself, and know that I expect you to do the same.
Your repentant and inexcusably absent brother,
Scott
Scott finished the letter as his coach approached Thimbleby. Toss’s advice had better prove sound. Inviting Sarah to Sarvol House would lay bare to her just how difficult things had become, something Scott had been avoiding. She would worry, and that worry would be a burden.
Nothing but a burden. How desperately Scott wanted that declaration of his uncle’s to prove untrue. He risked confirmingit by pulling Sarah into his troubles. But as he’d said, he missed her.
He missed his mother as well. He’d reached out to her in the only way he could and had received complete silence in return. Perhaps that was why he’d kept so many of his worries to himself. His own mother didn’t seem inclined to offer encouragement in the face of his concerns, so who else would?
Gillian.
She had listened when he’d talked about the things weighing on his mind. She’d shown him concern and compassion and reassurance. She was intelligent and clever. He loved her sense of humor. Though her scheme of weaving a few exaggerations for Mrs. Brownlow hadn’t gone entirely smoothly, it also hadn’t been an entirely terrible idea. The rusehadbrought the lady some comfort.
And the time he’d spent at Houghton Manor had been among the very happiest he’d known since leaving America. He’d talked with Gillian, laughed with her, danced with her.