Diana waited for him at the window overlooking the small side-garden where the cook grew her herbs.
“Diana!” Edmund called as he strode into the sitting room a few minutes later, his handsome face creased with concern. “At last. Kitty promised that I should find you here. I’ve been trying to find a time to talk to you, but your aunt has been like a limpet this past day…”
“Close the door, please, Edmund,” Diana said as firmly as could, and her voice trembled with the effort of remaining apart from him across the room when she longed to run into his arms.
“We need to stop. We need to stop meeting, stop talking, stop touching… It’s all wrong.”
“What?!” he spluttered, his face whitening and struck with disbelief.
“It’s time for this to end, isn’t it? There’s a wedding being planned for me in less than three weeks’ time. In the eyes of my family and the church, I’m probably already doing wrong by simply being alone with you and feeling… everything I’ve felt—”
“I don’t understand,” he interrupted. “Diana, what are you saying?”
“I’m betrothed to someone else!” she cried. “I’ve always been betrothed to someone else, haven’t I? We’ve just been pretending that I’m not. That I’m free like Kitty, or like you. I can’t ever be free.”
“This isn’t you talking, Diana. This isn’t what you feel,” he objected.
“I’m supposed to feel something for Andrew, not for you! Not for you…”
“You can’t mean this, Diana!” he protested, beginning to walk towards her, his eyes, his voice, and his body all compelling. She held up her hands to ward him off.
“Edmund, no! It’s over. Please listen to me, for all our sakes.”
“You don’t want it to be over,” Edmund said with a certainty that enraged her because it was true.
“Why do you have to say these things? Why do you have to be what you are? I wish you’d never even come here!” She sobbed and ran for the door.
“Then throw your damned life away then if you must! Be a coward and a fool, Diana, and I hope you enjoy the bed you make for yourself!” he shouted after her angrily as she fled. The words pierced her heart like a knife.
ChapterFourteen
“In May?” Edmund asked cynically. “Who on earth hunts ducks in May?”
“They’re about the only things one can hunt in May,” Jacob said rationally. “It’s the wrong time of year for just about every species, but if we’re lucky, we could still get a good few ducks for the kitchen from the big lake on the other side of the woods.”
“It sounds dubious to me,” Edmund objected with uncharacteristic negativity. “Perhaps we should really be thinking about going back to London, Jacob. Percy seems to have a firmer hold on Fernside now, and Lady Birks is holding Lady Templeton together. Diana clearly doesn’t require anything from us. I’m not sure we need to stay much longer.”
“Jacob isn’t wrong,” Percy chimed in, looking up from his father’s desk where he was working assiduously on a rather blotted letter. “I did it a few times when I was younger and bored during the Easter holiday. Usually, after you’d abandoned me, Ed. Please don’t go just yet, by the way.”
“Percy…” Edmund sighed, unable to explain the ache in his heart and hopelessness of mind that made him want to be anywhere but Fernside right now. He had already written to his mother, hinting that he was feeling tired and might soon be coming home, regardless of how things progressed with Lord Templeton. Unity had not yet replied.
“Calum, the chief groom, thinks it’s a reasonable plan,” Jacob defended his idea further. “And the gamekeeper doesn’t care as long as we stay away from all his pheasant eggs and chicks. Today or tomorrow, do you think?”
“Let’s do it this afternoon,” Percy said when Edmund failed to reply. “I’ll let Diana know of our plans. She doesn’t hunt, but since she said she was busy with wedding concerns anyway, I don’t think she’ll be disappointed at being left behind today.”
Edmund nodded, relieved at least by her absence. He had only managed to sit at breakfast with Diana for ten minutes that morning before excusing himself on account of business correspondence. The disturbance of spirits from even seeing her face across the table had felt too great to endure.
“If we must.” He sighed and walked over to the window to stare out into the windy garden. Percy met Jacob’s eye questioningly and Jacob shrugged.
“I’ll go and arrange the horses with Calum,” Jacob said before Percy could ask awkward questions, or Edmund could change his mind.
* * *
“Race you!” Jacob shouted suddenly and set off at a gallop down the path across the fields between Fernside and the woods, his fowling piece slung securely across his back and a pouch of ammunition at his belt.
“Ha!” Percy responded, digging his heels into his black gelding, and leaning forward to urge him after Jacob’s brown bay mare. “Come on Colborne!” he called back as they streaked ahead of Edmund.
With resignation, Edmund urged his own horse forward. Eager to keep pace with its companions, it raced ahead regardless of its rider’s initial lack of enthusiasm for the game.