Page 57 of The Runaway Duchess

“Bad!” scolded Annie, pointing her bun at the horse, before hugging it close, a protective posture that very much did not protect the cotton of her dress.

Skinned elbows, buttery bodice.

If Lavinia were married to Neal, they might have this kind of daughter—grubby, disheveled, irrepressible—and maybe they would let her be, valuing her happiness over her presentability, letting her play without self-consciousness or shame. Letting her climb and tumble and shout, come what may.

Lavinia held Annie’s hand tighter, but the girl had glimpsed her brothers and went off like a shot, running toward the green, where a game of leapfrog was underway between towering trees.

Oaks. Or elms, perhaps. Hang it.

“Lovely village,” Lavinia observed as she drew up to Neal. She held up the package. “Sugar buns,” she said. “I doubt they compare to Kelyn’s pastry, but the bakery did smell divine. And the horse approved his portion heartily, so there’s that recommendation, if a horse’s taste can be relied upon.”

Something about the strange look in his eyes made her prattle.

“I like all these roses,” she added brightly.

Her husband. Everyone assumed it. She could touch him, she could lean into him, even in the center of the village. Why these misgivings? His mood in the cab had been just that—a mood, a fleeting indisposition.

But it hadn’t fled.

They stood close together, but his erect posture seemed to repel any overture, to communicate unbridgeable reserve. He’d never been reserved with her. He’d always been warm, easy, quick to laugh. Surely she was mistaken.

She put her hand on his arm, and they both looked at it.

Embarrassment and confusion flared.

She withdrew her hand, a sour taste pooling in her mouth.

“There’s a botanist, Laura Odgers.” He cleared his throat. “Classified the British mosses. Also published a very good volume of botanical watercolors. We’ve been exchanging specimens.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the treetops. “I’m going to pay her a visit.”

Her.

Comprehension was slow in coming. He meant—he was going to pay a visit to a lady botanist.

“Now?” She couldn’t muffle it, her surprise and disappointment.

He shrugged, glancing at her coldly, before his eyes slid past her again, looking down the lane. “I can’t pass up the opportunity to see her in person. She lives at Rock House, just up the hill, and keeps an extraordinary garden. I always drop in when I come through Mawbyn. You don’t mind dining without me?”

She blinked at her package of sugar buns, and he continued.

“Not on sugar buns, of course. Or pasties.” The words might have been teasing, but his tone was anything but. “It’s a common table, but what the fare lacks in Frenchness, you’ll find well-compensated in freshness. Duck. New potatoes. Gooseberry tart.”

He looked at her without seeming to see her. “Your room is on the second floor. Mr. Phillips will show you up.”

The final blow.

She sucked in her breath. He hadn’t let a single room for them both.

Mr. and Mrs. Traymayne, signed in the register. An old-fashioned four-poster bed with sachets of dried rose petals between the linens. His naked limbs, thick and tensed against their own power, so that he could handle her gently.

The glow of expectation that had softened her harder feelings—the loneliness, the dread—extinguished itself.

Tears gathered hotly behind her eyes. He watched her blankly. If he noticed her distress, he gave no sign.

Should she abase herself utterly, ask one of the questions that threatened to slip from her lips?

Was he passing the night at the inn himself?

Was he staying instead with this Laura Odgers?