Page 109 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
He turned and walked down the corridor toward the side door. The critical moment was nearly upon him; he needed to marshal his thoughts and stick to the script he’d rehearsed.
He was mentally scrolling through his speech when the side door opened and Catriona walked in.
Immediately, her gaze lifted to his face; he got the distinct impression she’d known he was there, in the corridor—that she’d come in expecting to meet him.
Catriona smiled, and her smile conveyed a wealth of understanding and acceptance. “Thomas.” She shut the door and came forward, her gliding walk a ladylike attribute she shared with her eldest daughter.
Halting, he half bowed. “Lady Cynster.”
She laughed softly. “Just Catriona, please.” She halted before him and looked into his face. “I’m glad to see you, Thomas. I knew you would come.”
“So Marcus mentioned.” He remained where he was—felt held where he was—while Catriona openly searched his eyes. He had no idea what she read there, but, apparently, whatever it was, she found it satisfactory.
With a gentle, encouraging smile, she tipped her head toward the door. “Lucilla’s in the garden, but you might not see her at first—she’s further down by the burn.” She stepped out of his path and continued past him. “I don’t know if she knows you’re here, but she might.”
With that, Catriona walked on.
Turning, Thomas watched her go. After she reached the front foyer and disappeared from his sight, he thought through her words, then shook his head and continued to the door.
Reaching it, he paused to draw in a last, too-restricted-for-comfort breath.
Then he grasped the latch, opened the door, and went out to face his fate.
* * *
Lucilla lifted her gaze to Thomas the instant he stepped into view on the lip of the upper terrace of the gardens.
Emotions—the immediate leap and roil of so many powerful feelings—stole her breath.
For several heartbeats, she felt giddy, but then the emotional storm coalesced, the tumultuous emotions aligning to form a single, cohesive force.
He had left—and now, as her mother had assured her he would, he’d returned.
Apparently, leaving and returning was something strong men had a habit of doing when grappling with the reality of being a consort in the Vale; until her mother had mentioned it, she hadn’t known her father had done the same thing, but that snippet had gone some small way toward allowing her to view Thomas’s flight in a more equable light.
Still…he’d left. And she was very far from forgiving him for the nature of his leaving.
Some men prefer not to live under a cat’s paw.
Of all the words they’d exchanged, those were the ones she remembered most clearly. True, she hadn’t been open about her motives, but, given his stubborn blindness, what else could she have done?
Straightening from the verbena bush she’d been trimming, she glanced at the two apprentices working alongside her harvesting the wormwood and rue. “Agnes, Matilda—if you would, please take what we’ve cut up to the still room. There’s enough to start with—you know how to hang the bunches to best catch the drafts.”
“Yes, my lady,” the pair chorused. They gathered the various trugs, including one Lucilla had filled with verbena, then started the long trudge up the garden.
The pair hadn’t seen Thomas, but he’d seen them. Rather than pass them, he came down the terraces by a different route.
She was standing in the lowest of the walks. The bed hosting the verbena she continued to snip was raised, the wide coping of the stone wall level with her thighs. At her back, the other side of the walk was bordered by another wide bed at ground level—the last of the terraced beds above the path that wended along the edge of the burn.
Today, the burn was running freely, burbling and tinkling as it tumbled over rocks and rippled over stones. The air close to the banks was always a touch cooler, a touch damper than elsewhere. Refreshing.
Her mind was registering those mundane observations when she heard the soft thud as Thomas’s boot met the sod of the walk.
Her senses locked on him.
He prowled closer, his stride one she recognized like someone plucking a fiber of her soul. Her senses expanded, stirring, restless and distracted. Reaching…
He halted by her shoulder.
