“Laurence’s first year aboard. I took him ashore out of pity. The first year on a new ship is always the hardest.”
“You like him?”
“I do, just do not let him know.” Felix detached the long reins and bridle from Long Peg and then scratched her nose. “He is cheeky enough as it is when the other officers are not around.”
“That sounds like my brother.”
“And every Ford I have ever known.” He spoke without bitterness and then glanced around, taking a keen interest in his surroundings in a way he had not before their outing. He seemed in no rush to escort her indoors, and she did not know why he dallied.
She gestured toward the house. “Are you not going inside?”
“The duke does not require me again today, and I do not want to get in your way.” He shrugged. “I will be along in a while or perhaps as late as the dinner hour if you do not mind.”
She did mind. She needed to figure out what to do about her conflicting feelings. She was about to marry a man she did not love and desired a man she did not entirely trust.
Felix turned away as the stable master returned, as if the matter of them parting ways was settled.
Sally ground her teeth. “I will wait,” she insisted. “I should hate for you to become lost on your way there.”
“You really have not changed have you?” He faced her, smiling at last. “You should not feel obliged to keep watch over me. The illness has passed and likely will not return for many months. I do not think it is a good idea for us to…”
His expression grew shuttered as he looked toward the distant manor house, and he never finished his thought.
“What is it?”
His shoulders slumped. “Ellicott has returned.”
When he turned away, she saw disappointment had twisted his smile into a grimace. As if it pained him that she would marry another.
He retreated into the stables and left her to face her future husband alone.
Sally turned to Ellicott, guilt warming her cheeks with uncomfortable sensation. She was sorry to see him returned because she now could not spend any more time with Felix. Her heart grew heavy with each step that brought him closer, but she managed a smile. “You are back early.”
“I could not stay away.” Ellicott lifted her hands to his mouth, kissed them both, and then planted a brusque kiss on her lips. He drew back, grinning. “And you have been out enjoying the morning without me. How did you entertain yourself while I was gone?”
Calling on a tenant, and one recently upset, was hardly the sort of call to be considered enjoyable. However, she had enjoyed showing off Newberry Park to Felix and her guilt increased. She withdrew her hands. “I had errands to run for the duke.”
“Well, remember when you do misbehave that I want all the delightful details.” He hooked her arm through his and tugged her toward the empty gardens. “You cannot imagine how much I am looking forward to hearing your every scandalous misdeed in the future.”
Sally laughed at his enthusiasm, but her heart was not really engaged in the conversation. She was aware that Felix stood not ten feet away and could be listening to them, watching her live her new life with the earl. “Well, let me see. On Thursday night I did something terribly shocking…” She led Ellicott firmly away from the stable. “I woke my sister up at midnight and we talked for hours.”
Ellicott groaned. “Hardly scandalous, though I do admire your bravery in disturbing her rest. That sister of yours has not your sense of humor or sense of fun. Much too severe for my taste. What else did you do?”
“Nothing of significance.” Sally did not intend to reveal the details of her tryst with Felix, his illness, or how she had feared for his life. Anything to do with the captain was simply too personal to share. She asked him instead about what he had done while he had been in London, as they walked through the drawing room doors in search of her family.
~ * ~
Felix’s temper flared as Sally and his replacement strolled away arm in arm. In the quiet stable yard, their voices had carried quite well enough that he was sickened by their conversation after a few minutes of it. How dare she speak of what they had done together on Thursday night with her future husband? She had told him what they did together would remain a secret between them. He had taken her at her word. He would never have touched her if he had known her tongue was now hinged in the middle, that she would share the details of their tryst with Ellicott as if it meant nothing.
He turned away in disgust, catching the stable master’s guilty expression as Sally strolled away. The stable master had eavesdropped too. That annoyed him. “Dudley, is it? Why are there so few grooms to manage the stables and so few horses?”
The older man grimaced. “Most went with the admiral to London and never came back.”
“Bloody hell!” He raked his fingers through his hair and took in the rows of empty stalls. The estate was practically abandoned in that case. Trust the admiral to think of himself first and to take the best too. “And the other half?”
“Not too many able bodies left in these parts, truth be told.” The man scratched his jaw. “A few of the footmen double as out-of-doors staff unless the estate has extra guests to be waited on inside. We do the best we can with what we have and do not complain.”
Felix grunted, unsurprised by the confirmation of the picture he had already formed during the day. Loyalty to the Fords held firm, but Newberry Park had too few men indeed for the tasks to be done around the place. Sally might speak of Newberry Park with great pride, but the home was falling apart around her, and she could not see it. She could not do anything to stop it either. The duke was right to worry about letting her wander the place unescorted in such an atmosphere of neglect. “Why do you stay?”