The Duke's Fated Love by Emily Bow

Author:Emily Bow
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hewlett-Packard
Published: 2019-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

A little before noon, I ran upstairs and brushed my hair and touched up my makeup. Not for Thorn, but so I didn’t look like a dust-covered Cinderella.

The day was nice out, so I switched to a lemon sundress and a lavender cardigan. I wore a sundress with flat tennis shoes so Thorn wouldn’t get the impression I’d changed for his sake. I hadn’t. Sometimes I liked to change clothes.

I went to the folly, and the faux ruins had been transformed. All the white wood had been sanded and repainted. The climbing vines had been cleared. The marble had been scrubbed spotless. The space was lovely.

A white tablecloth covered a table that had been set with two place settings separated by a vase of posies. Two servers moved into action once they saw me. They poured a glass of water and a cup of tea. A small fall salad plate was placed in the center of a gold rimmed full-sized plate.

Nice. I could enjoy this. I eased into my seat and beamed. “This is gorgeous.”

Thorn nodded. “Thank you.”

My lips quirked. I’d intended to praise the waiters, but it was his home and his staff, so I guess he had the right to nod in acknowledgement.

Thorn stirred his tea. “How are you finding England?”

How was I finding England? What were we strangers? I’d been here for months; I wasn’t a tourist. Well, I had been this week, but I’d felt apart from the groups crowding around their tour guides, the families with their strollers, and the arm-in-arm couples. “England’s nice.” I ate the starter in a few bites like a barbarian instead of a dainty princess, but he did the same, so my method was fine.

“Nice?” Thorn waved his hand.

In response, the staff removed the starter plates and put out bowls of cream of potato soup, and then they backed up two steps.

“Yes.” I couldn’t open up beyond that with all the staff there. He may not care that they were listening, but I was totally aware of them. The girl on the left was the one who often tossed me my sack lunch. The older lady, Sarah, who always wore her hair in a dark bun, had a thing going on with the chef. I knew stuff about them. They knew stuff about me. But we weren’t friends.

I wasn’t going to describe to Thorn how my homesickness warred with my equally powerful awe of England. How I was torn between going home when this was all over and staying and exploring other cities. How my guiding inner gut instinct was doing a number on my head lately and I’d lost my compass. My everything had screamed he’s the one, but he hadn’t been. He’d fallen in line, dropped out of line, and only now and again showed me a glimpse of what drew me to him. I was so confused. I waved my hand and made an expressive face. It could have meant nothing. It could have meant everything. I tightened my fingers on my cold, smooth spoon handle and left it for him to decide.

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