The Fire Flower by Edith Layton

Author:Edith Layton [Layton, Edith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

She’d leave, she’d go, she’d close the door and never look back, she’d go home.… But where was that? Mary thought, even as she wondered how to pack her things, since she didn’t own so much as a traveling bag. Then, stopping still in the midst of struggling to button her old “best” gown, which no longer fit at all, whether she was corseted or not, since she’d gotten into the habit of eating regularly, she thought seriously about what she could do once she left these rooms and Gideon’s employ.

She’d ripped her old gown out of her old bundle of clothes and had started to dress in order to keep from weeping as soon as Gideon had left, only moments before. Not that he’d been unkind to her, or cross, or anything but tender. But maybe just because he’d been that, and happy besides, kissing the tip of her nose in a farewell salute before he strode out the door, leaving her without a word as to when he’d be back, or where he was going, because the one was something he didn’t have to tell her, and the other was something she already knew.

There’d been two notes awaiting him on the table; she hadn’t remembered them until morning, when he’d asked if any had been left for him. He’d ambled from the bedchamber to scan them. One, which was written in lacy lines, as decorative as any pattern on any fabric she’d ever seen, he’d smiled over and then tucked into a pocket of his long coat that he lifted from the floor where he’d cast it the night before. The other, which Mary shuddered at, since the hard black lines of writing seemed familiar to her, made Gideon pause. And as he read it, his brows swooped down until when he was done the face he turned to her frightened her.

“What do you make of this?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t read. But I can remember very well. The hand is very like one I saw on a note Sir Roger Mobely gave me for you once before, and Tristram…Master Jones said to send it to you at…Ivyclose.” She faltered then; that word was enough to overturn her resolve.

“Ah, well, I see, and sweet meddling Tris likely sent it to Perdition,” he murmured, and his brow cleared, but she saw it was for her sake, since she always watched him very closely, and there was still a tightness to his jaw—she saw the muscles in it flutter once—and a coldness at the back of his eyes that didn’t deceive her. “Well, it’s as well,” he said, “because it’s nothing.

“Come, pretty Mistress Monk,” he said. “Why are you scowling? You didn’t frown so last night.” He grinned, coming to her and capturing her in his arms, only to tease her out of her worried expression, only to reassure her. But the fact that he was still undressed and soon discovered she was only

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