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She lifted her chin and spun Oscuro to face the house. “Some of us believe in keeping our word.”

A dagger obviously aimed at him . . . though he wasn’t quite sure what he had done now, or failed to do, to deserve it. He put the car back in gear so he could keep pace when she clicked the horse into a walk. “I suppose, then, I should have made you promise to actually answer my letters.”

“Your
letters
?” She drew Oscuro to a halt again and sent Justin the look she had always called the English glower. When had she picked that up? “How am I to answer what does not exist? Though I suppose I oughtn’t to be surprised that you yet again chose silence when you said you would write. Even after you . . .”

After he kissed her? He took the car from gear, set the hand brake, and let himself out. “I wrote to you every other day at the start. Every week at the end, though it was disheartening never to hear back from you.”

“What?” She shook her head, though her glower shifted to a frown. “I wrote to
you
every week. But never once got a letter in return.”

Unease went tight inside him. Much like his chest had felt these five months when thinking of her, but more. More urgent. “You sent them first to my solicitor, for him to forward?”

“Yes! Like Thate and Cayton—I checked the direction against theirs.” Her gaze went distant for a moment, then she dismounted.

Justin shook his head. “They can’t all have gone astray.”

“No.” She shoved a few stray curls from her face and spun toward the house, then all the way around, toward the village. “Someone has been tampering with my post.”

The way she said it, so calm, so sure—with dread certainty instead of outrage—tied another knot inside him. “Are the servants still unwelcoming?”

She shook her head, her eyes distant. “They have been fiercely loyal and protective since the attack.”

The attack. Most of the time, he avoided thinking of that, or remembering the bruising on her face in November. He could not dwell on it if he wanted to remain sane.

He reached out again, this time able to rest a hand on her shoulder. The feel of it was familiar and sent warmth flowing through his veins.

It turned to ice when she shrugged him off.

He swallowed down the hurt. “Thate said the man’s identity is still in question.”

“He was using the name Fitz Jenkins, but it wasn’t his real one.” She turned back to the horse. “We need to talk to my father about this.”

This was not how he had envisioned their reunion going. He couldn’t exactly follow conversation about her attacker with a passionate embrace, but he also couldn’t just follow her up to the house like this. He reached over her to put a hand on the saddle, effectively blocking her way.

When she sent him an exasperated look, he met it with a smile. “Will he let anyone else ride him?”

Her eyes glinted. Her brows lifted. “The right someone. My father has, and one of the jockeys. Though only one.”

Justin inclined his head toward the Rolls-Royce. “Trade?”

She looked to the car, and the corners of her lips curled up—the exact smile she’d first worn when she spotted the car idling outside the palace in Monaco. A soothing reminder that despite
new English glowers, she was still Brook. When she returned her gaze to his, challenge gleamed. “If Oscuro will allow it.”

Nearly fourteen years of friendship, and he had to prove himself. But then, if he had his way, friendship would be only part of what they would have from now on.

He grinned and backed away, toward the horse’s head. Holding out a hand for the beast to sniff, he stroked the other down his neck and whispered in French into his ear. “I need your help, boy. I don’t want to disappoint her—you understand that, I think.”

Oscuro nickered and bumped Justin’s hand with his nose.

“He isn’t biting you—congratulations.” Brook handed him the reins and took a step toward the car.

Justin reached an arm to halt her. His hand settled on her waist. “Brook.”

Rather than look at him, she stared at the car. “How did your trip go, Justin? Did you set everything in order?”

“I did.” Though it gave him no pride to say so. The entire time he was away, he kept hearing Aunt Caro and Brook in his head, telling him it wasn’t enough, not when he had hurt his family for it. He kept seeing his father with grief-stricken eyes, pulling him close. He kept remembering Uncle Edward, who never once looked at him with any warmth, saying, “
Focus first on
Stafford, boy. People come and go, but the land stays
forever
.”

God had dealt with Justin while he dealt with business. Dealt with him for trying to strengthen the outward when he should have been giving the inward to Him. He’d spent so many hours on his knees these past two months, he had memorized every stitch of the quilts over which his hands had been clasped.

All of which he’d told her already . . . none of which she knew.

“Good.” Her voice came out quiet, but by no means soft.
“I prayed you would succeed. I prayed . . . I prayed you would find whatever it was you needed.”

“I did.” He wanted to draw her close, but she stood so stiff, so immovable. “I found that it was here all along. Which I knew, but . . . perhaps I needed the time alone with the Lord. To fully understand who I needed to be, and who I must
not
be, at all costs.”

She looked up at him now, though not as she used to. No smile teased her lips, no sparkle lit her eyes. “Good.”

That was all she could say? His fingers pressed against her waist, though she wouldn’t come any closer. “Brook . . .”

“It is my turn now, Justin.” She stepped away, and her eyes went from blank to snapping—but not with the love he’d hoped to find in them. With determination. “My turn to find some answers. They’ve been waiting far too long.”

She opened the door of the car and slid in, scarcely smiling as she ran her hands over the wheel. So very unlike her.

All of it, so very unlike her.

He turned back to Oscuro. The horse at least proved she was still his Brook. Chasing the dangerous when a sane person would have chosen a known quantity. Never settling for the mere exceptional when the magnificent was just out of reach.

The beast let him mount, though he shifted, skittish, as Justin settled his weight in the saddle. He murmured a few French nothings, as he always did with Alabaster, and Oscuro tossed his head in seeming recognition of the words.

Brook put the Rolls-Royce in gear and, finally, shot him a look he knew well. Challenge. “I bet I can beat you there.”

He lifted a brow. “You think my car is faster than your horse?”

The familiar, blessed, impish smile possessed her lips. “I think its driver is faster than his rider. Ready?”

He twisted the reins around his hands and crouched forward. “
Allons-y
.”

Nineteen

B
rook had meant the ride to clarify. She had meant to come back inside with a mind cleared of Catherine’s insinuations and Pratt’s ill-placed proposal. She had meant to put the hurts and suspicions and outrage in their proper places before she spoke with Papa.

To her dismay, she wanted to stomp and scream and cry as much now as she had two hours ago, though it was no longer only the fault of her neighbors.

Or maybe it was.

The postmaster was talkative, Pratt said. Was he bribable? And was Pratt low enough to steal her mail to keep her from communicating with Justin?

The question made ice chase the fire in her veins.

She handed the key to the car back to Justin—and plotted how to get it from him again when she was better able to enjoy it. When the questions weren’t buzzing so loudly.

He slid it absently in his pocket, his gaze still on Oscuro as Russell led him into the stables. “Magnificent. Is he ready for the races?”

“He will be by summer.” She couldn’t help the lift of her
head, the tilt of her chin. “Ready to admit I knew what I was doing?”

When he shot that grin at her, her stomach flipped. Which unsettled her all the more. She had hoped that by the time he returned, she would know her own mind and heart concerning him. Instead, she was more confused than ever. She wanted to kiss him again, to test her reaction . . . and yet wanted to steer far clear and force their relationship back to what it had been before.

“I never doubted you knew what you were doing,” he said. “I just didn’t want to see you get hurt in doing it.”

“You started it.” The tease slipped out. And somehow, her heart went cold in its wake instead of warmer. No, not cold. Sad. So much had changed. And communication about it had been stolen from them. Now where were they to go?

Justin chuckled and offered his arm. “I taught you to ride astride, not to break horses. To shoot at targets, not the weapon from a villain’s hand.”

“You gave me a taste for risk-taking.”

“My lessons were hardly risks.”

“They felt like it at the time.” She slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. He must have kept active while he was away—his arm was firmer than before, the muscle larger.

His gaze went to her wool-clad legs. “Those I like.”

The way he said it, the way he looked at her . . . he was
flirting
. Justin Wildon, Duke of Stafford, her oldest friend, was flirting with her. And she could think of nothing clever to say. Brice’s words she could parry with skill, but it was different with Justin. She could think only of the inane. “I have your hat—you left it at Aunt Mary’s.”
That night. “The End of an Era.”

He reached up as if surprised to find it not on his head and then grinned again. “Keep it. I’ve given up on the thing.” Then he cast a glance over his shoulder again. “Finest stallion I’ve seen
in years. Are you studding him out? I’m considering breeding Alabaster this year—”

“And now we’re going to talk about horse breeding?” She shook her head and pulled him toward the house. “Some would say a lady shouldn’t discuss such things.”

“Some are idiots. Will your father make all the decisions for Oscuro while you sit quietly by?”

He still knew how to make her smile, even if it faded quickly. “We’ll agree to no fees until after the races, when he proves himself a champion.”

“So you can gouge me? Does a lifetime of friendship not gain me a discount?”

The feigned outrage warmed some of the cold spots inside, though it didn’t last. Not when her eyes fell to the bracelet on her wrist.

She had bigger matters to attend than Oscuro. “We’ll see. In the autumn.” Her father would be in the library. She aimed them toward that door.

Justin stepped into her path. “Brook, might we . . . have a moment first?”

His eyes were a bright sapphire today, and the April sun caught his hair and set it alight. His jaw had gotten more chiseled in his absence, his shoulders broader. Her chest went tight. “What?”

He sighed and glanced over his shoulder. Took her hands. “I was hoping . . . for some time alone with you before we join your father.”

Yes, she had dreamed of this, of him, while he was away. But the other dream always overshadowed it. Thunder and lightning and darkness. “You had time.”

He gave her half a smile, crooked and so very charming. “It didn’t go as I planned.”

“And what did you plan?”

His gaze dropped to her lips, warmed her. He eased closer, their clasped hands still between them. “Shall I show you?”

Yes!
“No.” Saying it made the pressure compound behind her nose and eyes, but she held his gaze. Let go his hands. “There is too much you don’t know.”

“You’ll tell me. I’ll tell you. We’ll do as we’ve always done and—”

“No.” She had to look away. Otherwise she’d forget how to speak, gazing into those familiar eyes, forget the heavy truth that had settled in her heart during her ride. A truth too-long forgotten already. “It isn’t like it always was.”

“No. It will be better.” His voice thrummed over her nerves, and they caught fire when he feathered a hand over her cheek, into her hair. “We can make it better.”

“Justin—”

His lips silenced hers, held them captive. A soft touch that promised so much more—that took her back those months to London, then forward again through the many nights she had lain awake agonizing over whether they could make each other happy or would destroy each other in trying.

Perhaps if she could relax, give herself over to the sensation again, she would know. But her mind wouldn’t still. Why hadn’t he listened to her? She couldn’t think about this now, not clearly, not given Catherine’s hissing words and the threats in Pratt’s eyes.

Justin pulled away. His eyes were dark, his brow questioning. “Brooklet?”

She could only shake her head and step around him. He should have listened. Or come back yesterday, or tomorrow, or even an hour from now.

“Brook.”

“You don’t understand.” But he would in a moment, if he followed her. Which he did, as she strode for the library door and opened it.

“Brook!”

He reached for her arm. She all but leaped into the library to avoid his fingers.