Delilah frowned at her friend. Prudence was going to make her say it aloud. “No, you ninny. Because I…” She swallowed. “Because I like him.” She cleared her throat. “Quite a bit, actually.”
So much so that the word ‘like’ felt completely wrong on her tongue. So mild and unfeeling as to be meaningless.
“I see,” Prudence said.
It was clear that she did not.
But Addie did. The other girl was giving her a soft, sympathetic smile that spoke of understanding and empathy. “It is awfully overwhelming, is it not?”
Delilah shifted in her seat. “What is?”
“Falling in love.”
Delilah’s lungs stopped working. Her heart, on the other hand—her heart decided this was the moment to prove how hard it could work. It seemed like the organ might explode within her chest if it beat any harder.
Love.
Was this love?
She let out a long rush of air. Yes. That was precisely what this feeling was—the sensation that she’d forgotten herself entirely.
Or maybe that she’d found a new part of herself that she hadn’t known existed.
All she knew was that it was terrifying, this sense of suddenly needing another human being. But it was also…rather lovely, in a way. Not the needing, and not the fearing for his safety, but the knowledge that she could care about someone so thoroughly and completely. So blindly.
More than that, that someone could look at her the way he did, as though she were perfect, even with all her plentiful flaws.
Whenever she acted badly, he seemed to find it amusing, like he could see right past her sharp tongue and her harsh words to the heart of her. Like he knew her so well that try as she might, she would never scare him away.
He looked at her like she had true value. Like she was priceless, even if she did not have a fortune to give or a plot of land to bestow with her dowry. He held her in his arms as though he could honestly care about her and…
Well, she hoped that meant he loved her.
He did, didn’t he? He would not have kissed her, or offered to marry her, or taken such sweet care of her if he did not.
Right?
“Have you…” Prudence cleared her throat and shifted in her seat as though this talk of emotions made her ill at ease. Likely true. Prudence was not one to talk about romance or love. Unlike Louisa who was smitten with romance novels, and Addie who’d been smitten with Tolston since she’d arrived at the school, Prudence was distinctly uncomfortable with all talk of love. She tilted her head to the side with feigned composure. “Have you discussed the future?”
Delilah winced as if her friend had struck her. “Not quite.”
And right now that fact was killing her. Rupert had not mentioned marriage again after her disastrous response that first time.
And yet she’d let him kiss her.
And then she’d kissed him back.
Without a thought for her reputation or her future.
“Of course they haven’t,” Addie said with a sigh of exasperation. “Who could be concentrating on the future when Delilah’s very life is in danger.”
Delilah straightened at that and even Prudence looked a bit chastened at the reminder of what they were all doing here.
Waiting.
Delilah stood up with a start. “I cannot just sit here and embroider while Rupert is in danger.” She shot Addie and accusing glare. “How can you be so complacent?”
Addie sighed. “I am not. I’m terrified, but I know that Tolston and the others are well armed and they have the advantage of surprise.”
“Everley is not such a big man and he won’t be traveling with an army if he wishes to remain inconspicuous.” There were times when Prudence’s teacherly voice grated on Delilah’s nerves, but right now her didactic tone was reassuring.
She was right, of course. She and Addie likely had nothing to worry about.
It was just that Delilah would feel so much better when she saw Rupert again with her own two eyes.
And then she would demand that he marry her.
The thought struck her at once and was both ludicrous and…rather perfect, really. He ought to know better than to kiss a young lady without making promises. And she’d be sure that he did.
A nagging sensation in her gut told her she didn’t wish for him to propose because he had to or because he was morally obliged…
But she did wish him to propose.
It did not matter how or why, merely that he did.
She scowled down at her toes. If he did not love her yet, she would just have to make him, that was all.
Her hands clenched into fists. She would make that man love her if it was the last thing she did.
“Oh, Delilah, there you are.” Miss Grayson’s normal calm elegance was nowhere to be seen as she rushed into the room, her skirts whipping around her legs with her quick pace. “There’s a message for you from your home.”
Delilah took the missive from her with a frown. A message from home? It had to be from her stepmother. A quick look at the penmanship confirmed it but the unusually messy scrawl had her pulse quickening with alarm.
“Your family’s footman is waiting in the hallway,” Miss Grayson murmured, her pretty features tight with concern as Addie, Prudence, and even Reggie came to their feet to watch her read it.
“It’s my father,” she said through lips that had grown numb. “He has taken another turn for the worse.”
“Oh my heavens,” Miss Grayson said.
She heard Prudence murmur a prayer under her breath.
For Delilah’s part, a cold numbness swept over her as she waited for tears that did not come. “She’s asked me to hurry home, in case…”
She could not quite finish the sentence. In case he dies tonight. It was a strange emotion that clogged her throat and made speech temporarily impossible.
Sadness, yes. Grief, of course. But more than that it was regret.
Regret that she might lose her father this very night and she still only knew him as well
