Husband Wanted (HC #1)

22: The Devil in the Detail

"Have we reached David yet?" she asked.

A snippy response on his tongue, Matt was interrupted by Simon. "Indeed, we have."

The siblings all looked out the windows with varying amounts of excitement, watching as they rattled up the drive to the front of the Namby estate. There was no doubt that it had once been a beautiful building. The stonework was all sharp angles and tall square pillars, matching the fountain that was settled before it, but where once it might have been a dark, imposing mark on the landscape, now it was in disrepair. The colour was impossible to decipher beneath the layers of dirt, dust and mud, any intricacies long hidden. The vegetation was either overgrown or hanging dead against the walls, and most windows were boarded up.

It looked thoroughly unwelcoming.

"So... Directly home?" Matt asked in the now still carriage. None of them made a move for the door.

In the end it was Phil, glancing up at her siblings with what might have been called exasperation on someone older, who exited first. The driver had already dismounted, opening the door, and she grabbed her skirts and jumped down. She landed unexpectedly in a puddle – they'd seen no rain on the drive – and let out a giggle.

Beth leant forward in her seat, glancing hopelessly between her sister's soaked shoes and the mud-stained hem of her dress. She made to scold her, but the girl had already taken off running towards the house.

And the two figures who were gathered on the front steps.

Beth recognised David instantly. He was still tall, still broad, and still handsome – all his bruises now healed and the only evidence of his injuries the crutch still balanced under one arm – but there was something different in the way he held himself. His posture was straighter, less forgiving... perhaps it came with the weight of his new title.

Whatever the change was, it disappeared the moment he recognised Phil. As her small feet hit the steps, his name leaving her tongue in a giddy yelp, he squatted down and welcomed her with open arms and a grin. He twirled her with a laugh, her feet almost kicking the woman beside him. No sooner did they swing to a halt than Phil changed from giggles to chatter.

The lady beside them with a thundering frown bore enough resemblance to the woman from two nights prior for Beth to assume it was David's mother. Without that, she would not have assumed any relationship. She was short and sturdy, pale in comparison to the light tan David had earned from hobbling through the Humphrey gardens. And there was an obvious difference in attitude, even from Beth's distance; where David watched and listened to Phil with attentive delight, his mother scanned the girl with a mixture of horror and disdain.

Which was probably the reason Simon was already closing the gap between the carriage and the house.

Beth knew she should follow. She had to follow; she could hardly sit in the carriage all afternoon, after all! As she looked at the step, the driver's hand hovering awkwardly in her peripheries as he waited to assist her, she could hear her heart racing in her ears. It was all she could hear. And every thrum reminded her of one crushing fact.

Not yours. Not yours. Not yours.

A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of the spiral, and she turned her head slightly in the carriage doorway to catch Matt's comforting smile.

"The longer you wait, the more difficult it gets," he cautioned, his smile light.

Beth nodded, forcing her mouth to return the gesture. "I don't know what to say to you when you're being kind; it's so unusual."

If there was any sting in the joke, it did not show in the twinkle of Matt's eyes. Instead, he offered a solemn, "You're right."

And pushed her out of the carriage.