A few stubborn oak leaves let loose and skittered to the road in front of the carriage. Amanda admired the way the horse high-stepped along the cobbles, then turned her face and admired the driver even more. The bruises had faded to a faint shade of yellow around Joseph’s eye, hardly distinguishable now, especially in the twilight. The cut on his chin still stood out, though, and would leave a scar, but the mark would ever remind her of how close she’d come to losing him.
“You study me as if I might vanish.” Pulling his gaze from the road, he grinned down at her. “Go on. Ask me again. You know you want to.”
She flattened her lips. Ought she be annoyed or thrilled that he knew her so well? She peered closer, and concern won out. “Are you certain you’re up to this? Maggie will understand if we don’t make her house party.”
“I’m far better than Tam Nadder. That poor fellow has a long haul of it, learning to walk with crutches for the rest of his life. I’ve got a banger of a headache still, but that’s all.” Reaching his arm along the back of the cushion, he tucked her closer to his side. “And besides, we won’t stay long. I don’t want you turning into a pumpkin, and I promised your father I’d have you home at a decent hour. I’m surprised he allowed me to take you unchaperoned in the first place.”
She leaned back, resting her head against his arm. She’d never tire of the feel of him. “I think Father’s changing, in a good way. Not that convention isn’t still important to him, but I’m starting to think I might be important to him, as well.”
“Why the change?”
Exactly. Why? She’d turned that question over like a furrowed plot of earth these past two weeks. “While he didn’t lose any close friends in that explosion, he did know some of the men who died and many who were injured. I really thought that my position as chairwoman would be the thing to impress him, but turns out my simple act of continuing to visit those men even after your release impressed him more. And in a smaller way, perhaps he realized how empty the house will be without me when we marry.”
“‘When we marry.’ I like the sound of that.”
So did she. She closed her eyes, soaking in the blessing of the man beside her. For a while they drove in the silence of naught but the wheels on the road and the occasional rattle of branches in the wind. Any time now and she’d hear the crunch of the Turners’ drive—but the carriage lurched sideways onto crackling twigs and weeds.
Her eyes flew open. “Hey, this isn’t the way to—what are we doing here?”
Joseph flashed her a smile as he guided the horse up the overgrown Grigg drive. “Close your eyes.”
She narrowed them. “What are you up to?”
“I’ve got one last secret to reveal.” He tapped her on the nose. “Now close your eyes.”
With a frown, she obeyed. The carriage halted, then canted to the side as Joseph hopped down. His footsteps rounded the back, then stopped. A warm hand engulfed her fingers, and he guided her to the ground. What was he up to?
Ten steps later, he stopped. “All right. You may look.”
She blinked open her eyes. There, in the fading light, a freshly painted sign hung on the weathered post of the Grigg front porch. Black letters spelled out: Carston Blake Academy.
Her jaw dropped, and she turned to him. “What’s this?”
“Here is your building for your new school. There’s no need for a safe house anymore, now that Hannah Crow’s has been shut down for good. Not that other brothels can’t open up, I suppose, but with Craven run out of town by the angry wives of club members, I don’t think that will happen for a very long time. And besides”—he flashed her a smile—“I couldn’t very well let you go to that Ladies’ Aide Society meeting on Monday and take yet another beating from Lillian Warnbrough, could I?”
The tenderness in his voice, the depth of emotion in his brown eyes, the warmth of his mouth as he pressed a kiss to her brow turned the world watery. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she nuzzled her face into his chest. “You know what I love about you, Joseph Blake?”
His chuckle rumbled against her ear. “That I always do the right thing?”
“No.” She shook her head, loving the strong beat of his heart. “Everything.”