only he could be a tenth as pleased as his dog to see her.
“Good morning, Samuel, and you too, Kesseley.” She rose and gave him a nervous smile.
“You look like you’ve been enjoying yourself this morning.”
“I was in the fields.”
“Where else would you be but in your beloved dirt?” She chuckled, hoping he would do the same. Instead, he looked down at his mud-caked boots, a frown bending his lips.
“I’m finishing the planting,” he said. “We’re starting a new crop rotation schedule this year.”
“The one from…Flanders?” His head jerked up, a light sparked in his eyes, and Henrietta felt her heart lighten.
“I thought my talk of farming bored you,” he said.
“Still, I remembered every word.” She touched his wrist. A wave of gentle warmth moved through her. She missed the times when it was so easy between them. “I suppose you will be leaving for the Season in a few days.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve made you a little surprise present, but you must come to the house to get it.”
Finally a grin, albeit a tiny one, crossed his face. “Henrietta? A secret? You know you can’t keep secrets. You might as well tell me before you blurt it by accident.”
“That is not true. I keep many secrets from you. You just tend to remember the unfortunate surprise present for your ninth birthday.”
“Just tell me.”
“But I won’t.” She wagged a teasing finger before his face. “I will make you wait in unbearable anticipation.”
“Do you want me to tell everyone how years ago you tried to run away with a traveling production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream masquerading as a fairy, and I had to dash off to Ely to save you?”
“You always hold that over me, don’t you?” she cried, in mock annoyance, but then giggled. “Well, I daresay, I would be leading a much more exciting life traipsing around England in gaudy green pixie wings than stuck here.”
His eyes flashed. “Yes, you’ve made it quite clear that you don’t care for our village or…” He halted, but even so the arrested words hung in the air, so loud he could have shouted them. Or me. You don’t care for me.
That familiar, prickly awkwardness filled the air.
“A diary!” she cried, trying to recapture the previous moment when he had been smiling. “I made you one. That’s the surprise.” She opened her palms and shrugged her shoulders. “You are right, I can’t keep secrets.”
“A diary?” He hiked a brow.
“Since you are going to London for the Season to find, well, a wife, I thought that you could write about when…when…” Oh Lud, suddenly her present seemed like the stupidest idea she’d ever had. “When you meet her,” she finished.
“Her?”
“Your future wife. So you can capture the moment forever in your heart and never let it fade away.”
The muscles at the back of his jaw twitched. She felt so foolish. She just wanted him to fall in love with a wonderful lady as she had fallen in love with Edward. “I’ve done the wrong thing again, haven’t I?” she said.
“No, it’s nice. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“I always think of you,” she whispered. “You’re my dearest friend.” Why did they have to keep up this nonsense? Why couldn’t he be easy Kesseley again? Edward was making her sick with worry and she had no one to confide in.
“That’s four pence for these letters and a journal, Miss Watson,” the postmaster called out.
Henrietta rushed forward, put her coins on the table and scooped up a large bundle of mail. Surely one letter was from Edward! She started for the door, then remembered and turned back to Kesseley, who still waited for his mail. “Please come by before you leave.”
“Of course.”
She bent down to Samuel, who had rolled on to his side, exposing his belly for a good scratch. She cupped her hand and pretended to whisper in the dog’s ear, but kept her eyes on Kesseley’s face. “You’ll make sure he doesn’t forget, won’t you?”
He yelped.
“He said yes.” Kesseley chuckled. A chuckle! She grinned to hear the comforting sound again.
“I can always count on dear Samuel.” She curtsied and then hurried outside, her mind quickly returning to the matter of Edward and his lack of correspondence.
She eagerly shuffled through the letters.
Then again.
And again.
And one more time to make sure.
Nothing. Just the March edition of Town and Country. She turned it over and shook it. No letter from Edward fell out.
It felt like a foot had stepped on her heart and flattened it. Now another dull, useless