After the first hour of her introduction to driving, Winnifred let Asher take the reins. He’d become rather insistent directly following a near-fatal collision. Not for them but for an entire gaggle of slow-waddling geese.
So she’d settled back, finding a sense of peace and comfort riding beside him. They’d passed through a few rain showers, rested the horses while Asher told her another story of Lolly’s adventures, and then the sun came out again and they were on their way.
She wanted their journey to last for hours longer, but time was fading out of her control. And by early evening, they’d arrived.
The sun rested over a copse of trees like a candied orange in a sweetmeat dish. Standing tall at the end of a long weather-worn drive behind an open iron gate, Avemore Abbey looked like a molded pudding dusted with white sugar and dotted with spires. Cut into the pale stone, rows of recessed mullioned windows shone like mirrors, and at the base, one half of a broad oaken door opened at their approach.
Winnifred glanced again at the sun’s position above the trees, wanting some magic to hold it in place. Once it fell, it would end their final day together. An emptiness gnawed at her and she knew her heart would feel it even more, come morning.
Asher slowed the curricle. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“The horses are tired,” he said. “They’ll need to rest.”
Her gaze swerved to Asher. “And to be brushed and fed.”
“True.” He nodded, his throat constricting on a swallow. “Do you think your aunt might invite me to linger until morning?”
“She’ll insist upon it.”
“Then we’ll have a few more hours,” he said quietly, reading her thoughts.
Just then, a woman emerged through the doorway, her long plait of silvery russet hair draped over the gray shawl on her gently rounded shoulders. Leaning on a cane, she shielded her eyes, scrutinizing the trespassers in the curricle.
“Winnifred?” she asked in startled disbelief. “Is that you, my dear girl?”
In answer, she waved and smiled and felt tears sting her eyes all at the same time. This was the beginning of a new life for her, a new chapter. And yet she couldn’t conjure any happiness, not when she was still clinging to the last page of this one.
Unable to help herself, she laid her hand over Asher’s on the reins and squeezed.
“It is I, Aunt,” she said, clearing away the emotion clogging her throat. “Though how could you possibly recognize me? I was just a girl when I was last here.”
Not only that, but she must look a fright in her mud-speckled dress, with the ribbon barely clinging to her hair.
“You’ve grown into the very portrait of my own mother and she was the most beautiful woman who ever lived. I knew the instant I clapped eyes on you,” her aunt said, walking with an abbreviated step toward the curricle. “Well, don’t dawdle. Come here, girl, and greet me properly.”
As soon as Asher lifted the brake, Winnifred scrambled down. Her aunt summarily crushed her in a fierce embrace, scented with the comforting fragrances of cedar, lavender and old books.
Clinging gratefully to her, she asked quietly, “Am I welcome, then, Aunt?”
“Of course you are. For as long as you wish,” she said, her eyes wet as she brushed a soft hand over Winnifred’s cheek. Then, after Asher stepped down, she turned her attention to him. “Surely this isn’t the man you wrote to me about. Your Mr. Woodbine? Why, he doesn’t appear to be odious and unpleasant at all.”
She laughed at her aunt’s audacity. “If he were Mr. Woodbine, he would be insulted indeed.”
“Though I can assure you,” Asher said, standing beside Winnifred, “Mr. Woodbine is those things, in addition to being a braggart and a complete buffoon. He let Winn slip out of his fingers, after all.”
“You see, I . . .” she hemmed. “I left him at the church and ran away from my wedding.”
Her aunt cackled with laughter and took Winnifred by the arm, leading her inside. “Goodness me! I should have loved to see the look on my brother’s face. That makes two marriages he’s arranged, and both with the same results. When will your father learn not to interfere in matters of the heart?”
“My heart wasn’t involved in the least.”
“Ah.” Her aunt’s green eyes twinkled. “But that brings us back to the question of who this young man is.”
“Aunt, this is Viscount Holt,” she said as they stopped in the vaulted stone foyer, surrounded by niches of marble statuettes. “Asher, this is my most exceptional aunt, Miss Myrtle Humphries.”
“At your service, madam,” he said with a bow.
Aunt Myrtle turned narrowed eyes on him. “Holt, you say? It’s been a number of years since I’ve been in society, but I recall the family name.”
Reaching out, he took her fingers and lifted them to his lips. “Then I offer my humblest apologies.”
“Effusive charm will earn you no favors.”
Winnifred laid her hand on his sleeve. “Oh, that’s just the way he is. Incorrigible flirt.”
Her aunt harrumphed. “All I want to know is if you are anything like your father.”
Asher straightened, jaw clenched to twitch. “If I were, I would beg you to shoot me here and now.”
After a moment of further scrutiny, she nodded and began to walk down a long corridor, bidding them to follow. “I liked your mother, Lord Holt. You have her eyes, you know.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Those eyes grew soft, a tender smile on his lips. He whispered to Winnifred, “I like your aunt.”
“I heard that, flatterer,” she called back over her shoulder. “I also notice you’re wearing a black cravat. Are you in mourning for your father, by chance?”
“Eventually, I trust.”
“What I mean to ask is whether or not mourning is the reason you haven’t married my niece yet?”
Embarrassed, Winnifred’s cheeks heated to scalding. “He isn’t going to marry me.”
Aunt Myrtle stopped with a firm clack of her cane and faced them. Her brow arched with the same superior skepticism that her father often employed. “No?”
“No,” she answered, ignoring the sudden piercing pain in the vicinity of her heart. “He has other obligations and he’ll be leaving for London in the morning. That is . . . if he is welcome to stay the night?”
She pursed her lips and lifted one shoulder. “As long as he likes. Though I think a trip to Gretna Green at first light would serve the two of you far better.”
“Aunt!” Winnifred gasped. “I . . . or rather, the two of us . . . aren’t even interested in marriage.”
Her aunt eyed them, one after the other. Then her gaze dropped purposefully to the space between them.
Both Winnifred and Asher looked down at the same time, then jolted. They were holding hands, fingers twined, palms flush. Neither of them moved quickly to separate either, but did so only after a reluctant squeeze.
Meanwhile, her aunt cackled with glee, the sound echoing as she walked up a recessed stone staircase. “Seems to me the pair of you could use a good scrubbing and a meal. Perhaps, at dinner, you can tell me about your grand adventure from London.”
“How do you know it wasn’t one disaster after another from the very start?” she asked, smiling when Asher reached out to tug on her little finger.
“Because I’ve had my share of them and I can see the effects in your eyes. It’s clear to me that you’re quite in love . . .”
“Aunt!” Winn nearly tripped up the risers.
“. . . with having adventures, of course,” she added cheekily, her teasing words tumbling down the stairs, one after the other.
Winnifred slid a glance to Asher. But he was staring straight ahead and frowning.
Frowning?
Instantly, her mind provided an answer—he didn’t want her to love him. Not her. Not plump, freckled—
No. She stopped herself, knowing that those thoughts came from her predisposition to take another’s opinions and let them burrow under her skin.
Perhaps she was plump. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t also like the way she filled out this dress or secretly thrill over the admiring gazes she’d recently begun to notice.
She may not possess her mother’s willowy grace and ethereal beauty that complemented many a parlor and ballroom. But she had never really liked stuffy assemblies anyway. She’d always preferred open, breathable spaces and was thankful to have strong limbs, well-suited for a trek across the countryside. And the truth was, she’d always liked her hair. She’d often thought of it as the rebellious part of her, refusing to be managed or constricted.
Winnifred wanted to like her terrible freckles, but perhaps that would take more time.
Though most of all, she liked the way it felt to be with Asher. To be free to explore and to discover. To touch and to tempt. To laugh and to fall in love.
Somewhere along the way—in between that first shouting match beside the carriage and the quiet moments lying in his arms—she’d fallen in love with him. And she would have bet her life on the fact that he was feeling the same way.
At least, until he frowned just now.
Then again, she didn’t know much about scoundrels and knew even less about falling in love. Her future contribution to the primer was suddenly looking rather confusing and pathetic.
Through diamond panes of window glass, she saw the fading light of sunset, the orange tinged with a veil of lavender that threatened the close of day. Seeking a semblance of reassurance, she reached out just enough to let her fingers brush against his.
Asher surprised her by catching her hand and holding it tightly. He didn’t let go until they reached the top of the stairs. But he was still pensive, and she still didn’t understand the reason.
Then, greeted by a maid and a footman, they both went their separate ways.
* * *
All the ifs that had been spinning in Asher’s head earlier finally came to a full stop. His last encounter with Mr. Lum had made everything blindingly clear. A future with Winn would never be possible unless he could protect her from his father.
He refused to put her at risk again. Therefore, he had to get on that ship and return with a fortune large enough to keep his father from causing any more chaos. It was the only way.
But how was he going to make it happen?
For more than an hour, Asher paced the length of his room and tried to find an answer, though there was hardly enough floor in the room to pace. This used to be an abbey, after all. The rooms held only a bed, wardrobe and washstand. And beyond the high, narrow window, a long seldom-traveled driveway pointed toward an uncertain future.
Looking out, he felt as though he were already in a cell, rotting away in Fleet, alone and unable to pay the debts his father had accrued in his name.
Lungs tight, he rubbed a fist over his chest. The air tasted musty and stale like the thoughts haunting him. He couldn’t breathe in here.
Striding out into the corridor, he startled a maid bustling about her duties. His methodical steps echoed down a long, constricted passageway. When he’d nearly reached the end, a familiar sound drew his footfalls around a bend and down the evening-darkened archway. Like a moth seeking a source of light, he found it in the lilting melody of a bawdy tune.
A smile tugged at his lips. Winn. All it took was the sound of her voice and everything became clearer at once. There was only one thing that truly mattered—a chance at a new life. With her.
Asher reached the door and listened to her song, letting each note burrow inside him. He braced his hands on either side of the frame and pressed his forehead against the wood, breathing in the polish of turpentine and beeswax, and wishing their obstacles were simpler.
But they weren’t.
She was still an heiress and he was still a man without a farthing to his name.
She was going to live here and he would be away for months, even years, trying to amass a fortune great enough to withstand his father’s obsession.
And in addition to all that, she might not forgive him for making a bargain with her father. Even without Waldenfield here to collect his daughter, Asher needed to tell her the true reason he’d been waiting at the church that day. There was no room for deception or manipulation in the future he wanted.
During the drive, he’d rehearsed a speech in his mind a thousand times. But the words were still all wrong and he feared he would lose her. It was a gamble he couldn’t risk.
So for now, he turned around and walked away.
* * *
At dinner that evening, Winnifred wore one of Aunt Myrtle’s dresses from years ago before the accident that injured her leg, when she’d still ventured into London. It was a lovely rose-colored muslin with wide gold piping around the sleeves, a low-cut bodice and a gold sash beneath her breasts.
Having grown accustomed to wearing the newer fashions, she felt practically naked in this thin gown with only a chemise and bust bodice beneath.
The servants had also laundered and pressed Asher’s clothes and polished his boots. He was never more handsome, with a fresh shave that accentuated the sculpted lines of his countenance.
Sitting across the linen-draped table from him, it was difficult not to blush at the memory of his eyes widening when he’d first seen her this evening, and then how they darkened. She knew what that hungry look meant now, and felt a corresponding flutter in her midriff.
Drawing her away from those thoughts, Aunt Myrtle asked to hear all about their adventure. Winn recounted most of it from the very beginning, leaving out the more salacious parts, of course. And her aunt cleverly avoided any question of how they’d slept during their nights together, or what they did when their clothes were wet from rain.
Winn decided not to mention the stream at all, or the loft in the boiling house. There were certain memories too precious to share.
In the warm glow of the flickering chandelier overhead, her aunt eased into the straight-backed armchair at the head of the table and turned her attention to Asher. “You must be in dire straits to have been desperate enough to resort to kidnapping. And yet, here you have an heiress so conveniently at your disposal.”
Winnifred rolled her eyes. “Lord Holt would not use me in such a manner. All he ever wanted was the money he lost in order to embark on a grand opportunity, which is perfectly understandable.” Especially considering what she knew about his father.
Asher stared into the wineglass in his grasp, then cleared his throat. For most of dinner and before, he’d remained pensive and withdrawn, and Winnifred worried that his journey was weighing on his mind.
Aunt Myrtle slid a glance to Asher. “And will this grand opportunity take you far away?”
“It will, indeed, madam,” he said, looking from her to Winnifred. “And for how long, I cannot be certain.”
“The passage of time is a burden we all must endure,” Aunt Myrtle added with a flit of her fingers. “However, the pain that comes from absence can always be lessened if there is a plan in place for your return. Some men, so I’m told, would list taking a wife as a priority. Would you, Lord Holt?”
Winnifred might have chided her aunt for delving too deeply into personal matters. Instead, she found herself holding her tongue and her breath.
He set his glass down and pushed away from the table. Then, standing, he bowed. “Madam, I wonder if you would permit me to escort your niece for a walk about the grounds.”
Aunt Myrtle’s lips curved in a small, knowing smile. “Of course you may. I imagine you have a great deal to discuss. And since the two of you are far beyond my chaperonage at this point, I would not intrude by offering my escort. However, I should warn you that my limbs feel the approach of rain not far off and, should you venture into the singing garden where all my songbirds like to visit, mind the latch on the gate. It tends to stick.”
“I should not think we’ll stray far from the house,” he said, then looked to Winnifred. “Miss Humphries, will you take the air with me?”
She frowned, utterly perplexed by this sudden stiff decorum.
But then a little voice in the back of her mind whispered that, perhaps, some conversations required a degree of formality. Speaking to the members of the royal family, for example. Or a servant about missing silver. A steward regarding the accounts. Or even . . . a gentleman who planned to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage?
Her heart gave an excited leap.
Her mind warned her that the thought was far too outlandish.
Hmm . . . Whatever the reason, she was never going to discover it while sitting here at the table.
Holding his gaze, she said, “Yes, of course, my lord.”