Whistling to himself, Colin entered the dining room. Sunlight shone through the lace curtains at the full-length windows, adding to his already good mood. He served himself breakfast from the buffet, then took a seat beside his father at the table.
“Morning, Father.” He arranged his napkin on his lap. “How’s the state of the world today?”
Sir Edward glanced up from his newspaper and grunted in greeting. Clearly not everyone shared Colin’s enthusiasm for the day—at least not at this hour.
Colin started in on his breakfast. He managed a few bites before Martin walked into the room and announced, “Letter for you, Master Colin.”
The butler held out a silver platter with a single envelope lying on it. Colin took the letter and eyed the name written there. It was from his closest friend and fellow pilot during the war, Andrew Lyle.
When was the last time he’d heard from Lyle? At least three or four months ago. Colin read over the letter as he ate. Lyle spoke of London and the heat, and of the many ex-soldiers without jobs. Familiar guilt wrestled with the breakfast in Colin’s stomach, marring some of his earlier good humor. He wished there was something he could do to help these men whom he’d shared the horrors of war alongside. Jobs were few at the moment, but he’d also heard a good number of the returning soldiers were too damaged in mind or body to secure employment.
Near the end of the letter, Lyle asked if he might come up for a visit. I find myself in need of a change of scenery, he’d written. I can come at your earliest convenience.
Colin folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. He rather liked the idea of having his war chum come to stay for a time. Only one thing about the letter struck him as odd—Lyle hadn’t mentioned bringing his wife along.
“A pilot friend of mine, Andrew Lyle, would like to come for a visit. When shall I tell him to come?”
Sir Edward dropped a corner of the paper. “Where does he live?”
“London.”
“Who is his father?”
Colin’s jaw tightened at the question. In light of all England had suffered over the last six years, allowing only house guests of proper birth or origin at Elmthwaite felt not only antiquated but offensive. “No one you know, Father. He’s the son of a humble solicitor. And one himself, I might add.”
His father lowered the paper and frowned. “Then how can he afford to leave his clients by traipsing all over the country?”
Breakfast no longer seemed appetizing in the wake of his anger. Colin pushed his plate aside. When would his father ever choose to see beyond his own life? “He was injured in the war. The same war that took your son.” The words hit home as Colin knew they would, causing his father’s face to harden. “He’s in need of a change of pace, which is what we can give him.”
“And how long will he be gracing us with his presence?” Sir Edward shot back in an icy tone.
“I don’t know.” Colin wadded up his napkin and tossed it on the table. “But I’d think you’d show some compassion for those who sacrificed more than their time to preserve your way of life here.”
His father’s blue eyes narrowed. “My way of life? Is that all this is to you?”
“What if it is?” Colin countered. “There are soldiers begging on London street corners for money because they don’t have hands or legs or arms to do anything else. There are those whose minds have been so shattered they struggle to simply exist. And yet here we sit…” A lump of emotion lodged in his throat, forcing Colin to pause. “Here I sit with all my faculties intact and money to spare, at least for now.”
It was the closest he’d ever come to admitting the guilt he harbored over having survived, when Christian hadn’t. The guilt he often felt that he could still walk and see and fly, when others couldn’t.
His admission hung in the air like glass over the dining room, fragile and liable to shatter at the first dismissive comment from his father. Sir Edward wouldn’t meet his eye. Instead he stared vacantly at something across the room, Colin and the newspaper all but forgotten.
Colin recalled the moment he’d first seen his father after coming home. The man who’d greeted him that day was a much older, more haggard version of the one who’d wished him well when he and Christian had left for France. Was it their money troubles that had caused the change, or Christian’s death?
Colin pushed out a sigh, anxious to leave the room. He was more likely to succeed at teaching Perseus how to speak than to come to any understanding with his father over the war and the ways it had changed the world.
“I have to go to London next week to select our new automobiles,” Sir Edward said, breaking the taunt silence. “Your friend may ride the train back with me on Thursday next.” Colin recognized the attempt at a truce, albeit a tenuous one.
“Thank you…sir. I’ll let him know.”
He stood, eager to get a reply off to Lyle, before he went to see Nora and her puppy. The memory of Nora’s delighted expression when he’d presented her with the little dog yesterday restored some of his good mood. As well as the recollection of her calling him a champion.
Good thing that table was between us, Colin thought as he pushed in his chair. Otherwise he might have given in to the overwhelming desire to kiss her soundly after her heartfelt speech regarding his good qualities.
“One thing more, Colin.” Sir Edward folded the paper and placed it on the table. “I have men contracted to start reconstruction on the old stables when I return from London. I’ve also narrowed down the hotel design to two possibilities. Either one should be lavish enough to attract interest, even here in Larksbeck.”
Colin wrapped his fingers around the back of his chair, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.
“How are you handling your part of the plan?” Sir Edward pinned him with a probing gaze.
“I’m getting to know her,” he answered simply.
He wouldn’t share how much he’d come to appreciate Nora’s friendship over the last six weeks. Or how much he thought about her during the day, or how he preferred her company to anyone else’s. If he admitted those things out loud, he feared he wouldn’t be able to go through with what was required of him.
“And?” Sir Edward prompted.
“What, Father?” Colin pasted an innocent expression on his face.
Sir Edward pounded the table with his fist, making the dishes rattle. So much for their truce. “I’m not ignorant of the amount of time you’ve been spending with that no-name orphan. And now all you can say for yourself is that you’ve gotten to know her?” He pointed a finger at Colin. “Everything is riding on your persuasion tactics. You know this.”
“Don’t forget the part about my marrying Lady Sophia,” Colin couldn’t help adding, his voice coated with sarcasm.
Sir Edward scowled. “This isn’t a game, Colin.”
No, it wasn’t. Colin knew that better than his father. He was the one playing with fire by befriending Nora with the intent to pull the rug out from under her when he convinced her to leave her farm…to leave him.
“I cannot build this hotel and bring tourists here without that property,” Sir Edward continued, but he no longer sounded angry. His voice denoted only weariness. “Even a well-placed marriage will only add a few more years to Elmthwaite’s survival if we don’t build the hotel.” His gaze found Colin’s. “Are you with me or not? I need to know, before I go to London.”
Releasing his viselike hold on the chair, Colin straightened. He wouldn’t go against his brother’s request or his father’s plans, even if he wished he could. “Go ahead with your trip and converting the stables. I will get the property. You have my word.”
It was the second time he’d given his promise to a member of his family. The words felt no less weighty today as they had when he’d said them to Christian before his death.
A rare half smile lifted the corner of Sir Edward’s mouth. “Very good. When can I expect to begin building the hotel?”
“I don’t think she’ll accept your offer to buy the farm until after the shearing and the selling of the male lambs next month. Once she sees the work involved and the moderate income, she might be more easily persuaded to give it up.” Remorse, scalding and thick, roiled through Colin at talking about Nora and her future with such detachment, but if he didn’t, he would fail.
Sir Edward steepled his hands and tapped them against his chin. “You have a point. We should still move forward, as you suggested, on the rest of the plan. Come the end of August, though, I expect your part to be tidily wrapped up.” His eyebrows rose in challenge.
“End of August,” Colin echoed with more conviction than he felt.
At least he had the promise of another six weeks with Nora, before she left. And leave she would. Once she learned about his treachery, she wasn’t likely to stay anywhere near Larksbeck.
He tried to picture his life the way it had been before Nora, but it was like trying to recall his life before the war. Both events had made deep impressions on him. The thought of continuing on here, without her, filled him with tangible pain. So he shied from it, telling himself he had time enough to settle into the idea once she was gone.
Sir Edward rose to his feet. “I’m counting on you, Colin.” With that he left the dining room.
His last words repeated through Colin’s head as he went to stand at one of the windows. The earlier sunlight was fast being blotted out by gray clouds. A noise at the servants’ door drew his attention and he turned. One of the maids—Bess’s daughter, if he remembered right—stuck her head around the door. Her cheeks flamed red when their eyes met.
“You can come in.” Colin waved her inside. With downcast gaze, she entered the dining room, a tray brandished in front of her like a sword.
“Sorry, sir,” she said in clipped tones. “I thought everyone had gone.”
“It’s fine. You can collect the dishes.”
“I tried to come get ’em earlier”—she punctuated her words with a great deal of clatter as she placed plates and platters onto her tray—“but you and Sir Edward were talking, see…” She shot him a penetrating look over her shoulder.
Had she overheard them talking about Nora? Colin frowned as he quickly reviewed the conversation in his head. He hadn’t mentioned Nora by name, so the maid wasn’t likely to know whom they’d been discussing.
“I apologize for delaying you,” he said with a smile and as much charm as he could muster at the moment.
She blushed again, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead she shook her head and continued with her task.
Colin exited the room and went to find Perseus outside. Despite the cloud cover, he and Nora might be able to squeeze in a walk before it rained. The thought cheered him, though he couldn’t quite shake the uneasiness in his gut that the maid understood far more than he suspected.
* * *
Nora sat back on her heels and surveyed the garden. How could so many weeds have sprung up, seemingly overnight? She’d been out here every day the last few weeks, plucking up the bothersome plants, and yet new ones seemed to shoot up hourly among the herbs and vegetables.
“It’s all this rain,” she murmured. “Makes the weeds and everything else grow faster than a wildfire back home.”
Phoebe barked in response and strained at the rope Nora had attached from the dog’s collar to the gate post.
“I know you want to explore…” Nora bent and plucked another weed from the soil. “But after last night, I need to keep you tied up, like Colin said.”
“What did I say?”
At the sound of Colin’s voice, a tremor of anticipation shot through Nora’s stomach. He’d come earlier than usual for their walk. Did that mean he wished to spend more time with her? She jerked at the weed between her fingers, ripping it out from its roots before tossing it away. If only she could eradicate her attraction to this man as easily.
“Morning.” Nora climbed to her feet, brushing dirt from her hands. Perseus ambled over to sniff Phoebe, then trotted off. The puppy ran after the bigger dog as far as her rope would allow before she began barking in protest at being left behind.
With a chuckle, Nora walked over to console her dog. Colin joined her and bent down to pet the struggling puppy. “You were right about her needing to be tied up.”
“Me? Right?” He shot her a mischievous smile.
It was a dangerous smile, one that always made her pulse sputter, as it did now. She focused her attention on the dog pawing at her knee. “She needed to go out in the middle of the night. But before I could get the rope on her, she charged outside.” Nora let Phoebe lick her hand. “Isn’t that right, girl?”
“Do you still wish to keep her? She isn’t too much trouble?”
“No.” She ruffled Phoebe’s soft ears. “She might be an imp, but I think she’s a perfectly wonderful imp.”
“You and me both, Phoebe,” Colin said, leaning back against the stone fence.
Nora chose to ignore his joke. Especially since he had that roguish look in his eyes. “You’ll never guess what happened, though. She got herself stuck in the stone fence, and when I got her out, I found a box. With Eleanor’s diary inside it.”
“It’s been out here this whole time? Bravo, Nora.” Phoebe barked, making Colin laugh. “My congratulations to you, too, Phoebe.”
Nora returned to the garden. “It’s been quite a fascinating read.” She set about tearing up weeds again. After a minute, Colin walked over.
“Are you going to tell me what it says?”
She squinted up at him. As usual he’d dressed in an immaculate suit and polished shoes. A rascally idea formed in her mind. “Are you as handy with weeding as you are with fixing my washing machine?”
“Much worse, I’m afraid.”
“Too bad.” She shrugged. “I’d be willing to tell you what I read, in exchange for some help weeding.”
“You’re serious?”
His incredulous tone nearly undid her feigned composure. “Yes.”
Nora continued to work, until the silence proved too much. She peeked over her shoulder to see Colin had removed his jacket and was now rolling up his sleeves.
He scowled when he caught her watching him. “All right, you win. Which ones are the weeds?”
She pointed to some of the offensive plants. “All the ones that look like those.”
He tore two up at once and flung them into her small pile at the edge of the garden, while grumbling something under his breath. Nora coughed to disguise the laugh rising in her throat.
“I’m almost halfway through the diary.”
“After one night?” Colin sounded impressed.
“I’ve wanted to know more about her for weeks, so I had to keep reading.” She scooted down the row of vegetables they were working on. “Apparently when she was sixteen, Eleanor fell in love with a young man who was seven years older than her. She doesn’t refer to him by name, though. She simply calls him E in her diary.”
“E? Why wouldn’t she write his name?”
“I’m not sure.” Nora tugged at a particularly stubborn weed. “They met at a dance in the village, and after that, they saw each other regularly, usually at a certain spot on the fell.”
“I can think of only a few men in Larksbeck whose names start with E.” Colin tossed more weeds on the pile. Was he working faster than her? Nora jerked at the obstinate weed and finally freed it. “There’s Ebenezer Snow, but he’s got to be sixty-five now—much older than Eleanor would’ve been. Then there’s Egbert Croxley.”
“What’s he like?”
“Large nose, dull as a post. But maybe he was livelier as a young man.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Eleanor said E was very handsome and amiable. Anyway, this morning I read about E going to London and how much Eleanor missed him.”
“London?” Colin rested one arm on his knee. “So he moved away?”
Nora had quickened her pace. She was nearly to the end of the row. “I don’t think so. Eleanor made it sound as though he’d be away only a few months. While he was gone, she became acquainted with a young man named Matthew. She wrote how he played the fiddle beautifully and was very kind.”
“She wrote out the other chap’s name, but not E’s?”
Nora nodded.
“An interesting mystery.”
“Ready to start on the next row?” She threw the remaining weeds into the grass bordering the garden.
“How many more weeds are there?”
“Too many. I need to ask Bess what she does to keep them out. What do you use over at Elmthwaite to get rid of the weeds?”
“The gardener.” Colin chuckled.
A strong desire to knock his arrogance down a rung or two filled Nora. She scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it at him, hitting him square in the chest. Colin’s jaw went slack as he stopped weeding and looked from her to his vest and the brown mess there.
“I think you missed the weed pile, Miss Lewis.”
A ripple of emotion ran through her at the low, husky quality of his voice. But she wouldn’t back down. She wanted to strip away the pretense and cynicism Colin constantly hid behind to the man he truly was, the man she glimpsed for a few moments now and then.
“Did I?” she countered.
The roguish look returned to his eyes, deepening their color to ebony, as he threw a handful of dirt back at her. The soil alighted in Nora’s hair and collar. She paused long enough to brush away the granules near her mouth before tossing more dirt at Colin. This time she hit him square in the side of the head. She tried to stop the laugh threatening to escape her lips at how ungentlemanly he looked, but the laughter won out.
With a growl, Colin pummeled her with more soil. Nora ducked as best she could, then scrambled to her knees to get a better throwing position. Dirt flew back and forth through the air between them. Beyond the garden, Phoebe barked incessantly at their game.
Nora didn’t realize Colin had been slowly inching his way closer with each throw until his hand seized one of her wrists. She couldn’t stop laughing, even though her sides hurt. When was the last time she’d felt this alive or carefree?
“Do you surrender?” He kept his gaze locked on hers.
“Never.” She managed to sprinkle a bit more dirt into his hair. His face was mere inches from hers, close enough she could spot the individual particles of soil on his jaw. A boyish grin lit up his entire countenance.
“A truce, then?” Colin brushed some of the dirt from her cheek, his touch sending a shiver up her spine. Especially when his finger trailed her face to her upper lip and stayed there for several heartbeats.
“What are the terms?” Nora asked, hating the breathlessness in her voice. Could he hear the pounding of her heart? Would he request a kiss from her?
“I propose a rest.”
“A rest?” She blinked in confusion.
“A rest from this war with the weeds.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Which you are losing, I’m afraid.”
Without waiting for her answer, he pulled her down beside him as he sprawled on his back in the garden. Nora took a minute to catch her breath. Colin hadn’t yet released her hand.
“You’re ruining my plants.” It was a halfhearted complaint, which he must have sensed.
“Yes, but I’m crushing the weeds, too.”
She giggled as she stared up at the clouds trailing across the sky. A comfortable, friendly silence settled over them. Even Phoebe had stopped making noise. Colin let go of her hand, but he kept his fingers resting against hers so she felt the warmth of them against her skin.
A swell of gratitude filled her for his friendship. Working with him, teasing him—it was a nice way to spend a morning. Then why the lingering feeling of disappointment?
Because he didn’t kiss you.
She’d expected him to and he hadn’t—and this time, she realized with a start, she would have let him. That thought made her tremble with cold, despite the pleasant temperature. She couldn’t fall in love with him—she wouldn’t. For Tom’s sake, but more important, for her own.
To prove her resolve, Nora scooted to the side, putting a few inches of distance between them. Immediately her right side felt bereft without his warmth. She stayed where she was, though, until she could sit up and smile at Colin with nothing but affability in the gesture.
Whatever happened, Colin Ashby would not overtake her heart.