Laura stole another glance at Mr. Archer as she walked beside him down the path that led to the Edgington Park wilderness garden. He looked different than he had before. Not only was he dry—with his suit freshly pressed and his dark hair combed into meticulous order—but he appeared to have shaved, as well.

And the scent of him…

Her stomach performed a queer little somersault.

He smelled of polished leather and lightly starched linen. Of bergamot and spices and clean male skin.

At Talbot’s Pond, she’d thought him handsome. Now, she thought him something rather more than that. He was dashing, was what he was. The kind of loose-limbed, devil-may-care hero who graced the pages of penny novels, fighting off evildoers and rescuing damsels in distress.

George Wright looked rather insipid in comparison.

He walked ahead of them with Henrietta on his arm, paying her every solicitude, just as he had in the Edgington Park drawing room during tea.

Laura wondered what Henrietta would think if she knew how improperly her golden-haired lad had behaved on his last visit home? It had certainly come as a shock to Laura. Until then, she’d thought George was her friend. She’d even cherished hopes that he felt something more toward her. That he might, in fact, be on the verge of proposing marriage.

More fool her.

She hadn’t told anyone about George’s shameful proposition. Not Henrietta, not the vicar, and certainly not Aunt Charlotte. It would only have upset them—and the delicate equilibrium of the village. No one who had known George in his youth would have believed him capable of such behavior. It would have been Laura who was blamed for his rashness. Laura who was ostracized from the small corner of society she’d managed to cultivate in Lower Hawley.

In the end, she’d dealt with the matter all on her own. Just as she dealt with every problem that came her way. She hadn’t the luxury of a champion. In the absence of one, she’d learned to champion herself.

“Have you known Miss Talbot and Mr. Wright very long?” Mr. Archer asked.

She resumed looking ahead. George and Henrietta were whispering together, sharing secrets as they often used to do. “Since we were children.”

“You grew up together?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Laura hesitated before asking, “What about you, sir?” Tea had been a brief affair, dominated by George’s tales of his travels. And by Henrietta, who had clucked over Laura more intensely than was usual. There had been little chance to learn anything about Mr. Archer. “How long have you known Mr. Wright?”

“A year, or thereabouts.”

“He’s never brought a friend home with him before.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “I’ve often suspected that the friends he was making during his travels weren’t the sort to merit an introduction to the residents of Lower Hawley. Certainly not to his father.”

“You wonder that he’s found me worthy of the privilege.”

“No, but it is rather curious. It makes me question just what sort of friend you are to him.”

He flashed her a wry look. “I might ask you the same, Miss Hayes.”

A surge of embarrassment caught her unaware. “You haven’t told him, have you?”

The glint of humor in Mr. Archer’s gray eyes disappeared. Perhaps it had never been there. “Told him what?”

“About our encounter in Talbot’s Wood this morning.”

“Ah. That.” He paused. “Should I have?”

“Not if you value your freedom.” She explained, “It’s just the sort of thing that would give rise to gossip. The locals hereabouts love nothing more than spinning harmless interactions into scandals. One word, and they’ll have us standing up in front of the vicar.”

“Is that all it takes in Lower Hawley?”

“I fear it is.”

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “I shall keep that in mind.”

The fine hairs on the back of Laura’s neck stood up. She cast a discreet glance from Mr. Archer to Henrietta and back again. He wasn’t obvious in his admiration for her friend. He didn’t stare at her unduly or insinuate himself into her conversation with George. But during tea, Laura had more than once observed Mr. Archer look at Henrietta in a cold and faintly calculating manner.

Was that why such a man as he had come to their village? Not as the hero of the story, but as the villain?

There was certainly something dangerous about him. Something hard and predatory. It was part of what made him so thrillingly handsome. That edge of subtle menace. Rather like a feral wolf.

Was he hunting in Lower Hawley?

Her mouth pressed into a frown. She didn’t know Mr. Archer. Even so, she’d thought better of him. He’d seemed different somehow. A rare and mysterious creature in their midst.

But he wasn’t different at all. He was—if her instincts were correct—nothing more than a garden-variety fortune hunter.

She’d seen enough of them over the years. Gentlemen in reduced circumstances who came to pay court to Henrietta and her inheritance. They were the impoverished nephews and second cousins of the county gentry. Men who were ill-equipped to snare a wealthy wife on the London marriage mart, and who believed they’d have better odds with a vulnerable country heiress.

Henrietta had always dispatched such predatory gentleman with ruthless efficiency. She was certain to extend the same courtesy to Mr. Archer once she realized what he was up to.

Or so Laura hoped.

“Do you have a profession, Mr. Archer?” she asked.

He was silent for a long moment, the fall of his boots on the hard-packed earth the only sound as they entered the wilderness garden. “Are you asking me if I work for a living?”

The path narrowed, curving through trees that bowed inward into an arch, providing a leafy canopy against the blazing afternoon sunshine. “Do you?”

“I’m not obliged to.”

“You’re a gentleman of independent means?”

“I’m a gentleman,” he said. “A gentleman doesn’t soil his hands with labor, Miss Hayes. Independent means or no.”

The path grew narrower still, necessitating that she walk even closer to his side. It was entirely by design. Henrietta had once confessed that the landscape artist her father had employed so many years before had dreamed up the wilderness garden at Edgington Park as a trysting place for lovers. Every step through the trees brought one closer to the object of their affection.

Laura wished that Henrietta had chosen somewhere else for their walk. Through the rose garden, perhaps. Or along the drive that led down to the village. Anything other than the intimacy of the wilderness garden path. With every brush of her full linen skirts against Mr. Archer’s trouser-clad leg, Laura’s heart beat a little more erratically.

“An outdated precept,” she replied.

“You believe so?”

“Wholeheartedly. It’s been the ruination of many gentlemen who might have otherwise saved themselves, and their families, from ruin.”

“You speak with some authority on the subject.”

“I do. My father was such a one.”

Mr. Archer’s expression sobered. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize—”

“I’m not ashamed to own it. Had he exerted himself…” Laura couldn’t bring herself to finish.

The truth was, if Papa had exerted himself, it wouldn’t have changed anything in the end. He’d still have died and left them all. But perhaps there might have been some money to soften the blow of his loss. Some value left in the Hayes’s name.

“What I mean to say,” she continued, “is that a gentleman shouldn’t refuse to work merely because he’s a gentleman. The idea is as foolish as a man who can swim refusing to save himself from drowning. What does pride matter if the alternative is death or ruination?”

“Did your father leave you in very straitened circumstances?” Mr. Archer asked. “Or is that too impertinent a question?”

It was an impertinent question. As a rule, one’s personal finances were never discussed in polite company. It simply wasn’t done.

But she’d been the one to broach the subject.

She supposed it was a consequence of how they’d met. Much like the darkening wilderness walk, it gave the illusion of intimacy to their conversation. As if the two of them were acquaintances of long standing.

“We’re not in straitened circumstances,” she said. Her conscience gave a sharp pang of protest at the falsehood. “That is, not entirely.”

There was no point dissembling. He’d seen her in her twice-mended underthings, for pity’s sake. She nevertheless couldn’t shake the last remnants of her pride.

“For a time, my family was quite well known in the world of fragrance. Perhaps you’ve heard of Hayes’s Lavender Soap? Or Hayes’s Lavender-Scented Powder?”

Mr. Archer gazed down at her, the whole of his attention fixed on her face. “I can’t say that I have.”

“What about Hayes’s Lavender Water? It was in all the shops four years ago. A purely respectable fragrance. You might have given some to your mother once—or to a sweetheart.”

“The sweethearts I had four years ago weren’t the sort to wear respectable fragrances. As for my mother…”

“Let me guess. You’ve never given her such a frivolous gift.”

“I might if I’d ever known her.”

She inwardly flinched. Good heavens. His mother was dead. Long dead, if Laura inferred correctly. She met his eyes, thoroughly chastened. “Now it is I who must beg your forgiveness.”

Mr. Archer returned her gaze without animosity. “Freely given.”

“I lost my mother at a young age, too,” she said.

“Did you?”

“She succumbed to a wasting disease when I was but six years old. I don’t remember much about her, except…I know that she loved the water. She was the one who taught me to swim.”

“A pleasant memory.”

“You must have some of your own.”

“Not a solitary one.” They walked several steps in silence before he spoke again. “Was your father a perfumer, then?”

“He didn’t call himself such. He considered it only a hobby. But we had a factory in London, and a distillery in France. They’re shuttered now, but once…”

“What happened?”

“He grew bored with lavender products. He was set on trying something new. Fashionable perfumes, made with exotic spices and animal oils—musk and so forth. He sank all of his capital into the venture. Regrettably, it didn’t have the same mass appeal as lavender water.”

“And that was enough to ruin him?”

“Not on its own. Had he lived, he might have rallied. But a year later, an outbreak of scarlet fever came to Lower Hawley. Papa was gone within a day. I nearly lost my brother, as well.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Yes, it was a very dark time. I still think of it often, wishing things had transpired differently. A futile exercise.”

“It’s a miracle you didn’t contract the fever yourself.”

“Oh, but I did, Mr. Archer. Indeed, it tried very hard to take me, too.” Her mouth lifted in a fleeting smile. “I was simply too stubborn to let it.”

Alex returned Miss Hayes’s brief smile with a faint one of his own. Farther down the path, George and Miss Talbot walked arm in arm. When they’d set out, Alex had fully intended to accompany Miss Talbot himself. George had seemed agreeable to the idea. But as they’d descended the steps from the house, Miss Talbot had caught George’s arm. After that, George had made no effort to extricate himself.

In any other circumstances, Alex would have been angry. He had only a month, after all. Not nearly enough time to achieve his ends. Every minute counted. Every second.

But he wasn’t angry.

He was—much to his astonishment—scarcely thinking of George Wright or Henrietta Talbot at all.

“Is that why you were strengthening your lungs in Talbot’s Pond?” he asked, gazing down at Miss Hayes’s face.

A blush tinted her cheeks.

No doubt she was thinking of how he’d pulled her scantily clad form from the water. He couldn’t help but think of it, too. Not only for the pleasurable memories it conjured, but for those that were decidedly less so.

He hadn’t been in the water—physically in the water—in ages. He’d been on boats, of course. The steamers to France, and the rowboats that paddled him to and from the shore. But he hadn’t held his breath and dived beneath the waves. Not since that unfortunate day in North Devon so many years ago.

Granted, Talbot’s Pond wasn’t the raging sea. It wasn’t even very impressive in terms of woodland ponds. But as he’d crashed below the surface, a host of images had flooded his brain. He hadn’t been prepared for them. Hadn’t wanted them.

It was the past.

A past he preferred to forget.

“Partly,” Miss Hayes said. “My lungs were a little weak after the fever.”

“And now?”

“I’m much stronger. Strong enough that I hope, one day soon—” She broke off, her ebony brows knitting.

He gave a short laugh. “Oh no, you can’t stop there.”

“Can’t I?”

“And leave me in suspense?”

“It’s foolish, really.” Her expression turned rueful. “What I hope—what I dream of—is that one day I shall be able to swim in the sea.”

The good humor Alex had felt only seconds before evaporated into the ether. “That’s your dream? To go swimming?”

“In the sea, yes.” She folded her arms, seeming to rest them on the swell of her skirts. “You don’t care for the water, I take it.”

He focused his attention on the narrow path as it meandered through the wood. “How do you come by that conclusion?”

“After you pulled me out of the pond, you were distraught.”

“Hardly.”

“You were,” she insisted. “Don’t deny it.”

He inhaled an unsteady breath. It was dark and cool in the wilderness garden, the sun through the branches creating a mosaic of shifting shadows that played on the boulders that lined the path—and on the face of the lady at his side. It was the closest thing to intimacy, this brief moment of darkness in the middle of the blazing afternoon.

“When I was a boy,” he said in a gruff voice, “I rescued a friend from drowning. It was a very near thing—for the both of us. It’s not the sort of experience one easily forgets.”

Miss Hayes’s expression softened. “Was your friend in a pond, as I was?”

“He was in the sea. Deep beneath the waves.”

She searched his face. “And ever since you’ve gone about rescuing people, have you?”

He removed his tall beaver hat to run a hand over his hair. “Not in a long while.”

Rather the opposite, in fact.

During his years on the continent, it had been his business to lure unsuspecting gamblers like George out into deep water. It was how Alex made his living. Thousands of pounds wagered on the turn of a card. He had an innate skill for gaming. A cool-headedness that served him well under the most strenuous circumstances. It enabled him to win far more than he lost. And win he did—often substantially.

But no more. Not if his plans for Miss Talbot came to fruition.

He was done with cards. Done with a life of rootless wandering. At long last, it was time to settle down. He couldn’t permit himself to be distracted.

And Miss Hayes was distracting.

So much so that, in the seconds before he’d taken his leave of her at the pond, he’d felt the unholy urge to take her in his arms and kiss her. An emotional aftereffect of diving into the pond, no doubt. A brief desire for warmth. For human connection.

Fortunately, good sense had prevailed.

If there was any warmth to be enjoyed, he must find it with Henrietta Talbot. And he would. On that he was determined.

“Not until today,” Miss Hayes said. “When you attempted to rescue me.”

He cast her a humorless glance. “Attempted being the operative word.”

“I told you I was in no danger. And even if I had been—” She gave a dismissive shrug. “I can take care of myself.”

“So I observed.” From the little he’d seen of her thus far, Miss Hayes seemed a capable sort of female. One who might well disrupt his plans if given half the chance. “Does Miss Talbot often employ you as her chaperone?”

She looked up at him, frowning. “Why do you ask?”

Before Alex could form an answer, Miss Talbot called to them over her shoulder. “Don’t dawdle! My wishing bridge is just up ahead.”

George flashed him an apologetic glance. He and Miss Talbot had outpaced Alex and Miss Hayes by several yards. A few yards more and they would leave the canopy of branches behind and step out into the sunlight.

“We’re right behind you!” Miss Hayes called back. As the others continued ahead, she lowered her voice. “Squire Talbot is complacent about many things, but his daughter’s reputation isn’t one of them.”

Alex settled his hat back on his head. “Why is it that I get the distinct impression that you’re warning me off?”

“Perhaps I am.”

The sun filtered through the leaves, hotter and brighter, as the branches opened once more to the blue summer sky. Ahead of them, a small wooden bridge crossed a man-made waterway, its shallow bed littered with smooth river stones and the odd glint of coins.

The wishing bridge, as Miss Talbot had described it during tea. Her wishing bridge.

Alex had thought it childish then, and even more so now. He preferred the darkness of the woods to the unforgiving light of day. And as for wishes—

Well.

They’d never done him much good, had they?

Miss Hayes looked up at him from beneath the brim of her straw hat. “You’re a stranger here, Mr. Archer. Surely you didn’t expect to be left alone with Miss Talbot unsupervised?”

He had, actually. George had promised him unfettered access. It was one of the benefits of Miss Talbot being his childhood friend. There would be no chaperones. No strictly surveilled visits. “I understood the rules to be more lenient in the country.”

“As compared to where?”

“London, during the season.”

“I can’t speak to that,” she said. “I’ve never had a season. But I can assure you, sir, in Lower Hawley, a lady of Miss Talbot’s standing is never left unprotected. She may not have a mother, or a female relation in residence at the Park, but there are plenty of others who keep a watchful eye.”

“Such as yourself.”

Her chin lifted a fraction. “Such as myself.”

Alex was torn between warring feelings of admiration and annoyance. Miss Hayes was throwing down the gauntlet. And not to protect her own honor, but to protect that of her friend. A friend who had treated her with grating condescension since the moment of her arrival. A friend who hadn’t even bothered to send a proper carriage to collect her.

“Ah. I see,” he said. “You’ve appointed yourself her guardian as well as her chaperone.”

“Nothing of the sort. I don’t like to see any lady taken advantage of by a—”

“By a what?” He looked down at her, a flare of anger taking him unaware.

She gazed steadily back at him. “You know what you are better than I do, Mr. Archer.”

His chest tightened. He had the sudden sense that she could see straight through his fine clothes—straight through his gentlemanly accents and bearing—to the yawning hole of emptiness that lay beneath. For an instant, he felt stripped bare. Utterly defenseless. Just as he had as a boy.

It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

“Indeed, Miss Hayes. And knowing that, may I tender you a piece of advice?”

Her brows lifted in question.

“Stay out of my way, ma’am,” he said.

Her smoke-blue eyes kindled at his words. “Or what, sir?”

He bent his head close to hers, sinking his voice to a mocking undertone. “Or the next time I encounter you, alone in a secluded wood, I won’t treat you with as much gentlemanly forbearance as I exercised this morning.”