Early morning sunshine cut through the draperies, casting a shadow beyond Miss Tilbury’s rigid stance. “I trust I am not inconveniencing you greatly, my lord, by requesting this moment alone.”
“Hardly. How can I be of service?”
“In that, you can no longer assist me. There is nothing you might do for me at all.”
“Oh?”
“You saved my life, Lord Sedgewick, and I shall not soon forget the sacrifice involved in such a feat. Indeed, I was foolish enough to imagine your heroism and my father’s wishes would all result in a very pleasant ending.” She turned. “This past evening rather dashed the last of my hopes.”
He stiffened at her tone but did not speak.
“I heard some rather—shall we say?—scandalous tales concerning your past. As you know, I cannot jeopardize my own reputation by remaining in this home a moment longer, nor would I have come in the first place had I known.”
Anger stirred. “Very well. I shall have a servant escort you to Northston.”
“How soon?”
“As soon as you wish.”
She nodded curtly. “I hope to spare all of this from my father. He has a rather odd respect for you, and I am hesitant to dash his good opinion.”
Henry frowned.
“Good day.” Miss Tilbury went for the door, but she paused before she left. “Oh, and my lord?”
“I shall also try to discourage my father’s anticipations for a betrothal. Even if your character hadn’t been tainted, his wishes would have been in vain.”
“How so?”
Her voice hardened, though accompanied by a thin smile, “You are quite in love with another woman.”
What could the alphabet—or even the Latin alphabet—have in comparison to grass and sunshine?
Ella could only endure studies and books for so long.
“A walk?” Peter echoed her, accepting the cap she offered.
“Yes, indeed. Unless you should rather complete your studies first.”
“Oh no, Miss Woodhart. I shouldn’t like to do that.” Peter took her hand as they made their way out of doors, where a late morning gust rushed through the grasses and stirred the trees. They followed the road until the heights of Wyckhorn grew smaller in the distance.
“Miss Woodhart?”
“Yes?”
“I can run very fast.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” He swung her hand. “Do you want to see?”
“Then I shall have to walk all alone.”
“But I will come back for you. Please?”
Ella tugged loose her hand. “To save you a bit of steps, I might just run alongside you.”
His eyes widened. “You?”
“You do not think me capable?”
“But your dress—”
“Oh, Peter! All ladies are not made of porcelain.” Before he could respond—and grabbing a fistful of fabric—Ella darted ahead of him.
She heard a thrilling shout, a laugh, then the pounding of little feet chasing after her.
Her speed increased. One by one, the curls of her hair unraveled, falling free … disgraceful. It didn’t matter. Who would possibly know? She could amend the mess before her return to Wyckhorn, and no one would be the wiser.
What would Lord Sedgewick think of such a thing? Would he glance upon her as disapprovingly as her mother always did? Would he—
“Miss Woodhart!”
She slowed at the crest of the hill, chest heaving. “Can you not catch up, then, Peter?”
“Your hair!” Glee filled his laughter and brightened his eyes. “It’s all falling down!”
“So it is.” She glanced at a group of rocks alongside the road. “Let’s sit a moment and I shall remedy my disarray.”
They plopped down on warm stone seats, where a view of the sea stretched out below.
Ella wound her hair back in place as Peter reached out and stroked a curl.
“It’s so pretty,” he said. “And long.”
“Which can be a vexation at times.” Ella smiled. “Be grateful you are of the male persuasion.”
“Male persuasion?”
“A boy,” she supplied. She glanced back to the road—
Ewan.
“What is it, Miss Woodhart?”
She came to her feet, perspiration trickling down her temples. She groped for Peter’s hand. “We had better hurry home.”
“But our walk—”
“Will be resumed later.”
He was close enough now to hear them. Close enough that a few short steps would cover the distance. Dark hair was messed across a pale forehead, but he made no move to brush it from his eyes. “Miss Woodhart.”
He knew her name?
Her fingers clamped tighter on Peter’s hand. She forced a nod. “Sir.”
“Taking a stroll?”
“Yes,” Peter answered. “And Miss Woodhart ran with me because she is not made of porcelain. And her hair even fell down.”
He blinked. Liquid, hazy eyes drifted to her hair, lingering, lingering, lingering …
“Come, Peter. We must return.” She pulled him forward and tromped through the grass. Couldn’t walk on the road. Couldn’t get that close to him.
“Lucy?”
She froze. Tears surfaced.
“That is not my name, sir.”
“If only it were.” He said nothing else, and Ella rushed Peter away.
She glanced back only once, but the road was already empty.
Ewan was gone.
Henry knew the moment they returned. Their voices drifted through the walls, followed by his son’s laughter and the closing of the large door.
“You had better go upstairs,” she said, “and change into a clean suit.”
“I will.” Peter’s strapped slippers echoed as they darted across the marble floors and up the stairs.
Henry emerged and met her at the base of the steps. One glance at her and he couldn’t control his smile. “If Peter looks half as unkempt as you, no wonder he was instructed to change.”
Her lips remained flat. “You may laugh all you wish.”
“I am not laughing.”
“Not everyone is content to live their lives in a cage, my lord. You and my mother and all the peerage in England may forever argue your cause, but I shall not be persuaded—”
“Persuaded of what, pray?”
A curl fell across her forehead. “Oh, never mind.” She started past him.
He caught her elbow before she could ascend the steps. “You may be a bit presumptuous, Miss Woodhart, and may lack certain habits of good etiquette.” His voice lowered. “But in dancing, you exceed many—and in loveliness, I have known no equal.”
Color flooded her cheeks. Her eyes dropped to his hand, then back to his eyes, but she didn’t pull away. “Was that Miss Tilbury in the carriage?”
“Yes.”
“A hasty departure, is it not?”
“Seems she feared for her reputation.”
“By staying?”
He shrugged.
With eyes a strange delight of compassion and amusement, she nodded. “I admit to surprise,” she whispered, “as I did not think Miss Tilbury to yield when something so desired was at stake.”
“I believe she has the battle proficiencies of her father in knowing when to retreat.”
“Were her efforts so very futile, my lord?”
His heart hitched with the strange wish that she could care. “Entirely.” His fingers released her, but even when she’d ascended the stairs and left him alone, his soul still rejoiced from the touch.
Miss Tilbury’s words had been in truth.
The tap on her door came softly.
She didn’t move. Dinner had already come and passed. No one would disturb her now, not at this time of evening unless Ewan—
“Miss Woodhart?”
A pause, a breath. “Lord Sedgewick?”
“Yes, may I speak with you a moment?”
She snapped shut the Bible and slid it under her bed, unwilling for him to see she’d been reading. It would only give him hope that could prove to be false.
She opened the door.
He stood in a green frock coat and tan pantaloons, with his beaver hat twisting in his hands. “I hope I am not disturbing you.”
“No.” She had not seen him since the day before when he’d spoken to her at the stairs. Peculiar, how such a short time could seem so lengthy. “No,” she said again. “You are not disturbing me.”
He didn’t speak, only looked at her. She sensed something, a vulnerability in his expression, as if the words he hunted for did not come without pain. “You were right in one point yesterday,” he said finally, “and most wrong in another.”
She waited.
“Not everyone cares to live in a cage.”
“And the point to which I was wrong?”
“I cannot be categorized with your mother, nor all the peerage in England.” A smile broke through his hesitancy. “Would you join me in a ride?”
A thrill passed through her. “Now?”
“It is late, I know, but I shall not keep you long.”
“Give me but a moment and I shall change.”
“Splendid.” He offered a bow. “I shall prepare our mounts.”
Until now, he had been faultless. He had asked for nothing, sought for nothing—and if his soul was tempted, it was only because temptation lingered so close. The same breakfast table, the same ballroom, the same house. He could not have escaped her if he’d wanted to.
Which he didn’t.
And that is my downfall. Henry swung her saddle atop a gentle roan, tightened the cinch with hands that shook. What am I doing?
He was falling of his own choice. He had gone to her chamber and asked her, just as any other gentleman might have asked a woman to court. Any consequences now were self-inflicted.
“She is lovely.”
His nerves swirled at the sound of her. “He, actually.”
“Pardon?”
“The horse.” He turned. “His name is Alphonse.”
“A French name.” She followed him from the stables, then allowed him to swing her atop the animal. “Much more inventive than Miss Staverley.”
“Yes, well”—he swung atop his own horse—”Miss Staverley has never said much in way of complaint.” Instead of following the road, he took the lead down a steeper, grassy path.
The farther they trotted away, the quieter the earth became, as if all of nature conspired to give them a moment of peace.
I want to love her.
Could he? Did he know how? He’d never loved a woman in his life. His governess had administered discipline in place of kindness. His mother had only visited him sparingly, and then she had left. Even his own wife had been little more than a stranger to him.
But he wanted to love.
Hardly mattered that she was a governess. Rumormongers had already hung his neck with a rope and left him to dangle. What did it matter now what they said?
Doesn’t matter. Softness crept into all the places so long empty, so long cold. Doesn’t matter at all.
Because if there was a chance for happiness, for the first time in his life, he was willing to pursue it.
Warm evening air bathed her face and rippled through her muslin skirt. Countryside spread out before them, green and rolling, as lovely as the wall murals back at Abbingston Hall. An orange, hazy sun dipped lower on the horizon. Was that a faint scent of salt she could still catch in the breeze?
She took great care with her reins. Not too close, yet near enough that she could study the frame of his shoulders, the way his hair curled at his neck. A knot bobbed in her throat.
He had been silent for the entirety of the ride. If he had no desire to speak to her, why had he brought her along?
She couldn’t speak either. How had it come to this? Strange, unsettling emotions she wanted no part of—yet they chased her so hard she began to need them. Need him.
Alphonse threw his head with a snort. His ears flicked.
“Whoa, boy.”
Lord Sedgewick turned in his saddle. “Hold him—”
The animal reared.
No. Ella jerked the reins, but her body was already losing contact.
Arms grabbed her from behind, pulling her into another saddle, against a hard chest. “Whoa, there.” His voice in her ear, even as he reached over and grasped Alphonse’s reins. “It’s all right.”
She wasn’t certain if his comforts were meant for the horse or her, but her fear melted. In his arms. She tried not to think of it, to bask in such a thought.
Just as quickly, he lowered her to the ground. “An adder.” He pointed to the bushes, where a brown snake slithered safely from the threat of pounding hooves. “I should have noticed.”
“Even now, he is hardly distinguishable in the grass.” Ella smoothed back her flyaway curls. “You cannot be faulted.”
He dismounted and tied both horses to the branch of a sea buckthorn. Then he stood before her, as close as he’d been when they danced. “We shall wait for Alphonse to regain his wits.”
“He is quite out of sorts, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Deep, careful eyes stared into her. She saw Peter in their depths—the same real, unfeigned love.
Love? No, that couldn’t be. To gain the love of one so noble, one so brave, would be unthinkable.
“You were not frightened, were you, Miss Woodhart?”
Yes, she’d been frightened—but it had lasted only as long as it took him to rush to her rescue. Miss Tilbury could not be faulted in her endeavors. To be saved by such a man was no small honor.
His hands framed her cheeks.
My lord. Warm, beautiful emotions danced within.
“Were you?” Whispered this time. His thumbs stroked her cheeks.
“No.” How tender was his touch, as if he’d never cherished anything more in his life. Maybe he hadn’t. “If one ventures to live life outside of a cage, one must expect a bit of peril.” Her heart sped. “But in all peril, there can always be found a bit of comfort.”
A vein bulged in his forehead, then tears shimmered in his eyes. She wasn’t certain what she’d said, but in the end, it only made him smile. “More than a bit, I daresay.” He leaned forward, pressed warm lips against her cheek. Even when he withdrew and helped her back atop her horse, he did not say another word.
They returned to Wyckhorn Manor, where the evening had turned to twilight, and the sea made low roars in the distance.
Lord Sedgewick escorted her to the door. He smiled, tipped his hat, then took the horses back to the stables in a silence she was beginning to love.
The thought was surreal, intangible, even when he held the diary in his hands. He read the words again. Would to heaven the truth could become real to him.
Henry’s son. Ewan pressed his fingers into his eyelids, massaging, comforting. Henry’s son is mine … my son. He ripped the paper from the diary. Hated to destroy something Lucy had treasured, but if he could slip such a paper under his brother’s chamber door …
Oh, his face. The anguish, the grief of knowing. Would Henry weep at the knowledge? Would it alter his love for the child?
No, not Henry. He would do anything he could to conceal such a secret. He would destroy the paper and keep the truth from ever reaching Peter’s ears. No one would ever know.
Cannot happen. Ewan returned the paper to the diary. Peter is mine and I shall have him.
How?
The child was seldom alone. There would be little chance of stealing him away from Wyckhorn’s walls without the nanny or governess interfering—unless, perhaps, at night.
Lucy, Lucy. Ewan sprang to his feet and hugged his arms. He paced about the room, following the walls, pausing at every corner. Lucy, what do I do?
Perhaps this was his chance. He had wanted to kill Henry for what he’d done, for how he’d harmed her. But would leaving his brother alive be a greater affliction? Henry would have no one left without a son.
Yes, yes, no one left. Just as Henry had done to Ewan. Now he’d feel the pain himself. He’d know what it was like to want to die, to try to die, to live to die.
Almost here, Lucy. Ewan’s lips curved in a trembling smile. Just a little while longer before the man who killed you suffers.