The following morning, Hedley walked to Fallow Hall. Loping along the path toward her was Boris. He eagerly greeted her with a woof and a vigorous tail wag. Adjusting the parcel in her grasp, she gave him a good scratch behind his ears.
The charmer looked up at her with soulful eyes and his tongue lolling, in apparent bliss. “All right, you sly matchmaker,” she said. “If Calliope is right, then you’ll take me directly to either Lucan or Rafe. It doesn’t matter which, as long as I can return this parcel. So lead on.”
Boris licked the side of her hand before turning off the footpath. With one more woof, he looked back over his shoulder.
Since the day was bright and green, with new shoots of grass and small flowers sprouting up everywhere, and she had no pressing matters, she followed. Today, she treated herself to wearing one of the dresses that Calliope had sent over yesterday afternoon. The pale pink muslin was light and airy but not threadbare. The tapered style, however, did not allow for longer strides but demure steps instead. Therefore, she’d altered the hem, adding extra piping in vertical segments to accommodate her customary gait.
Along the walk, white- and pink-blossomed trees dotted the line at the edge of the wood that bordered the two estates. Boris’s ambling took them past Fallow Hall and then the stable yard.
A narrow path through a blooming orchard kept her too near the fence for her liking. Even though the wooden fence looked to be in good order, she wasn’t certain if it was high enough. She would feel much better if it was built with stone and was as tall as a castle’s keep. Beside her, she heard the unmistakable hollow thumps of a horse’s canter. Clutching her parcel, she kept her gaze straight ahead and continued to follow Boris. Yet even then, she was fully aware of the dark shadow that appeared in her peripheral vision and the slowed hoofbeats on the paddock.
Her pulse quickened. She could feel the horse drawing near to the edge of the fence. On the other side of her, low branches kept her from skirting farther away. She walked faster. The horse matched her pace. When she slowed, peculiarly the horse slowed too.
Shaking her head, an incredulous laugh escaped her. “Is that you, Frit?”
A low whicker was the response.
Rafe had warned her that she’d made a friend for life after feeding Frit that apple. Did she dare turn and face the animal?
She stopped and held her breath. After a moment’s deliberation, she turned.
Indeed, it was Frit. He lifted his head in a way that caused his dark forelock to brush against the white speckled blaze over his nose. She hadn’t taken any time before to acknowledge that he was actually a very pretty horse. If one were inclined to like such beasts. She still wasn’t sure.
“I don’t have an apple,” she told him, wondering if that was the reason behind his interest.
He whickered again and tossed his mane with a flick of his head. His round, dark eyes stayed with her, as if he was waiting for something.
“I don’t know how to whistle either.” Though she gave it another go for good measure. Nope. Nothing but air. Then, with a speculative glance at her companion, she decided to hum the tune that Rafe had whistled the other day.
To her surprise, Frit bent one foreleg and bowed to her.
Enchanted, Hedley smiled. And before she even knew what she was doing, she stepped to the fence and lifted her hand. In the next instant, his nose was nestled up against it.
A moment of shocked stillness followed. And then, dumbfounded and amazed, she stroked him. His coat was smooth and soft beneath her fingers. She couldn’t believe what she was doing. Not only that, but she wasn’t shaking the slightest bit.
“Do you want to know a secret?”
Frit snuffed her with his nostrils in response, his long eyelashes drifting down.
“Out of all the horses in the entire world, I like you best.”
Soon after, she was on her way again, Boris ahead of her. He’d stopped at the stable yard too, and she wondered if he’d been just as surprised by her actions as she was. She couldn’t wait to tell Rafe. But wait . . . wasn’t she irritated with him?
That’s right. I am, she thought, suddenly remembering her purpose for coming all this way. After all, she couldn’t let Rafe continue to believe she had no say in her own fate.
Gradually the path opened into a clearing. A stone hut stood in the center, smoke billowing from the chimney.
Her steps slowed. Was this a crofter’s cottage? She certainly didn’t want to disturb the caretaker of the estate. Perhaps she should have been more specific in her instructions.
Boris turned around and sat, staring at her. Then, in the next instant, he tilted his head back and released a howl, loud enough to startle flocks of birds from their nests.
“I never let anyone watch me work and that includes you, Boris,” Rafe’s voice called from inside the cottage.
Boris looked at her, and she could have sworn that the flesh above his left eye arched as if in answer to her challenge.
Hedley walked over to the rough-hewed door and gave it solid knock. “I’m not here to bother you. I’m just leaving a parcel behind. Forget I was ever here.”
By the time she turned around and took two steps away from cottage, the door opened behind her, banging against the stone façade. She resisted the urge to stop and turn around but kept walking. A clean break. It was better this way.
“Hedley?”
She lifted a hand. “I didn’t see a thing. Your secret work is safe.”
“Hedley,” Rafe growled. “Come back here.”
Then again, perhaps she should say a few words to let him know why she planned to sever contact. Yet as she turned around, all thought fled.
Rafe stood in the doorway of the cottage with his shirt sleeves rolled up to expose the darker skin of his forearms. He wore a heavy black apron tied at his narrow waist that fell to the tops of his scarred boots. He looked so delicious, her teeth ached.
One of those boots nudged the parcel she’d left on the ground. “What is this?”
“That”—she pointed—“is nothing. The same nothing that is between us.” At least for him. And soon enough for her. She hoped.
He crossed those swarthy arms and narrowed his eyes. “You cannot return my reparation.”
“I’ve recently learned that accepting such a gift, whatever the intention, is quite scandalous in society.” In addition, she refused to allow him to think that he could purchase her cooperation in his scheme to get Montwood to marry her.
“We are not in society. We are . . . ” His words trailed off, his mouth open as if the answer eluded him.
“Outside?”
His glower turned serious. “Did Montwood tell you to return the clothes?”
Now, she glowered and crossed her arms. “Do you think so little of me as to assume that I cannot make my own decisions?”
He exhaled audibly, his nostrils flaring. “Come inside.” When she merely stood her ground, he amended the command with “please.”
Prepared to speak her mind and end her involvement in his scheme, she walked past him. Her will wavered slightly as he shifted his stance, and her sleeve brushed his. Beneath his woodsy, smoky scent, a stronger essence clung to him. It was earthy and . . . male. And it stirred something within her that was quite the opposite of anger.
Desire. And more.
Rafe stared down at their almost-touching arms for a few breaths before he withdrew a step. “I need to keep working or I will fracture.” Spoken under his breath, the words came out as little more than a growl.
She wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear them. Nevertheless, she responded. “I did not intend to disturb or hinder your work.”
He released a wry laugh as he pulled on a pair of heavy-looking black gloves but made no other comment. Apparently, he wasn’t too disturbed by her presence, because he began to move around the cottage. Which was less of a cottage and more of a sweltering hearth room. The hearth in question was a glowing furnace with a hole cut in the center of a pair of doors. Built into the brick beside it stood an oven, with a hefty stack of wood on the floor. A single stool and three tables of different heights and sizes were the only pieces of furniture. The tables were mostly laid bare aside from a few odd-looking tools and charred squares of cloth. Nearest the furnace, a narrow trough of dark water shimmered, reflecting a glow that resembled liquid copper.
She kept close enough to the door for a reprieve from the heat, yet leaned forward for a good vantage point to see what Rafe’s work entailed.
Lifting a long piece of pipe up from the table, Rafe proceeded to push one end through the small round hole in the doors of the furnace. Something about the act caused her stomach to bobble. So she pressed a hand to her middle.
As she watched, the firelight caressed his profile, bathing him in golden light. Above the cuff of his gloves and below his rolled-up shirt sleeves, the muscles of his forearms flexed and bunched in a sinuous dance. Unable to help herself, she imagined him working in nothing more than snug-fitting breeches. Naturally, her gaze dipped lower to the firm flesh of his buttocks and thighs, well-defined beneath a buttery-colored cloth.
Hedley swallowed and felt her hand tighten over her middle, wrinkling the pale pink muslin she wore.
In that moment, she knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
But it had to be done. “I came by to tell you that I refuse to be a party to your scheme. If I choose to allow anyone to court me, it will not be because of a wager. More specifically, you cannot purchase my acquiescence.”
Rafe’s profile hardened, his mouth pressed in a firm line. “Did Montwood kiss you?”
She started. “Wha—”
“I will kill him,” he growled, withdrawing the pipe from the furnace. On the end was a sort of misshapen ball of mush. Moving quickly—angrily, it seemed—he laid the middle of the pipe over the narrow table and began to roll it from side to side. Then, as if he’d developed a rhythm he liked, he bent at the waist and fitted his mouth to the opposite end of the pipe.
Hedley’s knees went weak. A trickle of perspiration slid down her temple. She pressed her fingers to her lips. No wonder he didn’t allow anyone to watch him work. It was far too erotic. And, she imagined, scandalous. She didn’t need to be part of society in order to know that what she was feeling right now could not possibly be acceptable.
It took her a moment to recover. “If kissing is suddenly a killing offense, then you and I are slated for the gallows as well.”
She probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the dark look he sent her as he stood. Or the way that it caused her to notice the heat dampening her flesh. She had no desire to fan herself. Instead, she wanted to be closer to the source.
Without a word, Rafe turned and pushed the end of his pipe back into the furnace. His arms flexed, pulling his shirt tight across his shoulders.
“Then of course,” she added, her throat dry, “Greyson Park—your apparent reason for living—would suffer because of it.”
“It is not my reason for living. Greyson Park holds my legacy.” He withdrew the pipe again and went to a different table. This time, he rolled the hot, glowing end into what looked like a littered mess of glass shards, before returning once again to the furnace. “And you did not answer my question.”
He still had Montwood on his mind. Did he have any idea how absurd it was to think that Montwood would have kissed her? Or that she would have permitted him?
“Fine. I will answer your question as soon as you explain how your legacy ended up in my house.”
He adjusted his grip on the pipe, keeping his gaze toward the hole in the furnace door. “The property once belonged to my family. During the reign of Henry III, one of my ancestors was commissioned to be part of the rebuilding of the abbey and subsequently the king’s chamber, which later became known as the Painted Chamber. Later on, a fire destroyed part of the chamber. Certain works of art were damaged, some restored, and some . . . removed for safe keeping.”
As his words slowly sank in, she watched him maneuver back to the first table. His back to her, he picked up a tool here and there, moving fluidly, going about his work as if she wasn’t in the room.
“Are you saying that . . . Greyson Park actually does hold a treasure?”
He shook his head. “Only to antiquarians.”
“And to the descendants of the artist.” She suddenly felt as if she were looking directly into the furnace. “That is what you meant by your legacy. I can only imagine how such an important artifact would also restore your father’s name. Now, I understand why you would do anything for Greyson Park.”
She truly did. Although she was not quick to forgive him. “You could have saved yourself a great deal of silliness and scheming if you’d told me from the beginning. Surely it doesn’t matter who owns the property. Your family would get credit.”
“In this particular case, it will not work that way. Lord Fitzherbert is the head of the Society. His wife was the one who gave my father the cut direct, casting him out of the ton’s good graces. The Royal Antiquarian Society has refused my claim on the grounds of my lack of ownership. They’ve gone so far as to label me a trespasser on the property of the family who publicly humiliated me.”
She heard what sounded like a sudden break of glass and gasped. In the seconds that followed, she worried that he’d done all that work for naught. And that her presence here had caused him to ruin a piece of art.
Yet when he faced her, he held a small bottle in his hand, with swirls of blue intermingled with the clear glass. Then, watching her closely, he set it down on the largest table in front of her.
“It’s lovely,” she said, thoroughly amazed. “Calliope will be pleased. It is exactly the size of those bottles from my grandmother’s cask. How did you get it to be so perfectly formed? And blue, as well.”
“Practice,” he said with a cocky shrug of shoulder, but his expression was not as aloof. He seemed to study her for a moment before he gestured to the table littered with shards of glass. Reaching out, he scooped up a handful and sifted it though his fingers. “And the color comes from these pieces of frit.”
Ah, so that was where his horse came by his peculiar name. She was learning so much about Rafe. It made it even more difficult to remember that—for him—she was only a means to an end.
Before she could forget again, she took a step back until she could feel the breeze coming through the door. “I will write this Lord Fitzherbert and explain how my family never knew of this artifact, and that—through marriage many years ago—the estate changed hands without anyone the wiser. That way—”
“It won’t work,” he interrupted with a solemn shake of his head.
“You sir, are no optimist.” Of course it would work. She owned Greyson Park and would be seen as an authority on the property.
“When I spoke of my discovery to Lord Fitzherbert, he made it clear that he wouldn’t validate any finding of mine unless the ‘journey’ of the artifact was documented by a member of the Society. Besides, I cannot remove the treasure without damaging it. I’ve already tried.” He removed his gloves and raked a hand through his hair. “And last, they would need to validate your ownership. From there, they would inquire about the young Sinclair woman who had never been presented in society—whose name is not listed in Debrett’s—and then discover the stipulations of your inheritance.”
Oh. Perhaps it wasn’t as simple as she thought. “And it would only be a matter of time before they assumed that reason for my absence in society is because I am considered . . . the family lunatic.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’ve never believed it for an instant.”
“I know.” She offered a wan smile. “I appreciate that you did not judge me on circumstance. Now, if only I could find a member of your Society who would do the same. But perhaps the only way would be to meet one of them in person and prove that I am of sound mind.”
Rafe stepped forward and took her hand. “They are in London, Hedley. They have refused my numerous invitations to travel here.”
Thus the reasons he’d schemed to get her to marry Montwood.
She wasn’t about to give up Greyson Park and return to a locked attic room. There was, however, one thing she could do. Hedley squeezed his hand in return and then slipped free. She’d made up her mind.
“I will go to London and speak to them myself,” she said. It was the only way. Then, feeling suddenly lightheaded, she placed her hand on the doorframe. “First, I’d like you to help me face my fear of carriages.”
His presence had helped her with her first encounter with Frit, after all. Now—especially after what had happened moments ago—she was much surer of herself. Facing one fear had given her confidence. She was ready to face the rest.
“No. Absolutely not. I will not allow you to put yourself through an ordeal,” Rafe said, adamant.
Hiding her disappointment, she turned to the door but hesitated. “This fear has plagued me for most of my life. I plan my days around avoidance so that I will not be caught in that icy grip—that prison that has crippled me and made me an outcast.” She glanced over her shoulder once more before leaving. “Don’t you see? Until recently, I never imagined I would have the strength to face it. If I don’t . . . then it will be an ongoing ordeal.”
And just like that, her mind was made up.