“Nothing good,” he said. “Boys in these parts—in most parts, so I thought—will flay you with nettles if you don’t wear the oak.” He remembered his own childhood. “Or pelt you with rotten eggs. I used to pilfer a baker’s dozen from the kitchens on May Day, just to ensure they stank properly come the end of the month.”
“Goodness,” she said. “A pity I don’t have any oak leaves at hand. I rather like this gown.”
She had recovered her composure, and her tartness was rapidly returning as well. He smiled at her to speed the process. “Yes, well, I think you’re quite safe indoors.” Though she’d been staring out that window earlier, as though she wished otherwise.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” she said. “The maids were muttering among themselves in a very dark tone earlier.”
“Then let’s fetch you a sprig.”
“Oh . . .” She cast a wistful glance toward the door. “I don’t know. I rather like breathing freely.”
She’d not set foot outside since her wheezing attack, then. No wonder if she felt a touch fidgety. God knew he’d been battling the sensation for days, despite his morning patrols. He started for the door. “Give it a try,” he said. “You may well have adjusted by now.”
Hesitantly she followed. She stepped outside after him, pausing on the porch to tip her face toward the sun. “It’s always so cold in the house.”
“No sneezing,” he observed. “Shall I give you a tour?”
Her eyes drifted shut. “Only if you promise not to touch me again.”
If she didn’t want him to touch her, she should know better than to close her eyes. Now, as he stared at her freely, all he could imagine was how she would look, exhausted from his attentions, tousled and flushed in his bed.
He had a broad window in his bedroom. The light would fall across her in just this way, picking out the faint hints of freckles on the round crests of her cheeks. How far did those freckles extend? The blasted gray gown offered no hints, forcing his gaze upward again. She had a girlish fullness to her face, which made a provocative contrast to the self-possession of her bearing as she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
She’d known he was looking at her. She’d let the moment draw out, for some private feminine reason. The knowledge brushed over him like fingertips—stealing away his breath.
“Perhaps I’ve adjusted, after all,” she murmured. She took a deep breath to test the notion, then released it with a growing smile. “Yes, quite clear. I wonder if I dare . . .”
“I’ve no doubt of it.” He let go of the door, forcing her to make a split-second decision to leap clear of it. “Come along,” he said. “Even a city mouse deserves a holiday.” And her presence acted like a cure on the murky mood that had gripped him.
London still had wild places. In the north of the city, a great heath stretched for miles—once the hunting ground of highwaymen, now a holiday destination. Armed with a picnic basket, Lilah had once explored the heath with a group of Everleigh Girls, who had hoped for some wild adventure—perhaps to fight off a boar or two.
Alas, the only boars they’d encountered had been of the human variety, for crews of ill-bred mashers roved the fields—to say nothing of the endless stream of sheepish lovers, stumbling disheveled from the concealment of the trees. In the city, even the wilderness had a crowd.
But rural Kent was different. Lilah walked for a half hour at Palmer’s side before sighting another human—a farmer driving his team of oxen through a far-off field of wheat. The sight drew her to a stop. Man and animals made a singular silhouette against the great open sky. So it might have looked centuries ago, on that day when King Charles had hidden in his oak tree.
Palmer leaned against the hedgerow, letting her look her fill as he shredded hawthorn leaves. The breeze lifted the pieces and carried them past her like confetti.
“The sky is so large here,” she said. He was behaving himself with remarkable chivalry, making sparse conversation and touching her only to help her over difficult bits of ground.
She should be grateful for it. Instead, she rather itched for his attention. “I recall seeing hills on the train,” she went on. “But it looks very flat now.”
“Those hills are to the west and south,” he said. “We’re nestled in a broad valley here. Perfect target for invading armies.”
She cast him an amused glance. “Do you expect one?”
He smiled. The sunlight glimmered off the stubble on his square jaw, and lit his long lashes to gold as he glanced beyond her. “No one ever does. But eighteen centuries ago, on a clear day, you could look to the hills and see the glint of Roman armor. They marched this way en route to London. Farmers in these parts are constantly plowing up artifacts from Caesar’s troops.”
“Really?” Delighted, she followed him catercorner across a pasture. They took a narrow footpath down into a stand of hazel trees, where light fell dappled through glossy green leaves, and yellow streamers of catkins hung low from the branches. Somewhere nearby, a yellowhammer sang his age-old song: A little bit of bread and no cheese; a little bit of bread . . .
An awful noise rent the air. The yellowhammer exploded into flight, and Lilah bumped into Palmer as he halted.
“What is that?” she asked when it came again. The shrill, wordless cry sounded agonized . . . and beastly.
“Sheep.” He changed course, helping her hop over a shallow creek, then clamber up another bank to a stile, which he unlocked quickly. Across the rutted lane, a sheep thrashed in the grip of the mirroring stile.
“Poor thing!” It was fighting wildly against the bars that trapped its rear half. “Is she hurt?”
Palmer circled around the beast. “You’re a proper Londoner, all right.”
“I am not,” she said.
He snorted, then shucked off his jacket. “Here, hold this.”
The jacket came flying through the air. She shook it out, then folded it neatly over her arm. Meanwhile, the beast loosed another earsplitting complaint.
“I haven’t sneezed once today,” she said. “It only required an adjustment!”
He crouched down to inspect the sheep’s predicament. “What’s wrong with being a Londoner?”
She was a Londoner by birth. That hardly meant she wished to be defined by her origins. It seemed a short skip to her, from knowing one’s place to being told to stay in it. “Would you like being called a Londoner?”
“I’ve never given it thought,” he said absently. “But if you mean to change your stripes, you might start by learning the difference between a sheep and a ram. You can tell by his horns . . . Got himself into a proper fix, this one.”
The ram slashed out a hoof, causing Palmer to spring back. “Careful!” Lilah threw a nervous glance down the lane. “It would make a long dash to Buckley Hall while you lay here clutching your innards.”
He laughed. “He’s not a tiger, Lilah.” He rose, giving a firm stroke to the ram’s matted wool. The ram gave a vicious shriek.
“I don’t think he likes you,” she said.
“Yes, he’s quite a fierce one.”
“My point exactly.”
“Says the city mouse.”
“Call me a mouse of the world,” she said with dignity. “I have no proper place. The world is my home.”
He laughed. “There’s a philosophy. All right, lad.” That, she hoped, was directed to the ram. “Calm down, now. You’re among friends.” He slid his hand beneath the ram’s jaw and lifted it. As the ram’s nose tipped skyward, it ceased to struggle.
“There you go. Better, isn’t it? Yes, I thought so.” Palmer’s voice made a soothing spell as he leaned his full weight into the animal. “Just a moment more, then. You’re almost free.” He looped his other hand around the animal’s body, seizing him beneath the belly. “Step back, Miss Marshall. I’ll lift him clear.”
That thing had to weigh fifteen stones! She folded her hands at her mouth, prepared to shriek for help. Palmer braced himself, thighs flexing visib
ly; then, with a full-bodied grunt, he lifted the beast free and dropped him in the lane.
“Oh, well done,” she cried.
The ram shook itself smartly, then trotted off, brisk and purposeful as though late for an appointment.
“Ingrate,” she called. Not even a backward look in thanks!
“Shall we follow?” Palmer asked as he dusted himself off.
She handed him his jacket, and they fell into step again. But at the first turn, a man appeared in the distance—a hunched, grizzled figure in a patched jacket of homespun cotton, who walked at the head of a churning, frolicking flock of sheep. “Maurice!” the shepherd bellowed—at the ram, it seemed, for the beast trundled up cheerfully, and was quickly absorbed by his milling brethren.
“Got caught up in a stile,” Palmer called.
The shepherd pressed one finger to the floppy brim of his hat. “Thanking you kindly. Name’s Jessup. I’m thinking you’ll be the new lord?”
Palmer walked toward the man, but Lilah halted, alarmed by the flock’s unruly gambol. Most kept near their shepherd, but a few forerunners, dirty and bleating and boisterous, came galloping toward her. She looked left and right. The hedgerows offered no escape.
“Palmer?” Her voice came out as a squeak. He was cutting with fearless disregard through the thickest part of the flock.
Lilah wrapped her arms very tightly around herself. The first sheep reached her. What a stink it made! Another trotted past, shoving and nipping at its leader.
She had no experience of sheep. Dogs, cats, and donkeys, yes; she’d briefly lived above a costermonger as a child, and on very cold nights, he’d refused to keep his beast in the backhouse, preferring to let her sleep by his bed. Unpleasant surprise, encountering a donkey on the stairs. Her mother had not liked it. But at least the monger had kept his animal on a lead. These sheep seemed to think they owned the road!
“Stop that,” she snapped, as a beastly big one brushed her skirts. Stepping aside, she recoiled from a soft object—then jumped at the shrill bleat. She’d stepped on a lamb! The tiny creature toppled backward onto its spindly haunches, goggling.
“Did I hurt you?” she gasped.
The lamb bleated.
“I’m so terribly sorry. Well, go on, then.” She waved. “Shoo!”
It made no move to rise, gazing at her with limpid accusation. It had the long, dark lashes of a courtesan, and a small, perfectly white nose.
“Pretty,” she said softly. She glanced down the lane. Palmer and the shepherd stood in the dip of the road, making conversation about the state of the stiles. The bulk of the flock still lingered around them.
On a bolt of daring, she reached out to touch the lamb’s head. So soft!
The lamb butted its small skull into her grip. Why, it wanted to be petted. It leaned into her like a cat.
She swallowed a giggle as she scratched its ears. She’d had a tabby as a girl. He had liked to lean into her in just this fashion. He’d liked to be scratched beneath his chin, too.
So did the lamb!
Palmer’s laughter rang out. She looked up, expecting mockery, but he was absorbed in his conversation. The shepherd, too, was grinning, his posture straight and proud, a fine contrast with his earlier slouch. He’d cast off his shyness.
She frowned as she fingered the lamb’s velvet-soft ear. Palmer had a gift for putting people at ease. It was an inborn quality, she suspected, nothing to do with his money or station. He radiated a bone-deep comfort, never uncertain of himself or at a loss with anybody. Whatever the situation, he seemed to belong.
That was a fine skill. Pity it was wasted on a viscount, who would have belonged wherever he liked, even if he’d had the personality of a Gorgon.
On a plaintive bleat, the lamb shoved its entire body against her. Its nuzzling made a fine remedy for this unsettling feeling inside her. It had troubled her all day, strengthening every time Miss Everleigh had snapped at her for doing something wrong.
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel certain of one’s place in the world? To be able to cease striving, and expect only welcome.
She gathered the baby into her arms. It did not object. Slowly she stood. Londoner, indeed—look at her now! She was holding a lamb like a proper country girl!
“Now, look there,” said Jessup to Christian. “She’s made a friend.”
Christian turned. Lilah stood at the crest of the rutted dirt lane, laughing at the squirming bundle in her arms.
How delighted she looked. He felt himself smile. Behind her the bright sky stretched out, scudding clouds forming fantastical castles. The breeze carried the scents of wildflowers and sunbaked grass.
It would have made a fine painting. Joy in the Spring.
“Pretty lady,” Jessup said shyly.
He nodded. An odd feeling whispered through him—another, in a day of moods. It felt more like a memory than anything else. A very old, rusted sense of wonder, belonging to childhood. Something in her unselfconscious enjoyment . . .
He’d felt that kind of joy, no doubt. He’d been a happy child. Dreaming of noble adventures, of becoming a hero. But what a great distance lay between boyish ideals and the bloody reality. Kill a dozen men, barehanded. Win a medal. Become a cartoon, advertising guns.
Boys grew up. Wonder faded. But he remembered it as he looked at her now—that feeling of faith in infinite possibilities. How much life had promised: adventure, magic, dragons to be slain. A princess to be won.
One thing he’d gotten right as a boy: he’d dreamed of a dark-haired woman. The specifics were lost, but surely his princess had looked exactly as Lilah did now. Laughing, her long black streamers of hair lifting on the wind, pleats and flounces fluttering at her bodice and wrists and skirts, so every inch of her appeared vibrantly alive. Like an extension of the elements, the wind and sun and endless sky behind her.
She noticed him watching her, and her laughter faded. She set the lamb back onto the road, and he saw in her studied movements that she sensed the precise nature of his attention, too. Well. He was no longer a boy. There was a darker, more complex pleasure in watching her childish delight yield to womanly awareness.
She came toward him slowly. He bid farewell to the shepherd, who gathered his flock and turned into the wood. Lilah sidestepped a few stragglers, smiling faintly at their bleats. As she reached him, a cloud passed over the sun, casting the lane into dimness. Oddly theatrical effect. It invested the moment before she spoke with a dramatic quality, quite accidental.
“Where do we go next?” she asked.
Anywhere that would make her laugh again.
“Back,” he said. “I suppose you’ve gotten your fill of the country.”
“I’m not sure I have done.” The moody light lent her smile a mysterious edge, which disappeared instantly as the sun reemerged. “I wonder if that shepherd would sell a lamb to me, to keep as a pet?”
“Lambs grow up,” he said. “Best to keep them in the country.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps I could train it to leash. Were I wealthy, it would be a fabulous eccentricity, to walk my sheep through the park every afternoon.”
He smiled. “I don’t doubt—”
A gunshot cracked through the air. Dirt kicked up in the road.
Christian lunged—nerves and instinct seizing her by the waist, carrying her down beneath him into the dirt. Hooves thundered by—the last of Jessup’s sheep, startled into flight. He gathered her more tightly beneath him, making his body a shield as frightened animals pounded past. The ground shook—not from hooves, he realized, but from the thunder of his pulse.
Finally. The waiting was over.
Her breath beat a hot tattoo against the base of his throat. He seized her arms and hauled her to her feet. She came without protest, allowing him to pull her against the hedgerow, heeding silently as he shoved her through the stile and down the short slope into the stand of concealing trees.
Christian pulled out his pistol. “From the east,” she said breat
hlessly. “Did you see it strike in the road? The bullet, I mean.”
“Yes.” He stared narrowly up the bank. The shot had come from the high ground. He must leave her to pursue. He had one aim here. Bolkhov. Christ God, but the bastard had done it. Followed him here. At last, he had a chance—
“Go, then.” She had produced a knife from her pocket. Stood with it unsheathed, resting easy in her right hand. A throwing dagger. “I’ll be fine.”
For the briefest moment, he was startled—and then, just as quickly, he wasn’t. She’d already proved she knew how to wield a knife. Naturally she would carry one—even here. Naturally she would offer to wait alone, with a gunman on the loose. She had seen that bullet kick up dirt. Yet she offered to wait, alone.
Instinct hardened into truth as he gazed back at her, composed despite her ragged breathing, alert and ready to defend herself. She was no ordinary woman. The mystery she posed was not a product of his boredom. She deserved his fascination.
“A hunter.” The words came reluctantly, but there was no choice. He could not leave her alone with a gunman nearby. Not while she waited, fearless and armed, prepared to defend herself from a threat that should never have touched her.
He pulled her into a slow retreat down the slope.
Her steps dragged. “Won’t you go look?” she asked.
“As I said. A hunter must have strayed onto the estate. The boundaries aren’t marked.”
“Of course,” she said after a hesitation.
Perhaps she was Londoner enough to believe the lie. But men did not poach during daylight hours. Any country mouse would know that.
He took hold of her arm to hurry her along. “Come,” he said. “Quietly. We’ll make our way back to the house.”
“But . . .” Her voice shook slightly as she let him pull her into a trot. “This . . . hunter. He’s on your lands. With . . . very clumsy aim.”
Her knife, he saw, was still out, held at an angle poised to launch. She was scanning the trees with a fierce, narrow-eyed sobriety. What a cool head she had—not for a woman, but for anyone. For a soldier, even. Any man would do well to make her his ally.
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