Fortune Favors the Sparrow

by Rebecca Connolly

  No one came this way unless it was for the scenery, for playing as children, or to find their way down to the beach itself.

  He had not done so in years, though it had been a favorite activity on the occasions when his family had come out to Kirkleigh. Even as a young boy, he had been drawn there, much to his mother’s distress, and he and Griffin had made great use of the various coves and caves thereabouts.

  But that had only been for a summer, perhaps two of them, and then there hadn’t been as many visits to continue such adventures.

  Come to think of it, he hadn’t explored the caves and coves in years.

  Perhaps he should do so before he left Kirkleigh. It might incline his heart more towards the place, which would undoubtedly do him good.

  And he and Miss Moore could…

  He paused a step as that thought went unfinished in his mind.

  He and Miss Moore could what?

  What did he want for himself and for Miss Moore?

  Why should he want anything for Miss Moore?

  What was Miss Moore to him?

  That was the question, he feared.

  In truth, she was nothing to him. The ward of his uncle. No relation, no remaining ties, and the only thing they had in common was Kirkleigh.

  Kirkleigh…

  He should dearly love to see the place through her eyes, and perhaps she might help him to eventually do so.

  Hawk extended his stride as the path turned steeper, a turn in the path approaching a small plateau perfect for capturing the view, should one wish to. It was a place he knew well, as his mother had often walked to that very spot for just such a purpose. While he might not recall other aspects of this place, that image of his mother was one that had stayed with him for years.

  Upon reaching the summit of it, Hawk smiled to himself and took a moment to look out over the beach and coves, watching for a moment as small fishing ships made their way towards land before the storm arrived.

  “Incomparable view, is it not?” a soft, low voice said from behind him.

  “Indeed,” he replied, turning to face the voice.

  A widened pair of hazel eyes met his, and Hawk’s polite smile turned to one far more easy. “Your Grace,” Clara gasped, rising quickly from a stool, a charcoal pencil falling to the ground.

  Hawk smiled further yet. “Miss Moore, I did not mean to startle you.”

  Clara swallowed hard and gestured to his person. “I did not recognize you dressed as you are, Your Grace.”

  “Which is why I dress as such on days when I am to be engaged in labor.” He stepped forward and bent to pick up the pencil, catching sight of the drawing on the page of a book held open by a white-knuckled thumb. “Taking in the view there?”

  “What?” She glanced down at the book in her hand, her cheeks coloring a bright pink. “Oh.” She brought the book up and swallowed hard, snapping the covers shut. “Just some sketching, really. Nothing too exciting.”

  Hawk handed her the pencil, surveying her embarrassment with interest. “May I see it?”

  Clara’s eyes shot to his, a lock of her golden hair dancing across her forehead while the rest remained pulled back in a loose chignon. “My drawing?”

  “Yes, if you have no objection. Feel free to refuse me, if you wish.” He smiled as gently as he knew how, a tactic that had worked on his sister on occasion.

  She looked down at the leatherbound book in her hand, her thumb still holding the page. “Very well, though it isn’t done yet.” She stepped closer and opened the book, showing him her work.

  It was an extraordinary likeness. Every craggy rock face in its exact form, every path perfectly illustrated as it moved down to the beach, every blade of grass in its proper place. Had he never seen this spot, Clara’s drawing would have proved enough of an illustration that he should know the place even from a distance.

  “I wanted to get as much of it done as I could before the storm, you see,” Clara told him, her charcoal stained fingers tracing over hastily drawn marks on the beach portion of her page. “Then I would be able to paint it at my leisure later, knowing the details are correct.”

  “Not only correct,” Hawk told her in shock, “but bloody perfect.” He tugged the book gently, hoping she would release it. When she did, he turned and held the page out to compare it to the exact scene before him, his eyes flicking between each. “My word, Clara, you’ve captured it with such precision, I don’t know that God himself could do better.”

  He turned back to her, holding the book out. She took it, her cheeks gaining more color still. “God certainly could, Your Grace, and has done. He is the Creator, and I only an appreciator of his fine work.”

  He indicated the book as she thumbed through the pages. “Do you have more like that?”

  Clara’s lips finally curved into a slight smile. “Like that? No, I rarely have a chance to sketch such nature. But I do have…” She flipped a few pages and showed him a portrait, the likeness equally uncanny.

  “Your aunt,” Hawk said on a light laugh. “Just as she is, I’d say. Did she approve of it?”

  “She thinks I was too kind to her jawline,” Clara admitted, her smallest finger tracing it. “But I’m fairly confident in it.”

  Hawk shook his head in disbelief. “You mentioned you had some talent in art, but I am used to that sort of claim from all accomplished women, so I admit to discrediting it. I never imagined… Clara, it’s extraordinary work!”

  “Thank you.” She smiled up at him, a sudden heat catching in the center of his chest at the sight of it.

  She did not protest against her skill, and she did not explain how she had gained such talents, or whom she had learned from. She simply acknowledged his praise for what it was, and left the thing at that.

  It was utterly refreshing.

  The sky cracked overhead, rumbling once more with the reminder of impending storms, a gust of wind whipping across them both.

  “We’d better get inside,” Hawk told her, moving behind her to pick up the stool. “We don’t want to see your work destroyed by the rain!”

  “Thank you,” Clara said once the stool was in his hold and they began walking the path back. “And believe me, I’ve had more diaries of sketches ruined than I can count from one thing or another. Some were a very great loss, others not at all.”

  Hawk indicated the book with his free hand. “That, I can assure you, would be a very great loss.”

  Clara only shrugged, such a charming and natural action from a woman he would have thought so very fine in manners. “Perhaps. But I could do it again.”

  “Such confidence,” Hawk murmured with a shake of his head as he looked up the path as they walked.

  “I should have more modesty, I know,” Clara mused, tucking the dancing strand of hair behind her ear.

  “No, not at all.” This time he shook his head more firmly. “I wasn’t implying confidence with arrogance or bravado there. I was thinking only of your confidence in your abilities. You know that you can recreate something you have done, should the original be lost. That is a gift and a blessing, I think. The skill itself and the awareness of it.”

  Clara’s brow puckered as she held the book to her chest. “Yes, I suppose it is. I wouldn’t have said so before, but practice has proven that I can do so. What else could it be but confidence?” Her brow cleared and her smile turned wry. “I have so little confidence in other regards in my life, at least I can claim that one.”

  Hawk chuckled drily. “I’d say you’re more fortunate than most to even have one. Who of any of us has confidence in our life?”

  “Are you confusing confidence with certainty?” She stepped in front of him as the path narrowed for a few paces, then moved aside for him to join her when it widened. “None of us have that, you know.”

  “I am well aware,” he assured her. “And I do mean confidence. Position and wealth have not given me talents in which I have confidence, only responsibilities to live by. For all of that, the onl
y thing I can say I have confidence in is my ability to breathe in and out, thus keeping myself alive.”

  Clara made a brief humming noise he could not translate. “I don’t know you well enough to protest your own knowledge of yourself, Hawk, or I would do so for fear of you venturing into melancholy.”

  He had to laugh at that, and at the strange tickling sensation her use of his name brought. It occurred to him that he’d been calling her Clara for the last few minutes without realizing it, though she certainly must have noticed. She had not reacted to it, nor had she reminded him of propriety.

  There was some comfort in that, and in leveling the ground between them. It was so rare he could do so with anyone, let alone a woman, and he found it suited him well.

  “Not melancholy, Clara,” he told her, intentionally using her name this time, though he was careful not to emphasize it. “You’ll not find me emotional as regards my own person. I am perfectly aware of the boredom I present to anyone, including myself.”

  Clara coughed a startled laugh that instantly prompted a smile from him, the sound somehow more delightful for being out in nature rather than in the walls of Kirkleigh. “Who would accuse you of boredom? I’ve known you all of a day, and I’ve not had wandering thoughts yet.”

  He gave her a scolding look. “A day, Clara? We’ve known each other a good deal longer.”

  She looked away quickly, drumming her fingers along the book she held. “You know what I mean, Hawk. You can hardly say we knew each other then.”

  “No, I suppose not,” he admitted, wincing when thunder clapped again. “We’d best hurry, or we’ll soon be drenched.”

  Nodding, Clara quickened her pace beside him. “What were you doing that required you to dress like this? Did a horse throw a shoe?”

  Hawk grinned at the idea as raindrops began to fall. “No, I was helping my tenants with winter preparations.”

  Clara stumbled and Hawk was quick to snatch her arm to steady her. “What?” she squawked as she straightened, nodding her thanks. “Helping? How?”

  “However was needed,” he answered with a shrug. “Today, it was sawing rails for fences and mending cottage roofs. Tomorrow, it will likely be different, and had I been here a few months ago, I might have been a help in the harvesting.”

  “Do you know how few gentlemen of high station would be found doing such a task?” Clara grinned up at him, a sight he was entirely unprepared for. “What a marvelous thing! Do you do that often?”

  The delight in her voice was unmistakable, and the warmth he’d felt in his chest before was now pulsing into his limbs. “Only recently,” he admitted with a sheepish smile. “I needed an occupation while I visit my estates, and manual tasks not intended for one in my position have proven to be a most gratifying way to spend my time. And shocking my tenants and estate agents has been an added amusement.”

  “I can imagine so!” She squealed as the rain began to fall in earnest and, with a laugh, darted ahead, running madly for the house.

  Hawk watched her go with a wild grin, then chased after her, reaching the now open door to the kitchens just before the drops of rain became large and furious. Mrs. Perkins, the cook, smiled in greeting, but made no mention of his appearance or Clara’s.

  He smiled at the breathless Clara, her hair now in complete disarray, though she was still as lovely as he had seen her yet. He turned to watch the water pound against the ground, and smiled when Clara came up beside him to do the same.

  “That would have ruined your book,” he said simply, inclining his head towards the storm.

  “I would have gone to the bookshop and asked for another collection of foolscap to be bound in cheap leather,” came her unconcerned reply. “Just as I’ve done for years. And then I would have gone out to draw again.”

  Hawk glanced at her, leaning his arm on the doorjamb to do so. “And what would you have drawn? The same scene?”

  Clara narrowed her eyes out at the storm, as though she could see all the options through the falling rain. “No, I don’t think so. If the storm had stayed away, I think I would have gone down to the beach next. Looked at the coves and caves, explored them until I could draw them from memory, perhaps walked in the water as it rolled onto the shore. Not that it would have added anything to my art to do so, but simply to say that I have…”

  There was no helping the smile that crossed his face as she spoke, the scene she painted one his mind was only too happy to dwell upon.

  “But even if I could only have my stool and my diary and my pencil,” she went on, nodding to herself, “I’d be content to simply find the perfect spot on the beach and capture the whole of it to my page.”

  “I’ll take you,” Hawk said before he could think anything else. “Tomorrow, I’ll take you down to the beach, and you can do all of that.”

  Clara smiled at him, her eyes brightening. “We couldn’t go alone, Hawk.”

  He waved that off. “Your aunt and Nat can come, that is no obstacle.”

  “And your work with your tenants?”

  That brought him up short. Above all else, he would insist upon being a man of honor who stood by his word. He could not go back on his commitment, and would not.

  “I’ll do a good half day of work there,” he decided, flashing a quick smile at her. “The afternoon will be entirely devoted to the beach excursion.”

  Her eyes searched his, a frankness in them that he liked a great deal. “You’re certain? You can spare the time?”

  There was nothing to do but smile in the face of such a question, considering he wanted nothing more than to do exactly as she asked. “Quite certain. I will have all the time in the world.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You clever kitten, I’m amazed you managed this.”

  Clara scrubbed at her fingers in the wash bin, grinding the bar of soap against the impossible stains she had managed to acquire the day before in her drawing efforts. “Managed what? To permanently stain my fingers with charcoal? Oh, blast this soap, it’s useless!”

  “No, silly girl, the seaside picnic with Kirklin this afternoon! A stroke of genius, Clara!”

  Her scrubbing stopped, and she blinked at her still stained hands, the sound of water dripping into the bowl almost matching the beat of her heart. “Why is that genius? It doesn’t mean anything, Aunt Fern, he’s just showing it to me so that I may draw it.”

  There was a quick rustling of skirts and Phoebe appeared through the adjoining door, somehow pristine in appearance despite the fact that she was still in the process of getting ready. Her beauty was no less apparent for the disapproving scowl she wore for Clara alone. “I shall have to retract my declaration of your being both clever and a genius, my dear. I mean precisely that, getting down to the beach and coves so that you, with your talents, might capture them! What in the world would be the use in going down there if not for that?”

  “Right,” Clara said quickly, her toes turning cold as she realized the direction her thoughts had taken her rather than where they ought to have gone. “Right. Sorry, I’m simply distracted by these stains.” She turned back to her fingers, hoping her blushing would be taken as a sign of effort rather than embarrassment. “This is why I rarely use charcoal. Were I at my leisure, I should paint these things, but alas…”

  “The sacrifice of your elegant and nimble fingers will be much appreciated, I am sure.” Phoebe huffed and turned back to her own room. “But this will work to our benefit regardless! And make it all the better for when we return home tomorrow.”

  Clara bit down on her lip hard, the thought of departing so soon exquisitely painful.

  Kirkleigh had become something magical to her. A place where anything was possible, and warmth would abound in every memory. She had taken to wandering the corridors every night, and though she had not spent hours doing so, she felt she knew the house better than she’d known the house she was raised in. And there was still more to explore.

  They could come back, she reminded hers
elf. If her information proved useful, they would receive more information from the superiors and be able to return to Kirkleigh repeatedly, if not for an extended time.

  Kirklin had already agreed they could come back without inquiring of him. But would Kirkleigh be the same without the present duke in residence?

  Kirklin…

  Hawk…

  Thinking about the day she’d had yesterday, the interaction she’d had with the man before the rainstorm, she recollected that she had called him Hawk without intending it. Her face flamed at the memory, though in the moment, she’d not even recognized the thing. It had simply seemed the natural course of conversation.

  He’d called her Clara.

  That was too easy to ignore, given their history. They were practically cousins, she was sure, so why should he not defy the niceties?

  He could forego them. She could not.

  Alexandra Moore, perhaps, could do so. Clara Harlow could do nothing of the sort.

  The fact that Clara Harlow presently was Alexandra Moore only made everything more confusing.

  Clara shook her head now and moved away from the wash bin, giving up on her fingers becoming clean in advance of their beach excursion. She was only going to get them more dirty, and the only people she would see were Hawk, Nat, and her aunt. No one would be kissing her fingers, and no one would truly care that they were stained.

  She was hardly heading into the Marriage Mart like this. Or in any way. Not anymore.

  Not ever again.

  A sharp sting shot across her chest at the memories, years old though they were, and she sniffed, if only to distract herself from them. She refused to think about Louis, or her once-broken heart, or the scandal that had surrounded the whole affair, though nothing scandalous had happened.

  Unless one counted jilting an innocent girl scandalous.

  No one had seemed to find her faultless, let alone innocent, but that was the way of things.

  She’d moved on well enough, and her role at the school was far more rewarding than she could have imagined life for herself after that.