“Lenora,” Margery’s voice reached them, “where shall we set up the easels?”
Lenora gasped, stepping back from Mr. Ashford. He looked equally shaken. Clearing his throat, he gave a few deepharumphsand, holding her supplies in front of him like a shield, hurried down the incline with long, strong strides.
Her face hot, she fought for composure as she followed him. It took her some seconds to find her voice. “I do believe the best view will be up that small bluff,” she called out to Margery, trying with all her might to keep her tone even—and her eyes from Mr. Ashford’s backside. What in Hades was wrong with her?
By the time Lenora joined them, Margery was busy directing the men in the placement of the easels.
“So,” Mr. Nesbitt saidas he stepped back from his handiwork and looked out over the landscape, “these are the pools where fair Synne seduced a Viking lord.”
“She didn’t seduce anyone,” Lenora said, shrugging into her smock and turning about so Margery could do up the tapes. “As a matter of fact, she wanted nothing to do with Ivar.”
Mr. Nesbitt raised an inky brow. “Really?”
“Oh, yes.” Lenora smoothed the front of the smock as Margery finished, then turned to help her friend on with hers. “You must remember, of course, that a mere century before, the Norsemen had invaded the island and stole from the monastery. People were killed, perhaps some of Synne’s own ancestors. She wouldn’t feel kindly toward Ivar and his ilk.”
“Yet she grew to love him.”
Mr. Ashford’s voice was soft, almost contemplative. And it did strange things to her insides.
Lenora cleared her throat, focusing on unpacking her paints as she answered him. “Yes, she did.”
A thick silence fell, broken only by the call of a bird and the soft clatter of their supplies as they finished laying everything out.
It was Mr. Nesbitt who spoke, his cheerful voice banishing the tension in the blink of an eye. “Come along, ladies. You can’t keep us in the dark after teasing us with so little.”
Lenora smiled, looking to Margery. “Do you think they can handle it? It is a love story, after all.”
Her friend’s brown eyes twinkled merrily. “It serves them right if we leave them squirming.”
Laughing, Lenora peered over her shoulder at the men. Mr. Nesbitt had found an obliging rock and was lounging on it now, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his face full of good cheer. Mr. Ashford stood with his large feet planted wide, his thick arms crossed over his chest, looking as forbidding as he had when he’d first arrived on the Isle.
But what was that surreptitious little glance he gave her? Was the man waiting for her to speak?
Smiling to herself, she turned forward, adjusting the brim of her bonnet. “Synne snuck away from the village every chance she could. She came here to the Elven Pools often. It was her safe haven, and being hidden as it is, the Vikings hadn’t found it.”
“Until Ivar came upon her,” Margery chimed in.
“And spied her bathing,” Lenora added with a grin.
“Lenora!” Margery said on a gasp, laughter threaded through the shock.
“What? It’s the truth. Your grandmother used to tell us as much when we were children.”
“It’s different now,” her friend mumbled, her face flaming as she poked through her pencils. “You’re an unmarried woman, and there are men present.”
“Just think of us as one of the girls,” Mr. Nesbitt called out.
Again Lenora’s gaze found Mr. Ashford.Not likely.
“I daresay Synne was not pleased to be caughtin flagrante delicto,” Mr. Nesbitt prompted.
“She was furious,” Lenora answered. “From all accounts, she pulled a knife on him.”
“Where, I wonder, did she hide the knife?” Mr. Nesbitt drawled.
As Lenora and Margery choked on their laughter, Mr. Ashford growled low.
“Quincy.” The warning in his voice was clear.
