“Immensely.” Eliza’s answer was immediate. Too immediate. “He is presumptuous and insufferable. And proud. Did I mention proud?”
“Twice. And you’ve stated insufferable no less than three times I think.”
“Then I shall mention it again, because it bears repeating.” She sighed, pacing slowing, steps softer now. “And yet…”
Helena’s brows rose. “And yet?”
Eliza pressed her lips together, clearly regretting the slip. “And yet,” she said more quietly, “he was a gentleman. Irritating as he was, he did not speak cruelly. He did not leer or sneeror make sport of me as others have done. And when I told him he had no authority over me, he did not try to insist that he did. He simply said that he had a feeling we would both be disappointed.”
Helena set down her teacup and leaned back in her chair, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Ah,” she murmured. “So hewasa gentleman.”
“I said he wasirritating,” Eliza corrected, a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Irritating andinfuriatingand?—”
“And handsome?” Helena’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
Eliza froze. “I did not say that.”
“No,” her grandmother agreed, the smile now fully formed, “but you thought it.”
The flush deepened. “Grandmama.”
Sensing that Eliza would rebel at any further teasing on the matter, Helena simply rose from her seat at the small work table they used for cooking—be it hearty stews or powerful potions and walked toward the window. Looking out, she hummed softly, hiding the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “A rare quality,” she mused, “to find a man who listens rather than demands. Especially one who is rather pleasing to look upon.”
“I did not say he was pleasing to look upon. I said he wasirritating,” Eliza corrected, a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Irritating andinfuriatingand?—”
“And perhaps not as easily dismissed as the others,” Helena finished gently.
“Grandmama,” Eliza protested, turning back toward the hearth, “I have no intention of wasting another thought on the man.”
“Of course not,” Helena murmured, returning her attention to the steaming kettle. “Not a single one.”
But as her granddaughter continued to mutter under her breath — about arrogance and entitlement and the sheer audacity of earls — Helena’s smile deepened. She said nothing more, only watched and listened, and felt a quiet certainty settle into her bones.
It had begun.
Eliza did not know it, and perhaps would not for a long time. But Helena did. The air itself seemed to hum with the promise of it. The one they had been waiting for — the one the forest itself had whispered of — had finally come.
Chapter
Four
The mist was thicker that morning, a pale, shifting veil that shimmered just above the ground and curled around the trunks of the trees like smoke. If he’d been inclined to more poetic assessments of his surroundings, he might have thought that it softened the world, turning familiar paths into strange, ghostly corridors, as it muffled the steady rhythm of his horse’s hooves as they rode deeper into the woods. But he was not given to such poetic notions. Instead, he focused on the path, on not letting his mount stumble. Good horses were easy enough to come by, but Scratch was not a good horse. He was an excellent horse and one who had seen him through countless campaigns and battles. He wasn’t so much a horse as a trusted companion. And that was only further proof of his current state of madness, for lack of a better term. Madness that had been sparked by a single meeting with an impertinent, impudent young woman with warm brown eyes and hair that he longed to see freed from its confines.
It had been two days since their encounter — two days since Miss Eliza Ashcombe had walked, entirely uninvited, into his ordered existence and refused to leave again. Not from his thoughts, at any rate. He had reviewed the agreement in theinterim, poring over every line and clause with the meticulous care of a man accustomed to solving problems by dissecting them into manageable pieces. It had answered some of his questions — yes, the lease was legitimate; yes, it was binding; yes, his ancestors had bound their bloodline to hers with a legal knot that could not easily be untangled.
And yet, for every answer, three more questions had arisen. What had compelled the third Earl to grant such a privilege to a family like the Ashcombes? What had forged this peculiar alliance between their lines?
He told himself that was why he was here again. Curiosity. A desire to solve a puzzle. The need to understand the shape and scope of the situation in which he found himself. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that, in two days’ time, he had thought of Miss Ashcombe’s very fine eyes — too calm, too steady — more often than was remotely reasonable. It had nothing to do with the fact that he could recall the exact shape of her nose, the slight wing of her brow, the perfect curve of her lips before they’d pressed into a line of disapproval.
It wasnothing morethan curiosity.
And yet…
His gaze swept the trees around him, searching the pale light for a glimpse of her.
And then he saw her.
She was walking not far ahead, the hem of her cloak whispering over the damp earth as the fog swirled about her. A basket was swinging gently from one gloved hand. She moved a few feet ahead and the mist parted around her like a curtain, blurring the edges of her form so that, for a moment, she did not look entirely real — more phantom than flesh and blood, as though the forest itself had conjured her from memory and longing.
