Ethan paused. The answer, of course, wasaye. Aye, he did consider his charm to be a weapon. However, the history behind it was . . . fraught.
Yet if he wanted into that heart of hers, he had to continue to let her into his own.
No boundaries. No secret too intimate.
As if sensing the shift within him to something weightier, Allie slowed her steps, her expression turning inquisitive.
“Ye must understand . . . ,” he began, “I was a low-born Scot abruptly thrust into the world of aristocratic English boys at Eton. To say I was a fish out of water is putting it mildly. I was small for my age. I didn’t achieve this strapping, tall physique until well into my seventeenth year.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, earning him the laugh he sought. “And as ye can imagine, a wee, ill-bred Scottish lad of murky origin attracted bullies and cruel behavior.”
He had spent those first few months at school in hiding—under his bed at night, in closets and wardrobes during the day. Ethan had persistent scabs on his knuckles where he had bitten them in an effort to stifle his tears. Homesickness had been agonizing—his stomach clenched and his chest heaved uncontrollably whenever he thought of Thistle Muir and his family.
“My first year at school was particularly harrowing,” he continued. “I had no rank or friends to protect me, and I was too small to fight off my tormentors. And so I used the only weapons left me—charm and a clever tongue. I quickly found that if I made a would-be bully laugh—and laughwithme, not at me—they were less likely to do me harm.”
“And thus, The Swooner was born.” Lifting her skirt, Allie stepped over some fallen stones.
“Precisely. I gained allies among a few of the more popular older boys, and they took me into their protection, as it were.” An errant gust of wind tugged at his hat, causing him to tamp it down further on his head. “That is also when I realized the power of words—composing silly nonsense rhymes to earn a laugh over dinner, concocting chants to yell during cricket matches. The more people liked me, the more they enjoyed my company, then the safer I was.”
He didn’t add that, for many years, he had looked anywhere and everywhere for inspiration for those poems. It had taken time and maturity for him to trust his own inner voice.
“I don’t know if I am encouraged or disheartened to learn that all your shiny positivity actually originated in loneliness and terror,” Allie said.
“Most optimistic cheerfulness does, ye know. Those who are the sunniest have generally suffered the worst storms of life.”
“That is a profoundly sad yet beautiful thought, Ethan. Have you considered becoming a poet?”
He laughed. “I just might yet.”
They continued in silence, crossing the derelict nave and moving into the tumbled arches of the cloister. The wind battered the cliff face outside and whistled through the occasional hole in the crumbling masonry.
As he had been doing for the past several days, he poked at her armor.
“Are we going to speak of your mother next?” he asked. “And possibly, your long lost twin, Tristan?”
Allie paused, studying a group of poppies huddled around an ancient well in the middle of the cloister.
“My mother? Tristan?” She gave a rueful shake of her head, a bleak expression settling there. “And here I thought the day to be lovely. Let us not spoil it with talk of my family.”
Ethan swallowed back a sigh of disappointment. “Someday, though, ye will tell me. It’s the sort of thing that devoted friends share.”
She walked on for another few steps.
“Someday,” she finally agreed. “But simply not today.”
14
After five days in Whitby, Kendall darkened the door of The White Horse and Griffin once more—looking far too much like a specter of doom for Ethan’s peace of mind—and informed them all that theSS Statesmanwas repaired and seaworthy. They would resume their journey in the morning.
Ethan did not welcome the news.
He had known his time with Lady Allegra would be fleeting. But after days of basking in the glory of her society—or did he dare call itfriendship?—he struggled to give up the effervescent joy of her private company.
But Kendall made his demands exquisitely clear.
“I shall dine with my sister and auntalonethis evening,” the duke informed Ethan. “I understand that you have escorted my sister to the abbey ruins and have taken a walk about town with her.”
And spent every daylight hour with her in the private sitting room, not to mention visiting the town bakery thrice, taking two turns through a local garden, and enjoying a long stroll along the country lane at the edge of the village.
Ethan wisely kept all that information to himself.
