She’d brushed fingers with him more than once as they passed plates and drinks around, formality dispensed with. Every contact set her nerves alight. The air carried his woodsy scent. His smile and his eyes drew her attention, even when he was talking to someone else.
Jane couldn’t understand it. She was angry with Eli. She’d resolved to cut him from her thoughts. But her heart still raced when he was near.
“What time are Mr. and Mrs. Linden expecting us?” he asked.
“Around three or four o’clock,” Cecily called back from her spot a few yards away. She must have been eavesdropping. “We’ve heaps of time.”
“And it’s Mr. and Miss,” Jane corrected him. Though she’d been half-tempted to let him make an embarrassing blunder as punishment for his teasing, it wouldn’t have been kind to the Lindens. “They’re brother and sister, not husband and wife.”
“Thank you.” His gaze lingered on her for a fraction of a second before it flicked away. Even that was enough to make her skin prickle with awareness.
Stop, stop, stop. How would she get through this?
“Neither of them ever married?” Hannah asked.
“No,” Cecily replied. “It’s tragic, really, when one never manages to find a mate.”
She cast a speaking glance toward Jane from across the mountain of sandwiches.
God, I could smack her.
The worst part about Cecily’s little barbs was that they were always too subtle to be called out. A look here, a certain tone there. If Jane said anything, everyone would thinkshewas the ill-tempered one.
“I’m sure they’re very happy as they are, my dear,” Uncle Bertie cut in smoothly. “Not everyone wants to marry. The Lindens enjoy their independence and get on well.”
“You’ve been friends with the family for many years then?” Eli asked. He was doing it again. Listening with that keen attention that drew people out.
“Oh yes,” Bertie replied, happy to bask in his glow. “We’re old school chums, but we got back in touch about twelve years ago, after my wife passed away. The Lindens were a great help to me, raising Cecily without any woman in the house, and then Jane and Edmund as well. I daresay they’re more like an uncle and aunt to the children than friends.”
“I sometimes wonder if Papa shouldn’t have made them proper family and married Miss Linden,” Cecily said with a teasing smile.
Oh dear. Jane paused in the act of cutting her roast beef to watch her uncle’s reaction.
Though he’d never said anything, Jane strongly suspected that if there were a romantic sentiment between Uncle Bertie and one of the Lindens, it was more likely to be the brother than the sister. Then again, she shouldn’t presume knowledge of such a personal matter. If he wanted to confide in her, he would do so in his own time.
“Don’t be silly, Cecily.” Uncle Bertie laughed, but it came outstilted. “I’m far too old to remarry. All I want is to see my children happily settled.”
He cast a warm glance to Jane and Edmund as he spoke. Cecily, watching them closely, forgot to put on her habitual smile when she replied, “I’m sure we can achieve it. This willfinallybe Jane’s season.”
“Thank you for your confidence,” Jane said flatly. “But let’s try to find a more engaging subject for our guests than my hypothetical marriage. Why don’t you tell us what entertainments you have in store this week?”
She could always mine this topic when a distraction was needed, and today proved no exception. Cecily launched into a list of plans for her audience. If Jane hurried her meal, she might even escape before the subject exhausted itself. She devoured her selections in a manner that would’ve made Uncle Bertie scold her, had he been looking.
“I think I shall go for a walk around the priory ruins,” she announced once she was down to clean china. “Would anyone like to come?” Eli’s gaze was making her skin prickle again, so she quickly added, “Hannah?”
The girl rose to her feet and they walked arm in arm along the hillside toward the ruins, which stood nearby. No one else made to follow them, as most of the group were still picking at their desserts.
Saint Mary’s Priory was once home to a group of Benedictine nuns, though it had fallen into disrepair since the dissolution of the monasteries. It must have been quite picturesque when it was still in use, standing as it did near the riverside. But over the years, the roof had given way to open sky and the ancient stonework had begun to crumble back into the earth or been reclaimed by local farmers. Jane was content to wander aimlessly around its perimeter with Hannah.
“How is your family faring?” she began. “It must have been such a shock, having your brother back after you thought him dead for so long.”
Maybe it was only peevishness at how Eli had been antagonizing her earlier, but Jane was more sure than ever that he was hiding something about his absence. If she was going to be trapped with him for four days, she may as well see what she could uncover.
If the story about a pirate abduction was a hoax, he must have gotten word to his family during that time.
But Hannah dashed her suspicions against the rocks. “You have no idea!” she exclaimed, her dark eyes growing round. Like her brother, she had an expressive face. “We were all about to leave for church, and he just turned up on our doorstep. Mum fainted.”
“He couldn’t manage to get a letter to you first to warn you he was arriving?”
