“Well, now you come to mention it, actually no.”
“And other than myself, is there any gentleman who will listen to your ideas and discuss them, the way we discussed Childe Harold?”
She considered the question, then shook her head. “Only Papa. And he tends to override my arguments all too often,” She huffed out a little laugh. “Of course, to be fair, he’s most often right in his assertions.”
“Of course. He raised you, Elinor. He raised you to think.”
“Hmm.”
They walked silently for a few minutes, each busy with their thoughts. Then, as Molliney Park house came into view, he tugged her to a standstill.
“We have to make some decisions, my dear. Before we return to your home.”
Her bodice rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “Yes. You’re right. We do.”
“I would like to see you again, obviously. In fact, I am going to see you again, and often, come hell or high water.”
“We’ve had the high water,” she chuckled ruefully. “I’m not sure hell could be much worse.”
He grinned too. “There she is. The quick-witted young woman with the wonderful smile.”
“Uhh…” The colour rose delightfully on her cheeks.
“Well, here’s what I think we should do.” He began to walk again slowly, toward the house, with his arm still linked to hers.
“We shall begin an exciting project together.”
“Really?”
He nodded as the idea came to him and filled out nicely. “We are going to initiate a search for the beginnings of the Tylwyth Teg legends,”
“Oh,” she stumbled a little. “Oh, Caleb, that is utterly brilliant of you.”
“Thank you,” he smiled smugly. “I rather thought so myself.”
“So, given that search, I will, of course, visit you frequently, and you will visit Molliney Park as well. We will combine our research notes. And then…do what? Write a scholarly paper detailing what we find?”
“We could, I suppose…” his mind turned over ideas.
“It would be quite acceptable, I think…” she bit her lip, “and we could spend time together working on the research…”
“Of course.” He glanced down at her. “A lot of time. Together. Alone.”
His body quickened at the thought, and he cursed his tight breeches for a few minutes until he could regain his equilibrium.
“I have no idea, though, how to go about submitting such a paper for publication, or even if any reputable scientific organisation would be interested.”
Caleb smiled as the last piece of the pie fell into place. “No need to worry about that, sweetheart. We won’t write a paper at all.”
“We won’t?”
“No. We’ll write anovel.”
Chapter Eleven
To Elinor’s disgust, the weather turned nasty once more, and the rain—along with some quite impressive gale force winds—kept her isolated at Molliney Park.
Knowing that moping and pining, like some nitwitted heroine in a bad novel, would get her nowhere, she retired to the Molliney library and made a start on researching the Ellyllon.
