She shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“No. Look,” She whispered and pointed towards a stand of trees and bushes.
A mother deer and her baby stood frozen, watching them.
They stilled. A standoff of wary curiosity. When they didn’t move,the mother took a slow step, her baby staying close to her back legs as they made their way behind the bushes and disappeared.
“Have you been here before?” Felicity asked.
“No.”
She glanced at his profile. “Then why did you choose here?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard guests at the Den talk about it. The ladies, mostly.”
“Eavesdropping?”
“Always. It’s my job. I’m not seen unless I want to be seen.”
“Is that why you wear so much black?”
He looked down at his somber clothes. “I’m wearing blue today. I didn’t wear black until my father died. I usually wear brown when I’m home. I suppose my wardrobe is boring, considering what the dandies wear in London, but I don’t care. I put my clothes on, and I take them off.” He sent her a sly smile.
She looked away and laughed. “Then why were you so intent on me wearing color?”
“Because you are too beautiful to wear drab colors.”
“And you’re not?”
“My beauty surpasses color. If I wore anything other than black, dark blue, and brown, I’d cause a riot.”
She slapped at his arm but then huddled closer to him and his heart, that bloody useless lump of muscle, fluttered.
“This is a beautiful place,” she said. “It reminds me of Winter’s Well.”
“Oh?”
“There is something that remains untouched about it. Nature hasn’t fallen to man’s desire to cut and box vegetation here, not like in the city.”
“In the city where buildings are so tall and close together, they block out the sun. It’s madness.”
“Scotland isn’t like that, is it?”
“Edinburgh is.”
“Where is your home?”
“Inverness. We’re still wild and free in the highlands.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said. “I’d like to be wild and free. Let’s cross this footbridge and then head back.”
He followed her lead across the small bridge that arched over a babbling brook edged in wildflowers and mounds of grass. She let go of his arm and placed her hands on the railing, looking over the water in delight.
“I think I see fish!”
“Is that so?” Tristan stared at her, his chest tightening. She deserved to be wild and free. If he could reclaim his home, he could give that to her. Take her far away from all this. She could be a lady, a respectable wife, keep a house and raise children, with any lord, sure, but would she be happy in boxed gardens, hosting parties, attending the theater? Maybe. It all depended on the man she married. If he knew the gift he’d been given, the perfect flower he held in his hands that would need to be tended to carefully. If he allowed her to thrive in her own way. But there was no guarantee of that.
