And he knew without a doubt he’d found her.
ChapterTen
Hera stretched out her legs, carefully arranged her skirts in a modest fashion, and then rested her back against the low stone wall. Across the field, Hurtheven, Felicia and Delmare were setting up to fly a kite. He had brought himself to the children’s level by resting on bended knee and was gesturing to the kite frame’s binding while both children nodded in unison.
A now-familiar spasm compressed her chest—a pain, she’d discovered in the past fortnight, particular to watching Godric with the children. A pain which, at heart, was an impossible, unspoken wish for herself...and for Annis.
He’d attentive parental instincts and a rare capacity to care.
If—oh, only if—he’d been Mr. Smith.
Foolish to wish things other than they were, however. The past two weeks had been an illusion—a dream state, that, through an improbable sequence, had been briefly and beautifully brought to life. Animated. Electrically charged, she might even say.
What ran between them certainly felt like a charge.
A charge that must be as brief as one of those bright flashes that had lit up the inner bailey the night of the storm. That night, he’d come close to speaking of his feelings. She’d rebuffed him then, and since, he’d relied heavily on gestures.
Words she could have deflected. Evidence of his goodness was harder to resist.
She hadn’t much longer to savor this ephemeral dream. Surely by now, the duchess had discovered who hired the Runner. And the date of the hospital directors’ decision was approaching fast.
“Are you watching?” Fee demanded.
“Yes!” she called back in return.
Hurtheven held the kite aloft and let the silk suspended across the frame catch the wind. His grin couldn’t have looked more boyish than Delmare’s. Soon, the colorful contraption rose up into the air. The late afternoon breeze infused with the children’s incoherent sounds of delight.
“Well done!” She clapped loudly, gaze fixed on his upturned face and the wind rifling through his thick, dark locks.
The kite twisted to the left, then to the right and then—No!—dove precipitously toward the ground. And yet, somehow, Godric was there, just in time and in the right position to prevent the frame from plunging into the ground.
A lull followed as they set up a second attempt. This time, when the kite caught the breeze, Delmare held a steadier, more practiced hand on the roll of twine. Other dives followed, of course, but the children managed to keep the kite aloft.
Mostly.
Once they had mastered the technique, Hurtheven blocked the sunlight from his eyes with a raised arm and strode toward her, his face beaming happiness and pride.
Another pain squeezed her heart.
“They’ve learned more quickly than I did.” He settled down beside her.
“Perhaps they had a better teacher.”
“Yet another compliment?”
“I shall have to take care,” she replied, “else they become commonplace.”
“Impossible!” He bent his knee as his eyes followed the children, making sure they did not want any further help. Once satisfied they did not need him, he fixed her with a twinkling gaze. “You could compliment me all day, every day, for the rest of my life, and I would still hoard every morsel of commendation as a pearl of great price.”
She sent him a disapproving scowl. “You must not have attended your gospels with the same studiousness as you attended kitemaking lessons. There can be onlyonepearl of great price.”
“Yes, I know.” He covered her hand with his own. “And Iwouldsell all I have for its possession...”
He shouldn’t speak to her so. The allegory was quite blasphemous. Not to mention painful.
“...These past few weeks?—”
She cut him off with a forced, light-hearted tone. “Have been heavenly, have they not? When I write my memoirs, I will call this chapterA Curious Idyll. I thought of that phrase once before, now the words feel even more apt.”
