“Ah, carrying a grudge, are you?” His grin grew. “So you do still think of me even after all these years.”
“I don’t give you a thought, Bram Webb. Ever. Step aside, please.”
He plowed his fingers through his hair, thoroughly intrigued and more chagrined than he cared to admit. It wasn’t as if such a response wasn’t warranted. He’d been a hellion in his younger days ... and admittedly, even now had his moments, may God forgive him. “It’s been twelve years, Eva. I was a thoughtless young lad then, looking for attention in all the wrong ways. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Yet because of you, I nearly died of fever.”
He shook his head, thoroughly confused. He’d done many things he wasn’t proud of, but making a girl nearly three years his junior ill? “What are you going on about?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me.” Tossing back her shoulders, she strangled the life out of a pair of gloves. “You left town right after leading me into that abandoned barn.”
“Yes, the very next day as I recall. But I had no choice in thematter. My mother sent me away. And I fail to see how taking you to see a litter of kittens—which I thought was a kindness—could nearly have been the death of you.”
“It wasn’t the kittens. It was the scratch from the mother cat you scared into a frenzy.” She shoved up her sleeve. “I owe this to you.”
An angleworm of a scar crawled across the finely veined skin just above her wrist ... an injury of his own making. His heart wrenched. What a careless, callous boy he’d been. “Eva, I’m sorry.” He reached for her, then thought the better of it and pulled back. “I had no idea. Please do not hold the sins of a foolish lad against the man who stands in front of you now.”
“I tried to find you, you know,” she said, her voice softening. “I begged your mother to tell me where you’d gone, but she refused to give me any information. Said a girl like me wouldn’t understand and to run home to my mother. She was right. I didn’t understand.” Eva pushed her sleeve back over her wrist, her gaze now more wary than a cornered fox. “I could never understand why you left without a word, breaking our friendship without so much as a good-bye. So my forgiveness you may have, but my trust? Well, that is a bridge that could use some mending.”
His gut twisted. He’d never meant to hurt her so deeply, and yet truly he’d had no choice in the matter. A sigh drained out of him. “Fair enough. At least return to my office and tell me why you’ve come.”
She didn’t move a whit, just stared with an inscrutable gleam in her eye.
“There’s not a single cat in there. I vow it.” He slapped his hand to his heart.
The slight quiver of a smile rippled across her lips. “Are you truly a professor of Roman history?”
“I am.” Thanks to God’s grace and Uncle Pendleton, though she needn’t know that.
“Very well.” She whirled, marching off before he could so much as blink.
He scurried after her, surprised to see she’d already taken a chair in front of his desk, the timid lass he’d grown up with nowhere in sight. How had the girl who’d feared her own shadow come by such confidence? He took his own seat, inordinately curious. “Why the sudden interest in the Roman Empire?”
“This.” She rummaged in her pocket, then produced a silver ring.
The moment he held it up to the lamp on his desktop, he knew this bit of silver was something special. “Remarkable craftsmanship,” he muttered as he turned the relic one way and another. “Exquisite engraving. Definitely an exceptional piece of history. Late for the era, third century, maybe second—but that’s just a guess. The use of silver was a widespread practice during this period, particularly for artisans. Early Christian symbolism, perhaps, signifying faith during a time of persecution.”
The more he examined the ring, the more his pulse thrummed. This was a find! At length, he cocked his head at Eva. “Who did you purchase this from?”
“I didn’t. It was found on my land.”
Herland? He fingered the ring, flipping it over and over. “Are you speaking of your family’s estate outside of Royston?”
“Just as I said.”
Interesting. He’d expected her to be married by now. Then again, his uncle had expected as much out of him. He looked at her—truly looked—and saw weariness shadowing her eyes, belying the determined set of her shoulders. “So you are still living at home?”
“I am. I have been in mourning for the past year.”
Hmm. He’d heard her mother had died long ago, and being she now said the land was hers ... “Your father?” he surmised.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin defiantly, but he also saw a flicker of pain—a pain she clearly tried hard to conceal.
“I am sorry to hear it.” He kept his tone respectful. The loss of a parent was a wound that never truly healed. Still, that didn’t account for her not getting married before her father had died. It seemed an odd omission for a woman of her standing, especially one as captivating as she had become.
But that was none of his business.
Her gaze drifted to the relic in his grasp. “So what might I sell that for?”
