Eva smiled at the memory. “Found the Holy Grail already, did you? Your uncle is certain it’s here.”
Bram’s wind-reddened cheeks drained of colour. Odd, that.She’d expected a snappy retort, not a silent offering of his upturned palm.
“The terrain is treacherous now that it’s been plowed,” he said simply.
Hiking her skirt to her ankles, she bypassed him. “I have walked this land all my life, Professor. I certainly don’t need your help.”
She marched ahead, stepping over mounds of turf and hopping across furrows gouged by the plow. Despite her sister’s pleading to come along, it was a good thing she’d held firm. Penny managed the house and yard like any agile twelve-year-old, but she’d surely have taken a tumble on this rough dirt—and the image of Penny crashing face first squeezed her heart.
A harsh puff of wind caught the scarf she’d tucked around her neck, the long tail of it flying off like a naughty sparrow. She reached for the fabric—just as her toe caught on a rock. Flailing, she pitched forward.
A strong arm wrapped around her waist, righting her world, shoring her up against a solid torso.
Bram’s.
She whirled away. Bad idea. Once again, she teetered on the uneven ground.
And once again, Bram grabbed hold of her, a mix of concern and amusement sparking in his eyes. They stood so closely, his breath feathered against her brow, and she inhaled his scent of rich tobacco and dampened soil. No, not soil. Something greener. Fresher. Moss, perhaps?
“As I said.” He angled his head to a playful tilt. “Treacherous.”
The land? Or the way her heart thudded against her ribs?
Capturing her hand, he firmly planted her fingers in the crook of his arm, then set off, whistling a cheery tune. Several times she nearly pulled away—and she would have, were she not so absurdly mesmerized by the feel of his muscles riding beneathher touch. This man was no gangly-limbed youth anymore. She’d been right to be cautious of him.
But now she must also be wary of herself.
“Mr. Barker,” Bram called. “The Samian specimen, if you please.”
A towheaded young man with enough curls to make a debutante jealous broke away from the other two students—one of whom she recognized from yesterday in the college corridor. Mr. Barker handed over a dirty piece of broken pottery.
Bram held it up as if it were the Queen’s tiara. “Behold.”
“That’s what you wished to show me?” Eva frowned. “My farmhand has a whole bucket of those bits by now.”
“It’s not a merebit, Eva. See these floral motifs mingled with these geometric designs?” He brushed his thumb over the chunk of clay. Dirt flaked off, revealing a glossy red finish. “This is from the first or second century, possibly early third. Such pottery was crafted by Roman artisans. There’s treasure beneath this soil.” He grinned, the boyish show of pleasure almost as infectious as his uncle’s good humor. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“Well, hold on to that feeling, Professor.” She winked as saucily as he and his uncle. “For it may change when you see where you’ll be lodging.”
He’d stayed in questionable quarters before. Seedy inns. Shabby boardinghouses. One time in Tunisia, he’d slept in a hut made of hundreds of barrel staves lashed together. All had been palaces compared to the ramshackle workmen’s cottage on the Inman estate. Cottage, huh? More like a shoebox of spiders. Bram took a long drag of his cigar, grateful his uncle had granted him a reprieve from sweeping out the place. Judging by the hoots of laughter from inside the weathered walls, though, his students were having a cracking good time.
He blew one last puff of smoke, then ground out the butt with the toe of his shoe. After a quick readjustment of the lantern wick, he picked up his uncle’s notes lying beside him on the bench. While he’d have preferred his uncle had found that missing journal of his, at least the man had given a valiant effort to recreate what he’d felt were the most important leads. This rough sketch of Uncle Pendleton’s layout for Caelum Academia might not prove to be a solid fact, but at least it gave him an idea of how to proceed tomorrow. If the ground was pliable enough, they might—
He jerked up his head, listening hard. He could’ve sworn he’d heard someone approaching. From what he could see, the windows of the manor house were nothing but dark shadows. Perhaps on the front side, though, the sitting room was still lit. Even so, Eva would not venture out to pay him a visit, and neither the steward nor the farmhand had such light steps.
Setting aside the journal, he rose on silent feet. Much to his shame, he knew a thing or two about stealth. He crept the short length of the front of the cottage, then peered around the side. Hardly eight feet from him stood a young girl on tiptoe, ear pressed against the window glass. His lips twisted. With walls as thin as this cottage’s, she truly needn’t go to so much trouble to eavesdrop.
“You know,” he murmured, “if you stepped on that crate next to you, you could probably hear a lot better, though you’d get more of an earful if you simply knocked on the door and asked to come in.”
The girl whirled. “You scared the life from me! Who are you, and how did you creep back here so quietly?”
“Professor Bram Webb at your service, and I have years of experience sneaking away from my mother.” He stepped closer, examining the sprite. Dark tendrils escaped from a coiled braid at the back of her head, but other than hair colour, her wide mouth and long nose matched Eva’s. Why, dye those locksbrownish red and he’d be transported back to a time when Eva had looked at him with admiration instead of indifference. Why had she not told him about the girl?
“Does your sister know you’re out here?” he asked.
“What makes you think I have a sister?”
Now that was interesting, not so much her evasive maneuver but the fact that she didn’t look him in the face. “Because you’re much like Eva Inman when she was a girl.”
