The conversation proceeded along predictable lines, measurements and materials, costs andbenefits—the sort of logical progression that should have occupied his mind entirely. Samuel contributed observations about his own estate’s recent improvements, speaking with the authority of a man who had overseen every detail personally. He found comfort in the concrete problems of land management, where solutions could be calculated and implemented without reference to the chaos of human feeling.
His gaze drifted over the baron’s shoulder.
Alice sat among a group of ladies on a blanket beneath an elm, her soft green gown reminding him of the muslin she had worn yesterday, when he found her surrounded by torn paper and unshed tears. She laughed at something one of the pink-muslin sisters had said, a bright laugh he now recognized as performance rather than genuine amusement. The sound carried across the hillside.
A young man had positioned himself at the edge of her blanket, leaning forward with the eager intensity of a hunting dog that had spotted prey. Samuel recognized the posture, the angled shoulders, the determined smile—the signs of a man trying to capture a lady’s attention through persistence. Lieutenant Harrington. Samuel’s jaw tightened. Still pursuing.
Alice deflected the lieutenant’s advances with thepracticed ease of a woman who had spent five seasons honing her skills. Her fan appeared as if by magic, creating a barrier of silk between herself and the young officer’s enthusiasm. Her smile remained bright and sharp, offering nothing that could be interpreted as encouragement while providing no hint of insult.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Lord Crewe?”
He blinked, returning his attention to the baron, who regarded him with the patient expression of someone accustomed to conversational partners whose minds had wandered. “Forgive me. You were saying?”
“The question of lime application. Whether spring or autumn produces superior results.”
“Autumn,” Samuel replied automatically, though he could not have explained his reasoning if pressed. His gaze drifted again, following the line of the hill to where Alice sat, managing her admirers with the cool efficiency of a general conducting a retreat.
A gust of wind swept across the hillside.
It came from nowhere, one of those sudden movements of air that country weather produces without warning. Blankets rippled. Ladies pressed hands to their bonnets. A silk ribbon—the deep blue one threaded through Alice’s hair—pulled free andtook flight with the carefree abandon of something escaping captivity.
Alice rose immediately, her movements graceful despite their haste, her hand reaching for the ribbon as it danced beyond her grasp. Samuel watched it flutter upward, caught by successive currents, spiraling toward the secluded rise beyond the main gathering, where gorse bushes and brambles created a boundary between the picnic grounds and the wild landscape beyond.
She followed it without hesitation, leaving behind the blanket, the lieutenant, and the group of women who called after her with mild concern. Her green skirts brushed against the tall grass as she climbed, and Samuel noted every detail of her ascent from the set of her shoulders, to the loose strands of dark hair that had escaped their arrangement, and the way she moved through the landscape as if it belonged to her.
His hand moved to his pocket, closing around a handkerchief he did not need.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, his voice steady, revealing nothing of his internal state. “I believe I may have dropped something near the ridge.”
The baron nodded, returning to his discussion of drainage with enthusiasm. Samuel turned away before his expression could betray anythingimproper, walking toward the rise with measured steps that required considerable effort to maintain.
The sounds of the picnic faded behind him. Laughter diminishing to distant music, conversations blurring into pleasant murmurs, the clatter of plates and glasses softening until it resembled the tinkling of a stream. Samuel climbed the gentle slope, his boots pressing patterns into the tall grass, his chest tightening with each step that brought him closer to wherever Alice had gone.
He found her silhouette at the crest, dark against the bright sky, her arm extended toward a bramble bush where the blue silk had caught and tangled. The wind had fallen still, and in the sudden quiet, Samuel heard only his own breathing and the rapid beat of his pulse.
She had not yet noticed his approach. He stopped several feet away, watching her as she worked to free the ribbon from the thorns that seemed determined to keep it, and wondered what he was doing.
Following her. That was the simple answer.
The complicated answer involved torn letters, windowsill confessions, and the taste of her mouth in moonlit gardens—complications he had sworn to avoid, resolved to distance himself from, complications that seemed irrelevant now that he stood onthis hillside with the world reduced to the space between them.
He cleared his throat.
Alice turned.
Her eyes found him with the sharpness of a woman who had not expected company and was now assessing whether his presence was an intrusion or something more complex—something she had yet to categorize. Samuel watched the assessment play out across her features. Surprise, quickly masked. Wariness, carefully maintained. And beneath both, something that might have been relief, though she would surely deny it if asked.
“Lord Crewe.” Her voice carried a formal brightness. “Have you also lost something to the wind, or are you simply surveying the local brambles?”
“A handkerchief.” The lie emerged smoothly, the result of years of diplomatic training. “Though I suspect it has traveled farther than anticipated.”
Alice turned back to the bush, where her ribbon remained tangled, her fingers working at the thorns with more force than necessary. “These branches are remarkably tenacious. One might almost admire their determination if they weren’t ruining perfectly good silk.”
Samuel moved closer—not too close—maintaining a careful distance. He watched her pull theribbon free in a small shower of petals and leaves, shake off the debris with mild triumph, and wind the recovered silk around her fingers in a gesture that seemed more habitual than intentional.
The hilltop spread around them in shades of green and gold, a landscape of beauty that painters spent careers trying to capture. Below, Oakford’s gardens descended in terraced splendor, their geometric patterns softened by distance. Woods darkened the middle ground, their edges blurring into shadow, and beyond them, the grey spire of the village church rose against the sky. A small stream cut through the meadow to their left, its water catching the light in silver flashes.
The sounds of the picnic had faded. In their place, birdsong rose and fell, thrushes and skylarks conducting their afternoon business, indifferent to the humans nearby. The breeze, having accomplished its mischief with the ribbon, settled into something gentler, rustling through the tall grass surrounding them.
