He searched the second-floor, hurrying through the wings, but didn’t find her. He laughed at himself as he searched, then shook his head in disgust. Why had he agreed to let her go with his steward?
On the main floor, he spotted Prudence and Sudbury on their way out of the house. Good, the last thing he needed was to explain to his sister why he was searching for Miss Ramsey.
He did his best to avoid anyone who might wish to speak with him. Whatever it was could wait.
After another quarter of an hour, he found her where he’d found her the first time, in the garden. Stephen waited a few feet away while she knelt before the cross on his parent’s memorial, praying in silence. Ben went still seeing her and remembering that day…she’d been hiding. He would kill anyone who tried to hurt her.
He looked around, narrowing his eyes on any sound that didn’t seem natural.
He didn’t want to interrupt her prayers so he stood watch until she was done.
“Oh.” Her dulcet voice rang across his ears from behind, “Did you finish writing your letters?”
“I needed fresh air. I’ll finish later,” he told her, turning to see her.
She smiled and leaned in closer while Stephen made his way toward them. “Were you missing me, Duke?”
He turned around and stared at her, more afraid than he’d ever been on any battlefield. She had a hold on his heart. He didn’t need to have loved before to know that what he was feeling now was love. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to stop it. Did he want to?
“I still have a letter to write to the king.” He looked up from the ground and met Stephen’s knowing gaze. His steward was well aware of his plans. “But I don’t want you out here with only Stephen to guard you. Until the man chasing you is stopped, you’ll only come out with me.”
Had her eyes always been so big, so blue-green with shards of gold? Had her skin always been so clear, her lips so pink?
“So then,” she teased, “you were worried about me?”
He wished he could control his own damned face. But he couldn’t help but smile at the way she turned his complaining into compliments. He nodded then turned again and began walking back to the house. She followed with Stephen and then picked up her pace so that she was walking beside Ben.
“I was thinking of you,” she confessed.
His heart pounded in his ears. What had become of him?
“It doesn’t seem fair that when I finally meet someone I can fall for, it’s now, here, in a time I don’t belong. I feel like when my purpose for coming to the past is complete, I’ll be pulled back–I mean, ahead.”
“What’s your purpose?” he managed.
“I don’t know. Maybe something that has to do with you.”
Like me falling in love for the first time in my life and not dying on the battlefield?“You said the pocket watch brought you here,” he said. “Leave it wherever it is. Never touch it again and then it can’t pull you back.”
“So–” her smile made him almost trip over his feet– “you don’t want me to go?”
He took a few more steps, aware of Stephen passing them and wearing a wide smile on his face.
“No, I don’t.”
When she laughed merrily and ran to catch up with Stephen, Ben smiled and even let out a slight, short laugh. She was clever and yet, she possessed an innocence that was untarnished by society and its many rules designed mostly to keep women quiet and in their place. Fable grew up forgotten by society and free.
Still laughing, but now at something his suddenly humorous steward said, she spun around to face Ben. Her hair, like splashes of fiery sunshine spread out around her and then settled over her shoulders. “Are you returning to write your letter to the king, or can you teach me to fence now?”
His letter. Yes. His arm was well enough to return to battle. But…he stared at her waiting for his answer…a little more practice would do him good. “Come with me.”
She bounced up, clapping and looking quite happy. He realized that watching her bloom in the safety he provided made him happier than he ever felt in his life. It was odd how another person’s joy could rub off on the hardest heart. “All right, come, then,” he urged curtly, trying not to appear too ridiculously gleeful.
She hurried to him and looped her arm through his. “I enjoyed my tour. Your house is, like, colossal. I’ve never seen so many rooms and we didn’t even finish seeing them all. The halls are enormous. Why, I think you could fit dozens of people in that house! It’s very beautiful.”
“There are many people taking care of it,” he said, taking no credit for its upkeep.
“You have a huge staff. How do you afford it all? How do you make money?”
