I trust you, Graham.
Trust. As if he were ever deserving of such a thing.
It grated him to realize his weaknesses when it came to Hope. Now to put his faith in her when she was so oblivious to her power over him, well… It made him more than uneasy. It terrified him.
Graham’s deepest wish, his only want in life, was to belong somewhere. He had always believed that place wasLismore Hall, but he was beginning to believe that it was not a place that truly mattered but rather who was by his side. Anywhere could be home, if Hope was with him. Which would only make her dismissal of him that much worse. It would create a chasm in his heart and he wasn’t sure he would survive it.
He belonged to Hope, but he hadn’t realized how much until he was stalking a red deer.
“What is it?” Logan asked as they walked. Each of the men was paired off, set up strategically around the glen to flank their prey through the glen. The thick fog that laid in the valley wrapped around them, cold and wet, akin to being embraced by a specter. “You’re quiet today.”
The rolling green hills around them appeared nearly black due to the dampness of the morning and though the sun had begun to rise, the mist was so thick one could hardly see where it stood in the sky.
“Am I?” Graham said, neither admitting nor denying anything.
“Aye, you are,” Logan answered. “Not regretting your upcoming nuptials, are you?”
Graham gave him a warning glance.
“Watch your mouth.”
Logan lifted his brow and shook his head.
“I mean nothing by it.”
“Good.”
“Still, I’m curious …”
“About bloody what?”
“What it will be like. Marrying an English woman,” Logan said, visibly disgusted by the idea.
“Why not ask your father?” Graham asked sarcastically.
“I have,” he said, seemingly amused by it all. “And he’s as daft about his bride as you seem to be about yours.”
Graham grunted as he walked, unwilling to have any sort of conversation about Hope with Logan.
“Blast Michael,” Graham said, turning around and seeing no one. The sun had risen behind gray clouds as they continued to trudge through a low-lying mist. Fog was good for stalking deer, particularly once they found a spot to set up and stop moving, though the fog made it slightly more dangerous, but this haze was almost too dense. “Where is he? He and Jared should be here by now.”
“Who knows?” Logan asked, unimpressed. “I swear, some English lassies appear out of nowhere and everyone’s upside down. I’d swear the Sharpes had put some sort of enchantment on everyone since coming here.”
Graham cocked his head at Logan’s dramatics and his ongoing, irrational dislike of every English lass as a matter of principle. But enchantment was a perfect word to describe it. He had felt bewitched the moment he first laid eyes on Hope. Even separated from her, he couldn’t deny that he was still under her spell.
“There you go again,” Logan said, stepping over the thin stream as they made their way down into the glen. “Miserable and brooding. No doubt because of the Sharpes.”
“What is your aversion to them?” Graham asked, annoyed. “They have no sway over you or your life. Is it simply because they’re English that you can’t stand them?”
“It would be enough.” Logan trod carefully over marsh-like ground. The squelching sound of his steps would spookany animal within a mile. “And I can’t say I find any of them particularly worse than the other, except perhaps the middle one.”
“Faith?”
“Yes. She’s always trying to correct me. It’s rather infuriating,” Logan said.
Graham shrugged.
“I don’t mind Faith. She’s a bit stodgy, no doubt, but there’s a sense about her that she isn’t a fool. She seems more relatable than Grace.”
