Heat crept up Nell's neck, for Edmund Hartley was kind and steady. He had come to the village just six months ago. He possessed dark brown hair going silver at the temples, gentle hands, and a laugh that came easily. His fiancée had deserted him last winter, after four years of engagement. She was a baron's daughter who ran off with a French count, if Mrs. Pemberton's breathless retellings were to be believed. The scandal had apparently been the talk of London for months.
“The children will be wanting breakfast,” Nell said, changing the subject with a forced briskness as she reached for a clean towel. “Lily’s chest was rattling last night.”
Daphne’s teasing expression softened instantly. “Poor lamb. This damp weather does her no favors.”
The bell above the door jangled.
Nell looked up, her shopkeeper’s smile already forming, only to feel it freeze on her face. A man filled her doorway. He was impossibly tall, towering more than a foot above her, with shoulders broad enough to block out the grey morning light. Dark hair fell in damp waves across his forehead, rain dripping from the ends onto her clean floor. He had sharp cheekbonesand a jaw cut as clean as glass; and his full lips might have been pretty on a softer face. He was the kind of handsome that belonged in oil paintings or grand ballrooms, far away from her shop.
Except for the scar.
It ran from his temple to his jaw, a thick rope of raised tissue that pulled the corner of his mouth into a permanent near-sneer. Rain tracked down the ruined flesh like tears on marble, but a war wound, she realized. It was too clean for an accident.
He could not be more than eight and twenty. She saw it in the soft curl at his temples and the smooth skin the scar had spared. His look belonged to a much older man. Storm-grey and set deep beneath dark brows, heavy-lidded, fixed on her with bored arrogance that made her back teeth clench.
“I’ll fetch the next batch from the oven.” Daphne squeezed Nell’s arm and slipped through the curtain to the back room, though her glance lingered on the stranger a moment too long before she disappeared.
His attention moved over her shop. It dragged across the display cases and the modest counter. It paused at her apron and judged the lot of it lacking.
“Quaint.” He let the word hang as he tapped a gloved finger against the doorframe. He took the room in again. One brow rose in quiet dismissal.
He spoke the word like a verdict, a judge passing sentence on something beneath his notice. His accent was cultured and aristocratic, dripping with the particular disdain of men who had never wanted for anything. Nell’s spine stiffened, and her smile turned to glass. The accent was different, the clothes finer, but she knew that tone — that cold certainty that the world existed to serve him. Gabriel had worn it too, in cheaper cloth.
He stepped inside properly, shaking rain from his shoulders. He hadn’t intended to come in, she realized. He simply wantedshelter from the downpour, and her shop was a convenient, dry place to stand until the weather passed. He approached the counter with boots that struck the floor. He moved like a predator, accustomed to rooms parting around him.
He scanned her display, then let his attention slide to her. It paused at her bodice long enough to make the point. Then it moved back to her face, taking its time.
“The rain should pass shortly, sir.” Nell let the words drip with false sweetness while she wiped a spot on the counter that was already clean. “Though you are welcome to purchase something while you wait.”
His eyebrow rose a fraction. “The tarts. Are they fresh?” he asked, flicking his attention to her hands.
“Baked this morning.” She gestured to the display, keeping her movements controlled. “Cranberry. Seed cake. Lemon curd, if your tastes run sweeter.”
He reached past her, coming close enough that she caught the scent of rain, horse, and sandalwood. He picked up a cranberry tart, turning it in his long fingers, inspecting it the way one might a disappointing artifact. He set it down without care, leaving it slightly askew from its fellows.
“I will take six,” he commanded, pulling a leather purse from his coat.
There was no warmth in the order; he placed a gold sovereign on the counter. The coin gleamed against the worn wood. It was far too much for six tarts, a deliberate display of wealth or perhaps a test to see how quickly she would grovel for it.
Nell slid the sovereign back toward him with the tip of her finger. “I don’t keep change for gold, sir. Sixpence will do.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked from the coin to her face. “You are refusing my coin?”
“I am requesting appropriate payment.” She held his stare without flinching, the way she’d learned to hold Gabriel’s eyesin the early days, before she understood that meeting them only made him angrier.
“This is a bakery. It’s not a counting house.” Nell kept her hand extended, her palm unyielding.
A muscle twitched along his face. For a moment, she thought he might argue, or worse, simply leave the sovereign and walk out, forcing her to either keep it or chase after him. Instead, he reached into his waistcoat and produced a handful of smaller coins. He counted out sixpence, then dropped them into her palm.
Their fingers brushed. The contact was brief and accidental, yet it felt electric.
Nell pulled her hand back and busied herself wrapping the tarts in brown paper—her pulse quickened, though she refused to examine the reason. She tied the package with string and slid it across the counter.
He took the parcel without a word of thanks and turned toward the door. The rain still hammered against the windows, grey sheets of it turning the street beyond into a blurred watercolour.
Daphne came out from the back room with fresh loaves stacked in her arms. She stopped short when she saw the stranger leaving. “Was there something else you needed, sir?” she asked as she shifted the warm bread against her hip. “We have meat pies fresh from the oven if you’re hungry.”
The man paused at the door. He looked over his shoulder. That cold stare found Nell across the shop.
