“I pray there are not. You assured me that you know where to find the boy, just as you assured me that he will listen to you.”
“And he will, Your Grace. If you send the carriage tomorrow, he will be in it. As will my daughter.”
Neither her father nor his guest had seen Yvette standing halfway down the road, and again, she wondered if it was worth diving off the path so that she would not be noticed. She might have done so too, was it not for the last thing her father said.
As will my daughter… what does he mean by that?
“Good man,” the guest said as he walked to the black stallion and started to ready it for riding. “This entire circumstance isregrettable, but I hope that this goes some way toward rectifying it.”
“My daughter knows what she is doing, I assure you.”
“As you have said.”
“She is a good woman,” her father continued as his guest climbed atop his horse. “Smart. Astute. She is the right woman for the job.”
“That remains to be seen,” the guest spoke from the horse, so that he looked down at her father. “And I assure it, that you will be the first to know otherwise.” He scoffed. “How did it come to this, Vicar? Am I doing the right thing or…” He trailed off when he caught movement out of his eye.
Yvette still stood in the middle of the road, eyes wide as she watched her father and his guest. But her eyes widened and she gasped in surprise and embarrassment both when the guest, seated on his horse, looked up to find her watching.
She had recognized him as soon as he stepped outside. Even from a distance, and even without seeing his face clearly, he could only be the His Grace, Alistair Locke, the Duke of Pembourne.
It was his dark hair that did it, so black that it seemed to absorb the light around it. His eyes too, even from a distance they were the darkest blue that she had ever seen, somehow bothfierce and cold, not to mention probing. He was handsome in a traditional way, with his sharp cheekbones, his square jaw, and shoulders so broad and thick that she wondered if the horse on which he sat might be more comfortable strung across his back.
Finally, the most recognizable features… the scars. There was one on his cheek, another along his neck, and while Yvette had never seen for herself, she’d been told that his back was covered in them.
The day was warm, but a cool breeze swept over Yvette and made her shiver as the Duke watched her from afar.
“Yvette!” her father cried. “What are you doing?”
She lurched in surprise and forced herself back into the moment. “Sorry, Father,” she called and hurried down the road. “I had just finished my tasks and was –”
“I told you I did not wish to be disturbed.”
“Sorry,” she said again. “I forgot.”
“Tomorrow, Vicar,” the Duke said to her father, all while watching Yvette hurry closer.
“It will be done, Your Grace.”
The Duke nodded once and kicked his heels into his mount. He steered it down the road toward Yvette, who stepped out of the way just as it reached her. As he passed her by, the Duke watched closely, and another cold shiver ran up her spine because there was something about the look in his eyes that made her feel exposed and vulnerable in ways she could not explain.
Then he was gone, down the road, around the bend, vanished as if he had never been.
“Father…” Yvette gave her head a shake and hurried to her father, who waited outside their house. “What was His Grace doing here?”
“His Grace and I are good friends,” her father said. “You know that I was close with his father.”
“You had mentioned it…” Indeed, as her father ran the parish on this estate, she assumed that he was at least friendly with His Grace. But he had never mentioned the Duke personally, and she doubted this friendliness went beyond their shared business.
“How much did you hear?” her father asked.
She bit into her upper lip as she looked at her father. “Not enough to understand, but enough to know that I ought to.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Well said, Yvette. That cleverness will suit you well.”
“Suit me well for what?” she asked. “Father, what is going on?”
“I had hoped to break the news to you in a more conventional manner,” her father sighed. “But I suppose that God works in mysterious ways, and it is best that we get this over with now.”
