Her mouth went dry when he turned her way, gesturing as if directing Tristan. His shirt... was not buttoned all the way to his neck.
All that resolve she’d just summoned seemed to wisp away on the spring breeze.
Then she noticed what was in Tristan’s hands and everything in front of her became tinged with crimson.
She stomped toward the two of them, and it took them an irritatingly long while to even note her approach.
Tristan spotted her first. Eyes wide, he waved at her tentatively.
Oh yes, he had good reason for that guilty dip of his brows. Tess pointed at the map in his hands. Her map. The one she’d prepared when they went to Fenbridge nearly a year ago to ask for permission to dig.
She’d worked on the plan for months, gathering together any details she could from public records, studies of the region, and her father’s own writings about the history of the village. Measuring and plotting and theorizing had taken up so much of her time that she’d barely slept, sometimes forgot to eat. She felt so certain of what they’d find on Fenbridge land.
She had given some of those documents to Mr. Prince already, mostly the historical studies her father had completed, but the map held special meaning. It was their dream—hers and Tristan’s—all laid out in graphical form.
They saw her now, Tristan looking uncharacteristically sheepish and Mr. Prince watching her approach with one of his roguish grins tipping those lips she now knew the taste of.
No. Stop. Ignore his tempting mouth.
She didn’t miss how his gaze lowered to take in her trousers before looking up at her face again.
“You started without me, Mr. Prince,” Tess shouted when she was close enough to ensure they heard every word. “I consider that a very poor play from a man who said we would be partners in this endeavor.”
“Tess—” Tristan tried.
“No.” She lifted a hand up toward her brother. “Do notTessme when you come out here with my map yet without me.” She plucked it from his fingers. “This is my plan, Mr. Prince.” She held up the document but did not release it to him. “Do you not have one of your own?”
He scrutinized her a moment, his eyes sparkling with much more amusement than he had any right to.
“Of course, Miss Hawthorne.” He reached into a leather satchel on a battered little table they’d set up at the edge of the dig area. After pulling out a sheaf of papers in a folio, he handed it to her.
Inside the folio, Tess found meticulous notes about the dig the Prince siblings had conducted the previous fall, as well as a projected plan for how the current dig should proceed. All were written in the same neat hand, though a few pages were typed.
“My sister prepared much of that,” he admitted while she flipped through each page.
“All of it, it seems.” Tess arched a brow and looked him square in the eye.
He managed to look the slightest bit chagrined. “Eve is better at the planning. I tend to be better at... digging in and taking action.”
“I’m prepared to dig in, Mr. Prince, I assure you.” Tess only had the little digs she and Tristan had conducted on the fields next to Foxdene as experience, but she’d conducted them methodically, documenting every step.
When Tristan stepped away to oversee the village men who continued to dig into the top layers of soil, Mr. Prince stepped almost scandalously close.
“Are we to be foes again, Tess?”
“Someone needs to document everything that’s happening,” she told him, struggling not to reveal how his nearness unnerved her. “Who’s doing that?”
He pulled out a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his trousers and offered it to her. It was warm from being pressed against his body. Tess tried to ignore that as she held the sheet in her hands.
He’d noted the start time, added a grid drawing of the area, and listed the name of each gentleman who’d begun working this morning.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly while she perused his notations. His voice was low, a bit rough, as it had been the night before last. “I didn’t mean to leave you out or exclude you.”
But you did, she barely resisted blurting.
“I wanted to spare you the boring bits,” he said, rocking on his heels and swaying a bit closer. She caught the scent of his shaving soap, the smoky allure of coffee.
“None of it is boring to me. I’ve wanted to do this for years.”
