After washing and dressing, she fussed with her hair, rather than being content with the usual practical knot she drew it into most days. Then she dabbed perfume on her skin from a bottle she hadn’t touched in years.
Only when she opened the etched wooden box where she kept her rarely worn jewelry did she admit to herself that all of this effort was because of Dominic. Which was ironic, considering that he’d made love to her when she was at her most disheveled—hair mussed and curling from the rain, clothes rumpled and still damp.
And it wasn’t so much that she was trying to be beautiful for him—though she did relish the way he looked at her as if he thought her a beauty—it was that her boldness and the way he had relished it made her feel confident in a way she hadn’t in a very long while.
She glanced out the window to check for his arrival and caught him just as he made his way up the walk to the cottage’s front door.
Stepping outside to meet him, she found herself as tongue-tied this morning as when he’d approached across the field.
“You look beautiful, though you always do,” he said easily, as if it wasn’t the grandest of compliments and was the simplest truth. “Ready to visit Fenbridge?”
“Thank you, and yes, I am.”
He offered her his arm, though they’d taken walks together at the dig site or into the village throughout his time in Wiggenstow and had never walked so close.
Still, she took his arm. She found she couldn’t resist.
“Any idea why he’d want me to come too?”
Tess had been wondering the same. “Yesterday was the first time I showed him something we’d found. The bit of metal and garnet. Perhaps he wants a better sense of what we’ve done and what we hope to find next.”
“Did you tell him we have reason to believe it’s a ship burial?”
“I didn’t.” She looked up at him. “Do you think we can confirm that now?”
“I do. There can be very little doubt.”
Tess smiled. “Perhaps that will please him then.”
“Your find didn’t?” He frowned down at her, seemingly as confused as she’d been by Fenbridge’s lack of interest in the dig’s finds.
“Not a bit.” She considered telling him what the nobleman had shared about her own personal history, but she hadn’t even told Tristan yet. Indeed, she wondered if she should share it with anyone at all.
The whole tale cast her mother in a different light, whereas she and Tristan had idolized her. That was perhaps because they’d lost her when they were just on the cusp of ten.
“You’re woolgathering,” he said softly, laying a hand over hers where she held his arm. “About last night?”
Tess licked her lips. Even mention of the hours they’d shared sparked something deep in her middle. A flare of remembered pleasure and eagerness to experience it all again.
“No,” she said with a smile, “though I have thought of it once or twice.”
Dominic laughed. “Only once or twice. I find myself unable to think of anything else.”
Tess tucked closer to him and whispered, “Then I’ll admit it’s been more than once or twice.”
As they came into view of Fenbridge Hall, Tess slipped her arm from his. “His lordship already suspects there’s something between us.”
She sensed Dominic’s displeasure when she stepped away, but he nodded. “Then we’ll take care not to stoke his suspicions.”
Tess stepped forward to knock on the hall’s front door, and when the butler appeared, she immediately sensed that something was amiss. The usually stolid gray-haired gentleman looked harried today, his spectacles slightly askew, his upper lip dotted with perspiration.
“Hello, Teague, we’re here to see his lordship.”
“Of course, Miss Hawthorne.” He focused on Dominic. “And Mr. Prince. You’re both expected.”
The man opened the door wide for them to enter, and Tess heard voices echoing in the house. That was unusual. Usually, the hall was quiet, even as the servants went about their work.
“Is his lordship entertaining visitors?” Dominic asked the butler.
