“Thank you,” he said simply.
Not terrible, she thought again.
“I would restate our apologies for barging in this morning,” he said.
“The surprise of your arrival is inconsequential compared to your purpose here, I think.”
The words were out before she could stop them. The villagers of Ivy Hill gave Dani’s natural boldness a wide berth, but this man was not a product of Ivy Hill. This man came from Cornwall, by way of London, and apparently the Atlantic Ocean. He’d scared her parents half to death. She, too, should probably be afraid. Or at least less bold.
He ran a hand through his hair. He slid his boot from his knee and settled it on the rug. Dani took a slow sip of tea and waited for him to cut or threaten or put her in her place—worse, she waited for him to tell her how very grateful she should be, that surprise betrothals to strange naval captains are the stuff of dreams.
Instead, he gave her a tight, tired smile. It was his first smile, she realized, and it was hardly cheerful but it looked genuine. She didn’t know him well enough to gauge this, of course, but she knew people. Most situations were made easier with a smile. Unless, of course, they made them more bizarre. A flash of white teeth and wild eyes would’ve been cause for alarm, but he hadn’t been flashy or wild.
And Dani could honestly say that she did not feel alarmed—not really. She felt challenged. Coincidentally, Dani rather enjoyed a proper challenge. At the moment, she found herself wanting to hear what he might say next, to rule it Terrible or Not Terrible, and to discover why his almost-smile felt like an invitation rather than a threat.
“I find myself in a position to beg your pardon, Miss Allard—truly,” he said. “I am not usually so unprepared for—” He stopped. “I am rarelyunprepared. It’s unlike me, but I traveled to Kent with very little knowledge of... what to expect.”
“We’ve both been caught unawares, then,” she said carefully. She studied him over the brim of her cup. She repeated his statement in her head.Very little knowledge of what to expect...
Did he mean he didn’t like her? That he’d expected a certain manner of girl and he’d discovered her instead?
Dani had the odd feeling that she’d swallowed a pocket watch, and now it settled in her belly, ticking off seconds, counting down to a moment of truth.
“I wonder if it would be possible to go for a walk, Miss Allard?” he asked gently. “Stroll to the high street and back, perhaps?”
Dani frowned. Her life had been turned upside down. Her notion of marriage had always felt years away, vague and unrelated to her current life—and now she was engaged? Everything she’d known about herself and her future was in a scrambled heap on the floor. Given the choice, she would not drag this mental chaos into the street. This said nothing of what neighbors would say when they saw her walking in the company of a man.
“The situation is complicated, I’ll grant you,” he said. “But I’m loath to discuss it in a dim, cramped parlor. Let us get outside where we might breathe fresh air and look at the sky and take up sturdy fence posts if we find ourselves on the verge of collapse.”
Dani considered his descriptions of her parents’ parlor and tried to take offense. Truthfully, it was dim and cramped.
“Alright,” she said, standing up. “This may invite gossip, but no more than a surprise betrothal, I suppose. Let me get my hat.”
Five minutes later they walked side by side up New Bridge Road. Captain Bannock clasped his hands behind his back. Dani’s arms were at her sides, fingers opening and closing. The road was, thankfully, vacant save a slow-moving gaggle of geese. They followed the shapeless clutch of birds waddling toward town. Beside the road, Mr. Thomas’s cow grazed in her paddock, and the breeze dispersed apple-blossom petals from the orchard. A thick hedge concealed a flock of sparrows, and they flapped and sang inside its leafy chest. Sunlight poured from a cloudless sky, and Dani found herself breathing easier in the brightness. She forced her hands to go still. He’d been correct. It was a relief to move her legs, to look at the geese and not at each other.
“I’d always heard that Kent was like a storybook come to life,” he said.
“I’ve never lived anywhere else.” She looked at the orchard. “That I remember. But I have read countless storybooks, and the world beyond Kent is what seems enticing to me.”
“You aspire to travel?”
The conversation was innocuous, but it made her eyes sting. Was Ivy Hill beautiful? Of course it was beautiful. And Dani had no wish to be forcibly removed from it—not by this man or anyone else. But it was a lie to say that she wasn’t excited by the notion of traveling beyond it. For safety reasons, Whittle and Miriam had never allowed the family to travel farther than Maidstone, but they’d provided Dani with London’s best tutors, and these men and women had exposed her to the landscapes and cultures of the larger world. If she was being honest, she did long to know what lay beyond the storybook of Ivy Hill.
“I would enjoy travel, I think,” she said. “But I love my home, too. I’m a person open to many things, really. But I should like to be told what to expect. Better yet, to have some say in the matter.”
He said nothing and she wondered if statements like this came across as petulant rather than informative. He’d not yet been unkind. A half hour with no unkindness was a very low bar, but she knew many people who were terrible within the first five minutes.
They heard the rumble and snap of a wagon then, the sound increasing as the vehicle approached. Dani had been walking in the rocky wheel rut, with the captain flanking her along the hedgerow. Now he stepped around to position himself between the passing wagon and her body. The move was so sudden, and in fact so crowding, Dani stopped walking. But then the wagon was upon them.
“Dani, is that you?” called a woman’s voice from the wagon.
Dani looked up. Her old friend Rose Stripling and her husband, Jonathan, peered down from the driver’s bench.
“Oh, Rose—hello,” Dani called. “How do you do, Mr. Stripling?” She bobbed a curtsy.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Rose said, “because we’ve wanted to tell you that Jonathan’s mother has recovered from—” Rose stopped. She leaned forward on the bench to get a better look. Beside her, Jonathan Stripling leaned in the opposite direction. They gaped at Captain Bannock with a mix of open confusion and astonishment. Dani sighed. Was it so very unbelievable that she might walk down the road with a tall, fashionably dressed man? Truly?
Yes, she reminded herself. Considering the limited company she kept and the small life she led—yes. It was unbelievable. She herself had viewed the captain’s chivalry with the same confused astonishment. Gentleman callers were hardly thick on the ground in Ivy Hill, and even fewer of them found their way to Dani’s door.
