His traitorous gaze slid over her. No corset. Breasts that would spill over his palm. More than enough curve to her hips for his hands to grip.
Yes, he’d be more than satisfied.
And that was the bloody problem.
“Ramsey mentioned you’d helped yourself to furniture and linens from the house.”
She gave a nervous smile. “He said you agreed.”
“I did.”
She paused as if expecting more, but he needed to tread carefully. Discovering what she knew about her fathershouldbe the only reason he was speaking to her now.
“Would you like to come in?” She spoke with the polite distance of a hostess receiving an afternoon caller. “The tea is steeping. You’re welcome to join me. I’ll just move the barrow.”
He should have refused, but his feet betrayed him.
“I’ll move the barrow and join you inside.”
“Thank you, Mr Hawke. Leave it by the wood store.”
He hadn’t even known therewasa wood store, let alone one with a new felt roof and a stack of dry logs.
“Did Ramsey fix the roof on the store?” he asked, stepping into the sitting room, but the words died on his lips.
The last time he looked, the cottage was a pit. Dust thick as ash. Curtains stained yellow from damp. But now? Now the space was clean.
Not polished to perfection, but cared for. The windows were open, the air laced with woodsmoke and something citrus. The curtains were new to the room, but not new to the world. Likely salvaged from another window. Another life.
A worn leather wing chair sat angled by the hearth, its arms softened by time and use. And on the small table beside it, a vase of white roses.
His mother’s favourite.
Fresh from the garden. Their third flush.
“The gardener’s boy fixed the roof,” she said, unaware he was relieved it wasn’t Ramsey.
He wasn’t angry she’d cut the roses. He was strangely grateful. He didn’t care that she’d taken his grandmother’s pink porcelain teapot. The one his mother cherished, decorated with a courting couple.
He almost felt at home here. Which was ridiculous.
Shadowmere was his home, yet it often felt like a prison.
“You can sit in the wing chair. It’s quite comfortable. I believe it was yours once, before you had the study redesigned. I’ll fetch the stool from upstairs.”
“I’ll fetch the stool.”
He mounted the narrow staircase before she could object, driven by a stubborn need to know where she slept.
The chamber was smaller than his boot room. She hadn’t used her charm to convince Ramsey to dismantle the best bedin the house. She’d slept on an old trundle bed, pushed beneath the window.
She hadn’t insisted on luxury. She took meagre things and made do. He didn’t know whether to be furious or impressed.
He crossed to the corner, lifted the candle lamp from the stool she used as a nightstand, and went back downstairs.
“You need a proper bed,” he said, setting the stool down and sitting on it. “Drawers. A nightstand. Choose what you want from the house. I’ll arrange to have them moved and assembled.”
Her hand trembled slightly as she poured the tea into the matching pink cups. “I’m quite happy on the trundle bed. And I’m not sure how long I’ll stay.”
