“What would you like to do?” He tilted his head. Curious.
She pressed her hand into the grass, loving the feel of each straw between her fingers. “This,” she said, and then she lay back, just as he had been doing earlier, and stared up at the sky. She could see it through between the branches and leaves of a nearby oak, a light blue color with shifting tones and worn-out clouds. Aaah. She sighed with contentment.
“There you are,” he quietly murmured. “I’ve finally found you.”
She knew what he meant. It was as though she’d rediscovered herself—the girl who’d been lost for a year had returned. But she wasn’t quite ready to talk or think of what that might mean for her future. So she caught hold of a different thought instead and said, “You impress me, Huntley.”
She sensed him shift a bit as he lay down beside her. “In what sense?”
She turned her head, her eyes meeting his across a small stretch of grass dotted by clover. It wasn’t precisely scandalous, but it certainly wasn’t proper either. Gabriella found that she no longer cared, too caught up in the intimacy—the connection she’d formed to another person. It filled a need—a craving—that had likely been there for most of her life. “The way you managed to make a life for yourself after losing your parents, the way you saved your sisters and—”
“Only Amelia and Juliette,” he said. A sheen of moisture appeared at the edge of his eyes. “I lost one. Couldn’t save her.”
Gabriella’s chest contracted, squeezing until her heart ached with pain. Without thinking, she reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. So terribly sorry.”
“It happened suddenly. I wasn’t prepared and I couldn’t . . .” He swallowed hard, but he didn’t look away, holding her gaze with unyielding resolve. “She was only seven when it happened. I was twelve.”
“A child with far too great a burden to carry.” She squeezed his hand in sympathy, then moved to pull away.
He held her fast. “You should reconnect with your sister.”
“I have written to her more than once, but she never responds.”
“Were you close?”
Gabriella tried to shrug, which was difficult, given her position. “I always thought so. But then she did what she did without a word of warning. She only left me a short note.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Gabriella stared at him. “Why?”
“You were her little sister and your opinion of her mattered. That’s why she didn’t say good-bye to you in person. She just couldn’t face you.”
She considered that for a second and finally nodded. “Very well, I’ll accept that. But she could have mentioned Connolly to me before she chose to elope with him. She should have said that she planned to break her engagement with Bellmore.”
He watched her a moment, his expression signifying deep contemplation. “Let’s pretend the roles were reversed.”
“I don’t see—”
“Let’s pretend that you got engaged first. To Fielding. A fine match to everyone’s liking. But then one day, you meet someone else. A dockyard worker who reminds you what it’s like to chase your own dream, fulfill your own wants and desires.”
She stared at him, enthralled by the image he’d painted, and by him. “You were a dockyard worker?”
“I had to make my way somehow.” The air grew still between them, and then he suddenly grinned, sweeping aside the tension that had materialized out of nowhere. “Anyway, imagine that, and then imagine telling your sister that you’ve changed your mind about the earl and that you’d rather have the dockyard worker instead.”
Gabriella’s heart pounded against her chest. “I wouldn’t have trusted her to understand the way I feel.” She barely got the words out, their breathiness like a puff of air pushed toward him.
“Gabriella.” He spoke her name softly, abandoning the honorific for the very first time. “What do you want?”
A question—the most important question she’d ever been asked. Not Fielding. Never Fielding. But then what? She met his gaze. You. Possibly you. She couldn’t say that, so she sat up instead and looked for Anna. “I should probably go. Mama will be home soon.” She rose to her feet and he got up as well, brushing off leaves and bits of grass. “Please tell your sisters that I will return tomorrow. Ten o’ clock.”
He crossed to the terrace step and retrieved a small wooden box that he promptly handed to her. “This is for you.”
Unable to hide her surprise, she accepted the offering and peaked inside, instantly smiling at the sight of a shimmering green mint beetle. “Remarkable.”
“Do you like it?” It was touching how shy he suddenly sounded, this man who was always so strong and confident. He cared about her opinion now. That much was clear.
“Yes. They’re usually smaller than this one. Where on earth did you find it?”
