“Lucy is purchasing a cottage.”
“That’s what I said. As she planned.” Maddy bit her lower lip and let it sink in. Rob stared into the distance until she couldn’t take it any longer. “What do you plan to do about it, Robbie?”
“I have no say. She can do what she wants.” He still stared.
“True words, but are you certain you know what that is?”
His gaze sharpened, and he peered at his sister. “No. I’m not. But I’m going to find out.”
This time when he ran from Maddie’s house, he rantosomething, not away from it.
Chapter Forty
Lucy lingered amongthe lilacs, blossoms long shriveled, that lined the front walk after Green drove away, staring at the cottage.My cottage…
Words didn’t make it so, and emptiness threatened to overwhelm her. In the deepening afternoon shadows, no birds sang to lighten her mood.But it will be mine. I’ll feel at home once I have the deed. My own place. One no man can take away from me.Repeating those words didn’t make it so either. She had found everything she thought she wanted in this rambling old house and lush grounds, and still, it didn’t feel right.
It will be home…That word rang the most hallow of all. Perhaps a name might sound more home-like.I could call it Honey House or Appletree Manor.Neither worked. The place was no manor. It would never be Willowbrook.
The sound of a horse cantering up the lane caught her attention, and she watched a cloud of dust approach, illuminated from behind by the sun that had dropped low in the sky. The vision stopped in front of her, and Lucy blinked specks from her eyes. They misted over when the figure emerging from the cloud of light took shape.
Rob swung down from the saddle and strode up to her, and her heart pounded, its pace as rapid as the beat of his horse’s gait.
“What—that is, how did you find me?” Her shock gave her voice a breathless quality.
“I encountered a Mr. Green a mile back and asked if he’d seen a stubborn, self-sufficient woman looking for property. He directed me here.” The heat blazing in his eyes took her breath away. She could only gape.
Rob broke eye contact and peered up at the upper windows of the house. “He said you needed your father or brother to have a look so you could make a decision.”
“I need no such thing!” Outrage shook her out of her abstraction.
“Is this what you want?” His gaze fixed on the house, moving from the loose shutter to the peeling paint over the doorway.
“It has everything I need—room for a bee yard primarily. And apple trees. I could make a good life here.”
“So Lady Madelyn told me.”
“You spoke with Maddy about me?” That explained, at least, how he came to follow her.
When he asked her to show him the grounds, she thought he must want to speak with her, but he walked at her side with his hands clasped behind his back, lost in his own thoughts, never saying a word.
The clearing at the back of the property appeared lifeless now that she stood there with Rob. The utilitarian plainness of the cobbled space so lacked character that it could have served any purpose. “Green told me it was built to accommodate kennels, but I see no sign of them,” she murmured. “It will do for my hives.”
He made a quiet sound that could have been assent. “Those fellows think so.” She squinted in the sunlight and followed where he pointed. Weeds peeping through cracks in the cobbles where they met the wall had bloomed. Two little honeybees gathered nectar from that unlikely source. Her smile almost reached her heart. “Resilient little beasts. They would thrive here.” She rubbed her knuckle to dab away moisture from the corner of her eye.
Rob turned in a circle, scanning the little yard, the path through the trees, and the house beyond. “It isn’t Willowbrook,” he sighed, staring down the path.
Lucy straightened her spine and wiped her hands together as if removing some non-existent dirt. “It is not and never will be. It will be its own world.” She walked past him into the shade of the trees, every sense aware when he followed her beneath branches heavy with fruit and redolent of apples.
“You spoke with Maddy about me.”
He stopped. “I asked her to bring you to London, to sponsor you,” he said.
Confused, she turned to face him in the light-dabbled pathway. “Why would she do that?”
“You could attend balls, parade in the parks, enjoy society—things ladies do. In Maddy’s company now, with the countess gone. David agreed to see to your expenses. Gowns and what not.”
“Davidwhat?” Bafflement softened her outrage. “He can’t afford it. But why, Rob? Why their sudden urgency in puffing up an obscure Caulfield relative by marriage?”
