“He doesn’t touch strangers like that.”
Lord Daniel spoke, his voice a low rumble. “What was he doing?”
Stefan spoke. “Looking at her, I think. They touched foreheads.”
“But why?” asked Lord Daniel.
“I think,” Li-Na said slowly, “that he knows I am different, just as he is.”
“But you’re nothing like him,” said Stefan.
“I didn’t say he and I were alike,” she explained. “I said we are both different.”
“From us, you mean. You’re different from us.” Lord Daniel’s voice was lower. There was no rumble of threat from him. Merely a statement as he sorted through what had happened.
She shrugged. There was no denying that a Chinese woman in England was different. And the boy was obviously different as well, though not in the same way. “Sometimes it is easier to be alone together.”
Stefan clearly didn’t know what to make of her words. He looked between her and his uncle. Meanwhile, Lord Daniel nodded slowly as if he understood. He couldn’t, of course. He was a powerful man in the country of his birth. What did he know about being different? But even so, she read understanding in his gaze. Perhaps a man who had travelled the world did know something about being different.
Meanwhile, Lord Daniel clapped his hands. “Well, that’s it for me.” He looked at Stefan. “I expect you first thing in the morning. We’re going to talk about reconstructing a castle. And you’re—”
“Going to tell you why I don’t own the things that the law says I do.”
Lord Daniel snorted at his nephew’s cheeky answer. “Yes, you are.” Then he jerked his head toward the door.
The child took the hint. He stood up and made a proper bow to her and his uncle before he scampered away. Which left her alone in the room with the much too alert tiger.
“How would you prefer to return to the castle? I can have one of the stable hands fix up the carriage for us or we can walk. There’s a short-cut across the moors. Perfectly safe with me as guide. But it will take us the better part of an hour at a slow pace.”
“I am at your disposal, my lord.”
He thought for a moment, his gaze heavy on her face. And then he stood up from his chair like a cat gathering himself up to hunt.
“I’d fancy a walk, if you feel up to it.”
Up to it? She could see by his gaze that he meant to speak with her. Cat and mouse again as he pushed into things that were none of his business. And yet, how odd that she felt intrigued by the possibility. No one in London had set themselves to talking with her with such direct purpose. Certainly the young bucks at the gaming hell had done their best to entice the Abacus Lady. But they soon became bored and none of them intrigued her.
But Lord Daniel was different. In the short time she’d known him, he’d caught her imagination as no one ever before. His every mood was new to her probably because he was the first tiger she’d met. Or perhaps Mrs. Dove-Lyon had been right. She had grown stuck in London, and now it was time to explore something more. Either way, she wasn’t opposed to a long walk in the dark with Lord Daniel.
Strangely, she was a little excited by the idea.
Chapter Twelve
Daniel’s favorite timeof day was the evening when he walked the moors. It gave him time to rest his mind. His feet knew the path well and though he carried a lantern to light the way, this was the essence of him: a man so small beneath the heavens who yet dared to shine a light on all that he thought was beautiful.
Tonight, he walked it with Li-Na, and he had an agenda. He sought to shine his light on her thought process because what he’d heard during the carriage ride disturbed him. It also served to distract him from how much he wanted to kiss her beneath the moonlight.
“I overheard your talk with Nessie,” he began. “Can you tell me why you want her to hire bodyguards?”
Li-Na turned her face to him. She was lit mostly by the lantern because the moon was a small sliver in the starlit sky. “She is afraid someone will take her children away. Mrs. Dove-Lyon knows professionals—most were in the army—who will protect her and her children.”
The idea of surrounding his family with armed guards repelled him. “Why would you think she needs that? We are not a country where guns are required to defend a woman and her children.”
Li-Na stared at him, her steps slowing. It was as if he could read her mind as she struggled with whether to speak her thoughts or retreat into silence.
“I’m not angry. I want to know the truth.”
She grimaced. “Why should she allow someone to take her children without fighting for them?”
