“Back to London,” he said. “I cannot let Lord Gordon win guardianship over Stefan. I’m bringing the boy with me, and we’re going to figure out how to stop it.”
He was leaving now? After showing her the wonder of the night sky, he was now abandoning her? Good lord, her thoughts were jumbled. One moment she was giddy, the next suspicious, and now she was frightened of being left here alone.
“You’ll be perfectly safe,” he said. “Mrs. Hocking will come as usual. She can get you anything you want. There’s the gardener who’s out there most days, but mind you stay upwind from him on account of his smell.” He rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t be so bad if only he stopped eating all those onions. Nessie’s nearby. She’ll come check on you, too. And there are footmen and maids from the manor home that are always looking for something to do if you need a companion or a guide.”
“No!” She shuddered at the idea of relying on a stranger to take her places or—worse—to stare at her while she did her work. It had been hard enough accepting his company and he had worked extra hard to treat her as a lady. Others wouldn’t be a courteous, she was sure.
“I won’t be gone more than a week. Use the time to explore.” He smiled. “If you don’t want to use these supplies, go back down to the beach. Whatever pleases you, so long as you don’t go out alone at night. It’s easy to get lost out there if you don’t know the path.”
“I will be careful.”
He nodded, then he glanced back toward the courtyard. “I need to get back out there. By now, Stefan is probably testing what heights he can jump from without hurting himself.”
She nodded. “I will return to my work.” But she didn’t leave yet. Her feet remained stubbornly rooted to the floor. “My lord?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“You saw me paint once and decided to bring me here?”
He winced. “I decided your work was exquisite and I wanted to know more. A lot more.”
What an interesting, frightening, exciting thing. Her emotions would not settle on a single reaction to that, and so she stood there with her hands tight to her belly and her head slightly bowed as she wrestled with her conflicting feelings.
“I really need to get back out there. Are you all right?”
“I am perfectly well,” she lied. “When do you leave?”
“The day after tomorrow. But never fear, I won’t be under your feet today or tomorrow. Too much to do before I depart.”
So saying, he scooped up her packages. All together, they were undoubtably heavy, but he carried them as if they were nothing. He walked quickly ahead of her to the workroom. Then he set them down on top of a crate of vases tucked in the back of the room.
“I’ll just leave these here. If you want to use them, they are for you. If not, then they’re out of the way.”
He smiled, bowed to her in the most general of ways, and left the room. Yesterday, she would have thought nothing of his actions. She would have been relieved that he’d left her alone. She would not have noticed the cat-in-the-cream smile he had as he departed. She would have been too busy starting her work to follow his face as he turned away.
But she had, and now she couldn’t stop thinking of his smile. Yesterday it had been his tiger eyes. Today, it was his smile. What would tomorrow bring?
Chapter Fourteen
Daniel knew he’dcaught Li-Na’s attention. She was not the first woman he’d known to be confused by kindness. In truth, it was a depressingly common reaction. But she was the first one to capture his attention so thoroughly. He thought about her as he was finishing his time with Stefan. He wondered what she was doing when he once again had to carry the stinking Bob Mellin to the stream to bathe him. And he contented himself with thoughts about her when he was helping Widow Greeves catch her wayward pig and then repair her broken pigpen.
But it wasn’t until he was bathing himself in the frigid ocean waves that he allowed his thoughts to wander in a different direction. Specifically, why were the waves so cold? And why was he shaking as he dragged himself onto the very narrow strip of sand. He’d planned to wash his clothes here to get the worst of the grime out, but he hadn’t the strength.
He’d come here specifically to see if Li-Na had created another sand picture. She had not, and what remained of the old one was blotches near the cliff face and flattened sand. He felt no compunction for crawling back onto the beach and resting there while he coughed out the salt that had soured his mouth.
His mind wandered to the letters he needed to write before bed. He’d wanted to do that earlier, but Mrs. Greeves’s pig had changed those plans. Damned creature had run him all over. And now it was late, and he was tired.
Still shaking.
Still coughing. Damnation, had he caught a disease from Bob Mellin? The man had been coughing long after he’d burned the drink from his body.
Whatever the source of the sickness, he now had to climb back up the cliff to get home. He’d planned to take the long route, but his mind was back on Li-Na. He wanted to see her before she went to bed. Had she given in to temptation and started painting? Had Mrs. Hocking fed her something other than a meat pie? The drive to answer these questions pushed him to take the short, steeper path up the side of the cliff.
It was a mistake.
He was a strong man, but halfway up, his body failed him. He had to sit, perched awkwardly against the rocks, while he emptied his stomach. Then he lay against the rock panting. Obviously, he’d caught an illness. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. But he had to get up there to his bed.
It took a very long time.
