The duke was standing at the garden gate in his shirtsleeves and a dark coat that had been put on with no particular attention to elegance. Amusement danced in his blueish grey eyes. Goodness, he was handsome and nearly stole her breath.
"Both, I think, Your Grace," she said, and hoped she sounded more composed than she felt. "Though I didn’t go looking for it this morning."
"No," he agreed. "It found you, it seems."
He came through the gate and crossed the garden to where she was crouching, and looked at the hedgehog with the same focused attention he brought to everything.
"The little fellow was wedged under the planting frame," she told him. "He went in headfirst and couldn’t reverse."
“Certain he’s a he, are you?”
Cori shrugged just slightly. “A female would never be so foolhardy.”
At that, the duke tipped back his head and laughed. The sound richer, more unbridled than anything she’d heard from him before. That Cori had caused such a reaction in him filled her with quite a bit of joy.
"I did not realize—” his gaze warmed her through her walking dress “—that it’s the male of the species who are quite so ridiculous.” Then he shifted his attention slightly to her hands. "You know how to hold them."
"My father taught me when I was young," Cori said. "Papa always said that if I was going to help a creature, I needed to learn how to do it without frightening them half to death in the process."
His eyes met hers and held for just a moment, steady and direct, before he looked back at the hedgehog. "He sounds like a man worth knowing."
"He was," Cori said. "The best I’ve known."
Linthorpe said nothing for a moment. They were both crouching in the kitchen garden dirt while the blackbirds continued their disagreement in the apple trees and the hedgehog was reconsidering his situation.
"Where will you put him?" the duke asked.
"The far end of the garden," Cori said. "Away from the planting frames."
"And with a firm word about getting into situations from which he cannot extricate himself?" he suggested.
"That too.” She grinned at him as she carried the hedgehog to the far end of the garden and set it down in the long grass at the base of the wall. The little creature sat for a moment, seemingly reassessing his morning, and then he disappeared into the grass with a rustle that suggested he had already moved on to other things.
"Right," she said in the direction of where the hedgehog was headed. "Off you go."
Then she straightened and turned back to the duke.
He was still there, standing amongst the herb beds with his hands in his coat pockets, watching her with his bluish-grey gaze. The sun was slowly rising, illuminating the horizon, and it fell across his face, making him appear less guarded than he usually did.
Cori walked back toward him.
"Are you always up so early?” he asked.
“A habit, I’m afraid, Your Grace.” She shrugged as she explained, "At home, the harbor is alive before dawn and there’s always much to do. I’ve never really adhered to Town hours.”
"And we aren’t in Town now,” he said warmly.
"Indeed,” she agreed. “Here the moors are alive before dawn. In a different way, of course. Quieter than the harbor, but alive just the same." Cori glanced toward where the garden wall opened to the view beyond. "But just as insistent."
"Yes," he said, with a soft rumble that washed over her and settled somewhere warm in her chest. "They are."
A silence settled between them, the kind that had been developing since her arrival at Acklan, the kind that did not require filling.
Cori looked at her hands. Dirt on both palms. A small scratch across the back of her left hand from when she’d freed the hedgehog. She was a veritable mess. "I should go in, Your Grace."
"Yes," he agreed.
But neither of them moved.
