“Like in the creek.”
“Or to get a little dirty...”
“Like the time I fell in the ditch we were trying to leap at our house in Dover?”
“Exactly. Or to try something new to eat. Remember the frog’s legs? Or to ride a difficult horse. More clever. More full of thoughts. More willing to kick me.” He smiled here. “More surprising, I suppose.” He sounded rueful again. “More... er, beautiful.”
He had never quite said this last aloud to her, and he sounded as though he were trying it on. His cheeks went a little rosy.
She took this in, her own cheeks warming.
She had never thought of herself this way. And it was in fact a revelation that Giles thought of her this way.
“Even your watercolors are a littlemorethan everyone else’s. More accomplished, more vivid, more singular. I’m so sorry your drawings of Heatherfield were ruined.”
“I was heartbroken.”
“I can imagine. And isn’t it a little unusual that Mr. Cassidy would allow you to waltz with another man?”
“Don’t be silly. Firstly, Mr. Cassidy is not ‘allowing’ me to do anything. He knows that you and I have been dear friends since childhood and he thought I might enjoy the time with you, which was thoughtful of him. I told him that you never indicated an interest in me otherwise. He laughed.”
“He...laughed?” Giles’s hand stiffened in hers.
Clearly not one bit of this sat well with Giles. He’d just been neutered in one sentence by a man he’d just met who—inconceivably—didn’t view him at all as a rival.
“Well, to be fair, he thought it was madness. But then, he is very biased, and doubtless you look upon me as a comfortable old shoe.”
“No,” Giles said hoarsely. With genuine astonishment. “How could... no. There isn’t a man in the world who would view you as a shoe!”
Her heartbeat accelerated as she maneuvered toward her next question.
“As... perhaps you see me as a little rock instead, then?” she said, almost shyly.
He smiled, amused. “I beg your pardon?”
She didn’t stumble.
But for an instant, her mind blanked in shock and her heart contracted as if it had taken yet another blow.
Was it possible that something she’d cherished, a memento of a moment limned in meaning and promise, had simply been another of the many, many pleasant moments in his life? There had been as many of those pleasant moments in Giles’s life as there were pebbles sprinkled over the banks of the Ouse.
For a moment she couldn’t speak. And perhapsit was just that Giles had said what she’d yearned to hear in that moment. Perhaps he saw every moment with her as special, which is why remembering a specific one was elusive.
Still, she found she hadn’t the nerve to explain.
“There are no other men like Mr. Cassidy in theton,” she finally said quietly.
“Well, there are certainly no other coats like Mr. Cassidy’s in theton.”
“His coat is a coat, Giles, and he looks very fine in it.” An unfamiliar irritation arose. Because once coats had indeed mattered to her. In this peculiar instant, she could not remember why.
“It’s just... you never seemed particularly partial to any of the young men of our acquaintance. You seemed to like all of them more or less the same amount.”
Was hemad? Hadn’t he eyes or ears?
“Well, perhaps that’s because they’ve all treated me more or less the same, and I’ve decent manners,” she said almost curtly.
But it stung to know he believed she’d had no preference at all. How on earth could someone who knew her so well not notice this?
