The back of her neck prickled with some combination of thrill and fear. What must it be like to have the money and social power to quietly avenge wrongs and bury transgressions? She’d never had to worry about either of those things outside of a Shakespeare play. She recalled what her father had said about the potential ruthlessness of self-made men. But she was surprised to realize that a part of her yearned toward the unequivocal safety and certainty and solidity Mr. Redmond described. The Sylvaines had known more than a few alarming upheavals in fortune before her father inherited money.
The Eversea lineage contained a fair number of colorful rogues, none of whom seemed ever to meet any significant consequences. Perhaps the Everseas protected their rogues, too. Or perhaps they were, as Jacob had more than once maintained, deucedly lucky.
“And do the Redmonds lock their rogues in their own castle dungeon?” She pressed.
“What rogues?” he repeated patiently.
This probably wasn’t the moment to mention that she’d heard the whole Eversea-Redmond feud had begun in the tenth or eleventh century when an Eversea allegedly stole a cow (or was it a pig?) from a Redmond. Or perhaps the other way around, depending upon whom one asked.
“So, when the other day you said fairness isrelative, you meant it literally.”
He gave a short, startled laugh. “Perhaps.”
“DidyoulikeA Venetian Romance?”
His hesitation suggested he was giving this some thought. “I was not unmoved by the plight of our characters.”
She gave a soft laugh. “In other words, you merelyenduredthe book.”
His mouth quirked at the corner. “I enjoyed it! I’m probably not a very good judge of novels. I seem to be better at prosaic things, like numbers.”
“Why do you like numbers?”
They were now sitting about Violet Llewellyn’s final resting place as though they were on a picnic. Isolde’s already dusty-hemmed skirts were flared out around her; her bottom rested half on moss and half on dirt. It was cooler; the sun had shifted. It had grown quieter, too. Over the past few days, she had become intimately familiar with the ambient sounds of the heart of Pennyroyal Green—birdsong, carriage and cart wheels and hooves over cobblestones, the distant rise and fall of laughter and conversation, dogs barking.
The quiet reminded her it was now well past the time she ought to have set out for home.
“I suppose it’s because even though the rules binding them are ancient and unchanging, I can use them as a sort of crystal ball to forecast the success of an investment in the future. They can help create order from chaos. With them, I can measure how far I’ve come and how far I need to go when it comes to growing the kind of wealth that will keep the family I raise, and all the Redmonds, safe and prosperous for generations to come, and…” he waved a hand almost helplessly. “There are so many reasons.”
“So, numbers are your way of fortifying your castle.”
“I suppose they are.” He sounded pleased.
“It doesn’t sound dull at all. You’ve made it sound almost like poetry.”
For a moment she merely basked in his slow, warm, relieved smile, moved that such an impressive young man had clearly been worried about impressing her.
“Mr. Redmond, I’m afraid I must leave for home now. I am expected.”
He scrambled to his feet at once.
After the briefest of hesitations, he extended his hand to her.
It would have been churlish not to do it.
And yet.
How absurd that it felt like a dare.
She eyed it hesitantly.
When she finally slipped her hand into his, a current raced through her body.
He felt impossibly strong, and she felt gossamer, as he raised her to her feet.
She was blushing furiously again by the time she was upright.
She released his hand at once and cast her eyes on the ground.
