Page 24 of The Lady’s Sweet Revenge

“Just don’t overwork it too soon or you’ll be back to the wheeled chair.”

Harlow nodded with a smile on her lips. Her mother had told her often how the little things matter most. The duke had enough money to buy the duchess nearly anything she could want, but it was acts of kindness that touched her mother’s heart.

Harlow thought she might understand it more now that she’d had an attractive man do something sweet for her.

“It was very kind of him to send for it,” Harlow said out loud.

“The earl is a kind man. He’d do the same for anyone,” Mrs. Garrison said and Harlow frowned slightly. Of course, he was only being kind as he would for any guest, or rather damsel, who landed on his shore in distress.

“Of course,” Harlow agreed.

A few moments after Harlow had been dressed and her hair was fixed, there was a knock at the door which she opened herself.

Lord Breckenridge looked her over as she stood there on her own.

“It doesn’t hurt ye?” he confirmed.

“No. It’s healed. I’ll be ready to walk next to you in the gardens today.”

Belle pushed past them to take the stairs while Reese stayed by her side offering his arm as she took the steps slowly. It wouldn’t do to turn her newly-healed ankle on the stairs and be back to relying on everyone to move her about. Besides, linking her arm with the earl’s was no hardship.

He seemed to relax when she was seated in the chair next to his.

“In a few more days you might be able to make the stairs down to the shore,” he said. “But not yet. The steps are quite steep and are often damp with mist.”

She knew Reese went on daily walks along the shore with Belle. The dog would return with a wet coat smelling of dog and the sea, while the earl just smelled of salty air.

“I look forward to accompanying you,” she said, meaning it more than she probably should. Without the haze of her brother’s warnings, she could see the man before her more clearly. He was no longer a man not acceptable for marriage, but a kind man she was beginning to like too much.

For he’d already attempted to propose and it wasn’t likely he’d offer again. And she didn’t want him to suggest such a thing as a solution to the problem of her possible ruination.

She wanted him to want her. That is she wanted the man who would be her husband to choose her. Not Reese specifically, of course.

When breakfast was cleared away he asked if she was up for a short walk in the garden and she was a bit overenthusiastic in her reply.

“I can think of nothing I would want more.”

“Nothing, eh?” He tilted his head toward the sky. “You prefer walking in the gardens to finding out what happens at the end of The Rook’s Tower?”

“Yes. At least for now. I love to be outside.” Belle came back with a stick and nudged Reese with it. He took it and gave it a good toss as if he had done it a million times. When Belle returned it only a moment later, Harlow thought she might be right. “Being stuck inside for so long makes me want to enjoy it even more. It seems Belle feels the same way.”

He shook his head. “Don’t let her fool ye. She’s been out for a walk every morning usually when ye were still asleep. But I know what you mean. I had an injury close to a year ago and was stuck in my bed for even longer than you had been. Once I was able to get up and move around I didn’t wish to be back in my bedchamber. In fact, I slept in my study for a few nights.”

She nodded in understanding. “What happened?”

“Oh,” he waved it off as if it were nothing. “Just a bit of trouble with my leg. It’s fine now.”

She sensed he didn’t wish to speak of it, so she changed the subject.

“It is beautiful here.” It was true enough, but the man next to her was the best part. Though one could argue the man and the lands were alike in many ways. Both had a… contained wildness about them.

The way the manicured gardens flirted at the edges of the unkempt tree line made her think of the well-mannered man beside her who edged the lines of propriety. The cultivated and the rough parts. Even his speech toyed along the borders. Speaking with an educated tongue weighed with the brogue of his home.

“I enjoy being here,” he said.

“You can be yourself,” she guessed, though should have probably kept it to herself. She had grown too comfortable with him. It was likely the reason for her earlier thoughts of marriage and children with the earl.

When he smiled she felt a tingle in her stomach.