Page 27 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

Roman’s heart made a most inconvenient movement. He wasn’t certain he liked it. But it jumped in response to that smile even as she looked away.

He looked firmly at the road. Micklegate Bar rose ahead, above the rooflines, and he knew precisely what she meant.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t shout about itself much.” He found, without quite deciding to, that his shoulders had relaxed.

He did not plan to slow at Micklegate Bar. He never planned to. He simply always did.

The horse dropped to a walk without much guidance from him, and Roman looked up at the gate the way he always looked up at it; the way people ought to look at something which has been there longer than anyone living can remember and will be there long after everyone currently passing beneath it was gone.

“Every monarch entering York has to stop here,” he said. He wasn’t trying to lecture, but that was what came out. “They ask the Lord Mayor’s permission before they can proceed. Even a king waits at this gate.” He let his gaze travel up the stone. “Richard of York’s head was displayed up there after Wakefield. Paper crown and all, if you believe the accounts. The last Jacobite skulls went up in 1746—the city was still putting heads on its gates within living memory of our oldest citizens.” He paused. Talking of severed heads wasn’t something one ought to do while courting, was it? He cleared his throat. “It has received kings and tragedies through the same arch. Generally with equal ceremony.”

Miss Mayweather was looking up at the barbican. She remained silent as she took in the structure, brow furrowed as she spoke thoughtfully. “The stone does not distinguish, does it? Between the triumphant entries and the terrible ones.”

Roman looked at her without quite knowing what to say to that observation. She was right, of course, and she had not winced at his lecturing or the mention of the beheadings, that detail his mother ordered him to omit when he gave tours to their friends visiting York for the first time.

Did her easy attention to the matter make her strange? Or mark her as a woman with less delicate sensibilities than was common?

He couldn’t find it in him to care on either point. Tamsin’s unusual response made her someone interesting, which made him quite curious about what she might say next.

The Ouse Bridge carried them over the river at an easy pace, and Roman let the horse slow to accommodate the foot traffic crossing in both directions. The water below was pewter-gray and moving steadily, a fisherman’s boat passing beneath, the Ouse indifferent to the city built along its banks.

They cleared the bridge and he turned the gig right toward the first item of interest on his usual tour route. “Clifford’s Tower.”

She was already looking ahead with her eyes bright beneath the brim of her bonnet. “I know it. I have taken Edward and the twins there twice, Henry is still too small to resist the temptation. George tried to scale the mound on his own and managed to climb halfway before he thought better of it.” Here she paused, her smile the soft sort that came from a pleasant memory. “My stepmother has a firm fear of the structure collapsing and will not hear of anyone going inside.”

“It has stood in some way or another for six hundred years.” He had been inside it many times himself, which he did not mention.

“I did not say the fear was rational.” Her eyebrows raised, her head tilted to the side as she regarded the old stones. “Or that I shared her cause for anxiety.”

His mouth did something that was almost a smile. “I could arrange a proper tour. Of the interior.”

Miss Mayweather turned to look at him, the interest on her face unguarded and immediate. “Yes, if it is possible, my lord. I would like that very much.”

He faced forward and noted, without dwelling on it, that she had not deflected or gushed with gratitude. She had simply said yes. He preferred that directness to the overly polite way other ladies had of agreeing to things. So often it seemed to Roman that women thought it best to mask their eagerness or disinterest. He understood the game of social niceties, but he also appreciated when they were ignored for practical reasons.

Castlegate opened before them, and Roman guided the horse through the street without comment until the familiar facade of Hartwell House appeared on their right.

“My family has kept a home here since 1758,” he said. “My grandfather’s doing. My father was born at the estate in the country, but I was born here. In York itself.”

She looked at the house with an expression he could not entirely read. “I have seen it before.”

Roman did not ask when. He knew when, and why. And that event had led him directly to this moment.

They moved on, with a quick flick of the reins and a toss of the gelding’s head to the Shambles, which hit the senses before it came into view—though less offensive now than in summer, with the days growing cooler.

Roman glanced at her, wondering if it was best to skip this stop.

Miss Mayweather did not reach for a handkerchief. Instead she looked up at the upper stories of the buildings crowding toward each other overhead. “My oldest brother dared me to walk the length of the street when I was seventeen in the middle of August. My stepmother was furious with him.” She tilted her head, still looking up. “I imagine the people in those upper rooms could pass a loaf of bread across to their neighbor without going downstairs.”

“They have been known to,” Roman said with a chuckle. How had that chuckle escaped him?

She turned to him with a crooked smile. “Truly?”

“I have no documents or eye witnesses,” he admitted. “But I believe the tale entirely.”

That made her laugh, brief and unguarded, and Roman’s heart did that unfortunate thing again. But was it so unfortunate when a lightness remained in his chest? Her laugh, bright and cheery, was the sort he wanted to hear again.

The Minster stopped conversation the way it always did as they approached the magnificent stone edifice. He had timed it correctly for the noon bells to begin at any moment.