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“When does this sculpture need to be ready?” he asked.

“I’ll write to the society to put my entry forward tomorrow,” she said. “The exhibition is at the Assembly Rooms at the end of June.”

“Just two months away.”

She sighed. “And there’s still so much to do.”

“It’ll come together,” he said, hugging her to him one last time. “Now, shall we make our way back home? There’s a bed in my room that would look even better with you in it.”

Ina chipped away carefully at the marble that was quickly taking on the shape of a foot. All of the major work save this had been done on the sculpture. Buoyed by her cheerful mood, she wouldn’t have been surprised if she was ready to work through tea time and move on to detail work later that evening.

No. She put down her tools and straightened. Not that evening, for she and Gavin were set to attend a ball, and she was excited about arriving on her husband’s arm.

Her husband. Her lover.

The night on Daldour had been explosive and revelatory. It wasn’t just what they’d done, but what Gavin had told her. Over the years he’d left her little bread crumbs of information about his life away from Edinburgh. She’d known most of the details, but facts were nothing without understanding how the man facing them felt about everything.

Hearing him speak about his family had made her want to jump up, swim across the firth, and make for Ashington like an avenging queen. Gavin was an extraordinary man—intelligent and compassionate, with just a dash of the wild about him. He deserved nothing short of his family’s admiration.

She knew it hurt him, because her father’s neglect had hurt her. At least it had years ago before she’d learned to wall off that part of her heart. He was her father, but he’d shown none of the protectiveness or nurturing one might expect from a man left to care for a little girl whose memories of her mother were hardly more than wisps.

Her mother hadn’t been perfect—Ina knew that just as she knew of the rumors about her gentlemen callers and her sometimes wild behavior at parties—but Ina could remember feeling loved. She’d felt safe with her mother even if the sound of fights between her parents would sometimes drift up the stairs to the nursery.

She and Gavin wouldn’t have that. She wasn’t going to let them pull away from each other until they hardly spoke to one another save over long, awkward suppers. She relied on their friendship as much as she craved their intimacy.

The clock in the hall chimed five. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, for it was time to retire to her room to dress for the ball, where she’d pretend she wasn’t the sort of woman who enjoyed being ravished in medieval abbeys.

She was just untying her apron when Norris appeared at her studio door.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Barrett, but this arrived for you,” he said, stepping back to reveal a large packing crate.

She frowned. “I didn’t think we were expecting any deliveries.”

He held out a piece of paper folded into an envelope. “Mr. Barrett instructed me to give this to you when the package arrived, and not a moment before.”

She slid a finger beneath the wax seal keeping the note closed and unfolded a page covered in Gavin’s scrawl.

Ina,

If you’re to enter Hero and Leander in the exhibition, we’ll need to ensure they arrive at the Assembly Rooms in one piece.

—G

She glanced at the crate and then at the note again.

“If I may, ma’am.” Norris cleared his throat quietly before leaning down to open the crate. It was filled with hay. “I suspect we’ll discover that it’s empty.”

Tears pricked her eyes. Gavin hadn’t just given her sculpture safe passage to the exhibition, he’d declared his unconditional faith in her skill.

“Shall I inform the workers who brought it that it’s missing its contents?” the butler asked.

Ina shook her head. “No, it’s exactly as it should be.”

She took a few deep breaths to control the stir of emotion in her. She would march upstairs to dress and plan how to show her husband her gratitude for his support. The carriage ride over should be an excellent place to start.

Chapter Fifteen

GAVIN SAT AT the breakfast table, trying to keep his eyes off of his wife. It wasn’t that he shouldn’t be looking at her—they were married and had spent a long evening together, beginning with the carriage ride home from the ball and ending in his bed, tangled in the sheets as they discovered each other all over again—it was that he couldn’t stop looking at her.