Page 5

“I have,” he responded.

As strange as she was, he could not deny her pretty features accentuated by a blue spencer and white dress—clearly the dress of a gentleman’s daughter. Her bonnet matched with small sprigs of minute, blue flowers tucked into a darker blue ribbon.

But never mind her charming appearance. His discomfort grew and spread as rapidly as an infectious wood disease. Never had a person, let alone a lady, taken such an interest in him before.

“Did you enjoy playing the sport, Mr.…Sir?”

So that was where she drew the line of propriety, avoiding asking him his name because they had yet to be formally introduced? Perhaps if he answered apathetically, she’d take the hint and leave. “I suppose.”

A pleased twinkle shone in her eye. “Do you live here in Inglesbatch?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then where do you live?”

She was mad. She had to be. Should he really be alerting a mad woman to where he lived?

She looked at him expectantly until he relented. “I take up residence in Bath.”

Her eyes shone even brighter. Apparently, he was giving her all the correct answers this morning. “Were you born and raised there?”

He glanced at the crowd nearby. Fortunately, no one seemed concerned with their conversation in the slightest, all eyes focused on the cricket match. “Yes, I was. But if you’ll excuse—”

“Do you have friends playing today?”

For heaven’s sake. What was next? Would she ask after his parents? How he had been brought up? What his family’s darkest secrets were? “Yes, I do.”

“Is that why—”

“Marianne?” called a feminine voice from within the crowds.

The woman’s eyes rounded, looking past Edward’s shoulder.

Was that her name? Marianne? He looked over his shoulder but could not find who had called out.

“Is someone looking for you?” he asked, turning back to the woman with the green eyes.

She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Oh, I hardly know. At any rate, I must be off. It was a pleasure to meet you, sir. Good day.”

With a swift curtsy and a smile that revealed small dimples at the ends of her lips, the woman disappeared into the crowd the opposite direction of where the other woman had called for her.

Edward remained still for a moment, trying to process what had just occurred. What was this woman planning to do with all of this newfound knowledge?

With a quick exhale of breath, he faced the cricket match once more, carving out the memory of the woman and replacing it with his attention on the bat—the bat that held his fate within each grain of the wood he’d smoothed.

His work would hold up for the rest of the game. It had to.

After all, he couldn’t afford for it to do otherwise.

CHAPTER TWO

Marianne Coventry circled back around, slunk past the refreshment table, then slipped into her chair behind her parents without a hitch.

A point was made for the gentlemen’s team, and Father stood, cheering with delight just as Beatrice emerged from the crowds.

“There you are, sister,” Marianne said, feigning surprise. “I’d wondered where you’d gone.”

Beatrice eyed her suspiciously. There was no fooling her. “I was sent to find you, Marianne. Mama was worried.”