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“You’re welcome to tell me if my question proves too personal, but know that I ask out of concern for Archie McCrory. Your father talked of a great deal of work to be done, but your discussion of other rather expensive plans he has—” He suddenly found he wasn’t sure how to finish the phrase without crossing the line into something that sounded more like an accusation than he intended.

“You’re worried my father will extract work from him but not pay him?” she guessed.

“Or make promises of employment but not follow through with them.”

“I wish I could tell you for certain one way or the other. As the improvement efforts continue around the house, I find myself wondering if there’s more money to be spent than I’m aware of. If, perhaps, our retrenchment from London was a bit premature.”

“Which, while comforting in some ways, is also likely frustrating,” Sebastian said. “London has always been your home. Leaving if it wasn’t actually necessary would rankle something terrible.”

“I feel like, regardless of which is reality, I would worry less if I simply knew. Nothing can change the fact that I’ve been pulled from my home. If I could know we weren’t in danger of losing yet another home, I might feel more at ease.”

“And if you found you were in danger of losing this one?” he pressed.

“Well, I might not set my heart so much on coming to think of it as home.”

There was an unexpected revelation in that.

He hadn’t put many personal touches on the house at the home farm, though he’d never given much thought to why. But he knew that her words, though speaking for herself, were true for him as well. The home he’d shared with his parents and, after his father’s death, with his mother, remained home in his heart. He’d held some hope that Teviot Castle would be his next home, but he’d been sent away almost immediately by his grandfather when he’d gone there after Mother’s death. The home farm had become his residence after that.

One was reluctant to make a home in a place that was likely to be taken away before one was ready. How was this woman, whom he’d first thought to be the very epitome of the dismissive and haughty London ladies he’d so disliked during his brief tenure in that city, proven such a source of unexpected wisdom?

“You don’t intend to keep sketching and painting things you see in the area?” He found as he asked the question that he actually held his breath waiting for the answer. Though whether his anxiousness was owing to appreciation of her art or sorrow at her not thinking of the area as home, he couldn’t say. He refused to examine it closely enough to know.

“I do intend to keep exploring Teviotbrae. But I will hold off on sketching the grounds of this home, at least until I know how much of it is likely to be different. Of course, that presents a difficulty.”

“What difficulty?”

She was a remarkably easy person to talk to, just as she had said he was during their ride out to Loch Tev.

“I haven’t the first idea where to go to find things to draw or paint. I suppose I could simply wander about, but it would be nice to know which places mean the most to people living here.”

“On those days when I haven’t too much pressing on my time, I’d be happy to take you to some of those places.”

She smiled, and his heart fully flipped in his chest.

“You must promise to bring Shadow,” she said. “Otherwise, I will never finish this.”

She fished in her box and pulled out another piece of parchment. Sketched on it was his lamb, standing in the meadow at Loch Tev. The face of the animal wasn’t filled in in any detail.

“I want it to be a good likeness of the dear creature but haven’t been able to truly study her face.”

“I believe Shadow would enjoy going on a few adventures,” he said. I would enjoy going on a few adventures, he silently added. With you.

Archie came rushing up to them, a grin splitting his face. “I’m to begin tomorrow,” he announced as he came even with them. He shook Sebastian’s hand enthusiastically. “Thank you for making the introduction. My family needs the money. If I can bring in enough, Father might come home again; I think Mother’d like that. We all would.”

“I hope that can happen,” Sebastian said.

From beside him, Miss Wakefield presented to Archie the drawing she’d made of the field maple. “I’d like you to have this,” she said. “I was so very pleased to find you like that tree as much as I do.”

“I cannae take this, Miss Wakefield,” he said. “I’ve not a fine place to display it.”

Miss Wakefield shook her head. “Art needn’t be displayed in any particular way. All that matters is that it be enjoyed and appreciated.”

“I do appreciate it,” he said. “That’s as fine a likeness of the tree as I can imagine.”

“Please take it,” she said. “Put it wherever you’d like, wherever you’d enjoy seeing it.”

Archie thanked her again and again before rushing off with her drawing in his hand.

“That was a fine gesture,” Sebastian said. “His entire family will enjoy having that sketch in their home.”

“I’m glad. I like knowing it will be with a family who can enjoy it.”

Unspoken in her declaration was that her own family didn’t enjoy or appreciate her talent.

“I am certain they will more than merely enjoy it. I believe they will treasure it.”

He sketched a bow to Miss Wakefield and bid her farewell. Lingering in his thoughts as he made his way back to the home farm was her beautiful smile, her kind gesture, and how much pleasure he derived from simply whispering the name “Cordelia.”