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There could be no doubt about it now. Benj was in trouble.

Only it didn’t feel like trouble. It felt exciting and bright and stirring, occasionally terrifying, and wildly entertaining.

And also it had a peculiar effect on time. One minute never matched another in length, and hours that had dragged on in the morning were gone in a blink during the afternoon.

Two weeks of this madness, and it was only getting worse.

Martha Smith was upending his world.

Even thinking her name made his pulse skip and drew a smile from his lips. He had seen her several times since she had surprised him on the estate and demanded an explanation for his lack of forthcoming upon their first meeting, but he always came back to the sweetness of that day. Their tour of Pontcaster had been perfection, going from room to room while he had given her his thoughts, and she had followed that with a few of her own. Where his vision had been realistic, hers had been very much optimistic. No room was hopeless or beyond saving, in her eyes, and though she might not have the understanding of what her version of improvements would entail, it did not seem mountainous or impossible.

Pontcaster was less of a disaster when Martha looked at it.

If there was nothing else miraculous about the woman, that would have been enough. But she also made him smile without any effort at all. He was not a surly individual, but he was not overly jovial when under his own influence. Martha made him smile from the blessed moment she arrived to the unfortunate moment she departed, and for hours on end in her absence.

He felt less burdened in her company, less unfortunate than his circumstances, less prone to gloom. He was less of an imposter to his title when she was with him. Less of a misfit. Less uncomfortable.

He did not need to be anything but what he was with Martha, and she saw him just as he was.

It was unlike any other experience Benj had known in his life with any other person.

To be enough as he was and yet feel called to be more, not for his own interests, but to be of more benefit to someone else.

The cacophony of his internal thoughts and sensations was enough to give him some trepidation, though what exactly was unsettling could not be easily identified. It was the change in him, it was the feelings that Martha alone conjured, it was the shift in his view of his home and land, it was …

Well, it was everything.

Which was why he was in trouble.

All that he had planned to accomplish in the next few months required his undivided attention, and, for the present, his attention only wanted to be on Martha.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, let alone seen. Her raw honesty, her openness, her perspective on life and purpose and manner of being were all just as captivating as the incomparable shade of her eyes. And he had a particular interest in the degrees of her smile, all of which made something dip in the small of his back.

He was greatly concerned about this near-obsession, the complete consumption of his thoughts, and the ridiculous smile the image of her brought to his face. He feared that none of this would ever fade, and that the rest of his life would be uprooted because of it.

Yet it was exhilarating rather than terrifying.

Which meant it was either perfectly right or perfectly foolish, and he was not sure how one made the distinction.

Or when.

All he knew at the moment was that Martha was due to visit him at Pontcaster again, and he needed to accomplish a few more tasks before she did so. Primarily, he needed to look in on his sow, who he had not known to be pregnant when he’d purchased her, but who had recently birthed a dozen healthy piglets.

And unless his eyes were presently deceiving him, all of the piglets had somehow escaped their pen and were running free on the estate.

Mr. Harris had been assisting him with the care of all of the animals, and he had been minding the piglets and their mother since the birth. Today he had other calls upon his person, and Benj had assured him he could take care of checking the piglets and changing out the straw. He’d been raised in a farming community, after all, and was more than capable.

Arriving at the sty to find only the adults within and not a single piglet had not exactly been the ideal situation to enter upon.

Mr. Thorne was out in the fields with the sheep, and likely would not be back for another hour, if not more, and there were no other farmhands for the present.

No neighbors for some miles, and no servants.

Just Benj and a dozen piglets to be rounded up.

Panic shot into the pit of his stomach, and he took off running, his eyes scouring the green and brown of his surroundings for any splash of pink. New piglets likely wouldn’t get so very far, but there were many dangers that awaited them, and they would not take kindly to being chased.

He remembered that from his youth all too well.