Page 50

Funny story. Aunt Sylvia read about Jack in the paper—you did too, I’m sure. The Dutchified Dauber? She thought he might very well be her nephew, and she wrote to him during the trial. He sent her a letter back, along with me.

She gave a stiff shrug. “My brother remembered the name of the village. We went to visit, and it’s such a small place—we found them at once. They’re spinsters, no children of their own. Aunt Sylvia can seem a bit fierce, but they’re both terribly kind. They offered to take me for a year. I was thirteen and missing my mother, and my brother thought it a suitable idea.” She’d stayed over a year, in fact. The whole length of Jack’s sentence.

“And they taught you how to bake?”

She lifted her eyes to De’Ath’s. She had the distinct feeling that he hadn’t looked away from her for a moment.

“Lumpy plum breads, at first.” Her tight muscles began to ease. “I learned how to make hedgerow jelly and how to build houses for hedgehogs.” She smiled at the memory. “Miss Lolly loves hedgehogs. She bakes a special hedgehog cake at midsummer. It doesn’t have hedgehogs in it. It looks like a hedgehog, with almond bristles all over. The whole thing is soaked in fruit wine. I learned to bake that. Mr. Craddock—the village baker—he let me help him in the bakery. And Mr. Middleton from up the lane taught me about clover pie. It’s a great favorite among his cows. You take a large leaf and fill it with clover, then you put it on your palm, bring it to the cow, and she eats it in one bite.”

She realized she was holding her hand, palm up, as though offering De’Ath an imaginary pie. Which would make him the cow in the scenario.

“Never mind,” she said. She glanced about at their very dignified surroundings and giggled.

He gave her his wicked smile, the one that showed his sharp white teeth. “A remarkable education.”

“At the same age, you were learning other things. You were learning about art and poetry. Myths and empires. History.” She made a face, teasing. “Probably in Latin. Isn’t that what they speak at Eton?”

“I don’t know.” His gaze hardened slightly. “I didn’t go to Eton.”

“Oh. Don’t you all go to Eton?” A thought occurred to her. “You went someplace even more posh than Eton!” She grinned in triumph, but his face made her smile slip. His look had turned caustic.

“I went everywhere and nowhere.” He untwisted, putting his back flush to the chair. “But we were talking about you, about village life.”

She looked at his stark profile and spoke in a subdued voice. “I was going on a bit.”

Seconds ticked by. At last, De’Ath stirred. He cut his eyes to her, and his expression softened. “Did you ever tell your brother?”

“Tell him what? The recipe for clover pie?”

De’Ath slanted his head, gave her a slight smile. “When the year was up. Did you tell him how badly you wanted to stay?”

She drew a sharp breath. Her hands clutched into fists. Hell’s bells. De’Ath had taken a scalpel to her story and cut straight to the festering heart of it.

She looked furiously at the Titian. She hadn’t told Jack. But the moment he’d set foot in the cottage, he’d known. He’d seen it in her eyes, and she’d seen him see it. His smile crumpled, and she’d wanted to crumple too. Instead, she’d hurled herself into his arms.

“He knew,” said De’Ath. “And he took you back to London regardless.”

“We agreed it was best.” Nina stood, too rapidly, nearly knocking into a woman passing by. The lady let out a shocked huff.

“Pardon,” Nina muttered. De’Ath had come to his feet beside her.

She gripped her ribs, angling her body away from his.

“It’s a sensitive subject,” De’Ath observed. “I shouldn’t have persisted.”

She didn’t answer.

You all rub along well, don’t you? Jack had said it to Aunt Sylvia. They’d been talking in the garden where they thought Nina couldn’t hear. I’ve never seen her so blooming. And Aunt Sylvia had touched his arm. We can keep her, Jack.

He hadn’t refused. He’d gotten out his cigarettes and moved off, to smoke under the plum tree. He’d been considering it, letting her live in Hensthorpe.

Then Miss Lolly had shown him the drawings and watercolors Nina had been making, of oak trees, and the Saxon ruins at Priory Pond, and cows. That moment marked the change in the intensity of his intention.

He’d understood, in a flash, what she was worth to him.

Her heart cramped.

De’Ath spoke again. “You’re tired,” he said. “We can go.”