Ash turned, intendingto return home, when a familiar voice called from the other path.
“There he is! Our resident baron and battlefield poet, Baron of Romantics!”
Ash groaned softly.
Two figures approached, his untitled, unabashedly impertinent friends, still in riding coats and clearly enjoying the chase. Trenton, the taller, grinned as he tipped his hat in mock solemnity.
“We heard you’ve taken to the parks. Next thing, you’ll be writing sonnets in the shrubbery.”
“Did she look at you with admiration?” asked Henry, the shorter and more dangerous of the two. “Or mild confusion? We’re betting on confusion.”
“She laughed,” Ash said.
“She laughed?” Trenton clapped a hand to his chest. “You’ll be engaged by Wednesday.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Henry leaned in. “We’re merely encouraging. The baron must uphold his sacred duties.”
“Romance, charm,” Trenton recited, “and a fondness for reading aloud by candlelight.”
“It’s in the patent,” Henry added. “Just under land stewardship and foxhunting.”
Ash stopped walking. “If either of you says the word courtship again, I shall enlist you both as footmen at the masquerade.”
Trenton raised a brow. “So, you’re attending.”
Ash nodded once. “On orders.”
Henry gave a theatrical sigh. “Ah, nothing says romance like government-sanctioned espionage.”
Ash huffed. “Only when the gentleman is newly titled, unexpectedly bold, and apparently unfamiliar with reading the fine print.”
Trenton paused, brow arched. “That sounds personal.”
Ash didn’t answer.
They resumed walking, their laughter trailing behind them as the wind picked up slightly, carrying with it the scent of turning leaves and early frost.
Ash said nothing else, but as they reached the gates, his thoughts lingered not on Erica’s perfect posture or her careful turn of phrase, but on another voice entirely.
Sharp. Amused. Discerning.
Only when the gentleman is newly titled, unexpectedly bold, and apparently unfamiliar with reading the fine print.
A wry smile tugged at his mouth.
“Not uninteresting,” he murmured to himself.
Ash arrived home just before dusk, the long walk from the park doing little to ease the tension that had settled between his shoulders. The house, no longer his father’s and not yet fully his, still bore the stiffness of old ownership. Portraits he hadn’t chosen lined the walls. Books he would never read sat in neat, dustless rows, as if ordered to impress rather than enjoy.
He set his hat on the nearest table and glanced around, frowning faintly. The fire had been laid but not lit. The decanter on the sideboard was full, though he didn’t recall asking for it to be refilled. A letter rested unopened on the mantel. And the blasted boots, the ones he preferred for evening wear, had been moved. Again.
He stooped to peer beneath the escritoire, found nothing, and straightened with a sigh.
The staff meant well. They were efficient. Loyal. They simplydidn’t know his habits, and he hadn’t the patience to train them. Not yet.
It was a small thing, misplaced boots, unfamiliar chairs, but the accumulation wore at him. A title might settle on a man’s shoulders overnight, but belonging… that took time. The barony sat on him like a uniform that didn’t yet fit.
