He didn’t move closer and didn’t lower his hands immediately either. Instead he Just… watched her. Assessing.
Edith held his gaze. Forced herself to, even though every instinct she had was screaming at her to look away, to shrink, to make herself smaller. Definitelynot.Not this time.
“You’re a bit far off the main path,” she added, gesturing vaguely behind him, like this was just a mildly inconvenient encounter between two strangers on a quiet morning. “Easy to get lost out here.” Still no answer, she smiled again.“Are you lost?” she asked.
Her expression tilted slightly, concerned, curious, entirelynormal. Just a woman on a beach feeling a little annoyed at being interrupted.
“Because if you are,” she continued lightly, “you’re not the first. This place has a habit of…” Her words almost faltered, because he hadn’t looked away. Not even once, plus there was something in his gaze, pointed and knowing, something that made her skin prickle. Edith pushed through anyway. “Of pulling people off course,” she finished.
The silence stretched on as the waves rolled in, hitting the beach gently.
A simple sentence and yet it changed her world slightly. His deep voice, carried by the wind, reached her. “Apologies if I scared you, I was wandering and somehow ended up here.”
Edith’s heart reacted for a completely different reason and she wanted to stop it, his voice was full of timber and slightly gravelly.
“I apologise again for disturbing you, I will return the way I came.” He smiled, showcasing an annoyingly handsome set of dimples before he turned around and vanished behind the rock.
Edith waited, not believing that he had just left. Why had he just left if he was hunting her? Seconds turned to minutes and still she waited, lying to herself that she was protecting the babies in the nursery.
When he didn’t return, Edith finally moved away from the shore and headed back to the grotto. Although she couldn’t help smiling. Hunter or not, he was a good looking one at that.
15
Spencer returnedto the Ferret’s Mott with sand still clinging faintly to his boots and a problem sitting heavily in his chest. He disliked both things equally, the latter more so.
The pub was beginning to wake properly now, the quiet calm of early morning giving way to the slow build of conversation, clinking glasses, and movement. Someone was already arguing over breakfast near the bar. Somewhere upstairs, something crashed, followed immediately by a voice yelling, “I MEANT TO DO THAT.”
Normal. And comfortingly chaotic. Spencer stepped inside the pub, pulling the door shut behind him and seeing his brother in a corner booth. Mark looked up immediately from where he sat nursing a coffee that smelled strong enough to strip paint.
“There you are,” he grunted. “Thought the sea finally claimed you.”
“Disappointingly, no.”
Mark eyed him for a second. Spencer ignored it, because he was very good at ignoring things… usually.
“You look weird,” Mark decided.
Spencer sat opposite him. “That’s rich coming from someone who sleeps like a dying walrus.”
Mark narrowed his eyes. “Deflection noted.”
Spencer reached for the untouched mug waiting for him. “You’re awake early,” he said instead.
“I sensed judgment in the universe.”
“That’s just your personality.”
Mark snorted faintly, but he kept watching his brother. Which was unfortunate because Spencer knew exactly what he looked like when something had gotten under his skin. And unfortunately, something absolutely had this time.
He took a slow drink, buying himself a moment, thinking back on the encounter, he hadn’t lied to her. He genuinelyhadwandered onto that beach. Only now he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The woman with purple hair standing at the edge of the sea like it had all the answers… Spencer stared into his coffee.
Seventy percent.
That was where he was sitting. He was seventy-percent sure she was the missing heir.
Which, under normal circumstances, would have been enough. More than enough. He and Mark had acted on less before.
