Sewell twisted to peer up. “Life can be macabre, don’t you find?” His glasses magnified those listless eyes to deathly hollows before he swung back to his etching.
Odd chap.
Grabbing Tamsyn by the hand, they perused the scattered rocks, debating shapes and bodily details.
“Do you thinkLa Chauve-Sourisis alive, Jack?”
The question startled him, and he glanced up to gauge her emotion. She seemed resigned but calm. “I will protect you, Tamsyn.”
“I know but answer me…please.”
“Yes.”
“I do also. I can almost feel him.”
He yearned to clasp her close, to reassure, but all he could do under watchful eyes was press her fingers. “Cast him out, Tamsyn,” he said low. “Let his evil dissipate in the beauty of this land.”
Blue eyes that outshone the sky for brilliance softened. “You are the very best of gentlemen.”
“No, I’m a rogue an–”
“I know, Jack. I know what you are and that this is simple flirtation. I do understand.”
Her words caused a pounding in his chest. A strange ire which refused to quell.
Mayhap his heart was finally giving out since he used it so little. But it didn’t feel as such; standing in this landscape of wild boulder and limitless heavens with Tamsyn, it felt alive.
Jack cleared his throat. “The man you marry…” She demurred but he hushed it. “…will be a lucky bugger.”
A peeping smile. “And have to like moths, splodged paintings and grey, so I suspect the queue for my hand will be short.”
His lips parted to say he was growing to adore all those things… But that would be foolish.
With a palm shading his eyes, he watched Tamsyn scramble over rock and bracken, skirts hiked, at one with the land – eager and free.
He tried to imagine her in London.
The foul air would taint her lungs, the stifling ballroom her spirit. Would gentlemen of the ton look down upon such a country miss?
Or… Or would she cast her mermaid’s lure just as she had over him? An exotic creature of nature gliding past.
Would she outshine them all?
Cursing, he dismissed the thought and scanned the rocks for her.
It didn’t matter anyhow.
Then he heard the scream.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hide and seek.
An arm flung itself around Tamsyn’s waist, hauling her back, twisting her frozen body.
“Don’t look.” And her eyes were buried in a silver waistcoat redolent of sharp lemon, a hand at her nape.
“It’s…” Her tongue numbed, blood cold despite the scorch of the sun.
