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She turned her head, and their faces were suddenly only inches apart. He felt her breath brush across his lips as she spoke. “You find me beautiful.”
Her voice was curiously flat.
He cocked his head, eyeing the smooth brow, the lush mouth, and the fine wide eyes. “Devastatingly so.”
“And you probably think beauty sufficient reason to marry a woman.” Her tone was bitter now.
What had the mysterious Mr. Halifax done to his wife? “No doubt most men do.”
“They never think of a woman’s disposition,” she muttered. “Her likes and dislikes, her fears and hopes, her very soul.”
“Don’t they?”
“No.” Her beautiful eyes had grown dark and tragic. The wind blew a curling lock of hair across her face.
“Poor Mrs. Halifax,” he mocked softly. He gave in to impulse and raised his left hand—his unmaimed hand—and stroked the lock of hair back away from her face. Her skin was as fine as silk. “How terrible to be so lovely.”
A frown creased her unblemished brow. “You said most men.”
“Did I?” He let his hand drop.
She looked up at him, her eyes were quite perceptive now. “Don’t you consider beauty to be the most important criteria in a wife?”
“Ah, but you’ve forgotten my aspect, I’m afraid. It’s in the natural order of things that a lovely wife will either stray or come to hate an ugly husband. A man as revolting as I would be an idiot to attach himself to a beautiful woman.” He smiled into her mesmerizingly lovely eyes. “And I am many things, Mrs. Halifax, but an idiot is not one of them.”
He bowed and turned to stride back into the castle, leaving Mrs. Halifax, a lonely, desperately tempting siren, behind him.
“WHEN WILL WE go home?” Jamie asked the next afternoon. He picked up a rock and threw it.
The rock didn’t go very far, but Abigail frowned, anyway. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not?” Jamie whined.
“Because you might hit someone. Or something.”
Jamie looked about the old stable yard, empty except for themselves and a few sparrows. “Who?”
“I don’t know!”
Abigail wanted to throw a rock herself, but ladies didn’t do such things. And besides, they were supposed to be beating an old rug. Mama’d made one of the footmen put up a line across a corner of the yard, and a row of rugs now hung from it, all waiting to be beaten. Abigail’s arms were sore, but she took a swing at the rug anyway with the broom she held. It felt almost good to hit the rug. A great cloud of dust flew out.
Jamie squatted to pick up another rock. “I want to go home.”
“You’ve already said that over and over again,” Abigail said irritably.
“But I do.” He stood and threw the rock. It hit the stable’s wall and clattered onto the gray stones that paved the stable yard. “We never had to beat rugs at our old house. And Miss Cummings took us to the park sometimes. There’s nothing to do here but work.”
“Well, we can’t go home,” Abigail shot back. “And I told you—”
“Oy!” The voice came from behind them.
Abigail looked over her shoulder, still holding the broom.
Mr. Wiggins was trundling toward them, his ginger hair waving in the breeze as his stumpy arms waved in the air. “Watcha doin’, throwin’ rocks about like that? Are you soft in the head?”
Abigail straightened. “He’s not soft—”
Mr. Wiggins snorted like a surprised horse. “If’n throwin’ rocks about that could hit anybody, includin’ me, isn’t soft in th’ head, I don’t know what is.”
