Page 2 of To Follow her Heart

“So, why were you crying?”

Luke, who was still reeling from discovering he liked a girl, and that she thought he’d be a handsome man one day, was appalled to think she’d believe him a crybaby.

“I wasn’t,” he bit out, clenching his fists.

She gave him a pitying look and moved closer. To his astonishment she took his hand, unfurling his fingers like the sun opening a bloom, and raised it to her cheek, which was every bit as soft as he’d imagined. Luke’s breath caught in his throat as he was torn between gratitude and outrage.

“Sure ye were,” she said, the words chiding him, though gently. “But it’s none o’ my business, I suppose. Though if ye tell me, I shall take it to my grave, swear on it.”

Her elfin face was so earnest that he blinked in surprise. Perhaps she was fae after all, there was something in her eyes, those dark, dark eyes, something he knew he could trust in. He gave a hopeless sigh and startled himself by replying with the truth.

“We’ve been banished here, and I’ve lost everything. We’ve no money, and I’ve no friends. I hate it here and… I’m all alone.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, giving him a smile that made him feel a little dazed. “Because I’ve found you, and you’ve found me, and so… we shall be together, and never alone again.”

***

Four years later

12th September 1804.

Kitty clung to the branch which swayed in a rather alarming fashion.

“Just admit it, Kitten. You’re stuck.”

She glared down to where Luke was staring up at her, looking so damned smug she reached up and snatched an apple—the reason she’d gone up in the first place—and lobbed it at his head. She missed, and it rolled towards her dog, Khan, a massive brindle mastiff. He sniffed the apple, gave her a long-suffering look and laid his head back on his paws.

“I’m not stuck,” she said, stubborn to the last. “I… I just can’t see which is the best way down… yet,” she added. “But I shall.”

Luke folded his arms and said nothing. Khan gave a sigh.

Kitty swallowed as the wind gusted again, large clouds scudding across a sky which had been blue only half an hour earlier. The sharp breeze made the boughs—already heavy with fruit—sway in a manner that made her heart skitter in her chest. She’d climbed a deal higher than she’d intended, but that was typical of her. She rarely thought before she acted, just threw herself headfirst into whatever it was. Luke admired her for that, though he said she frightened him half to death, too. For her part, she wished she had an ounce of his unshakeable calm. If ever you were in a fix, Luke would get you out of it, and Kitty was always in a fix. Like now, for example.

The tree swayed again, harder still. She gave a little shriek, and then saw that Luke was climbing up to her.

“Stubborn little Kitten,” he said with a sigh as he drew level with her. “I told you you’d never be able to climb in those heavy skirts, but you just had to prove me wrong.”

Kitty felt a strange, rather breathless sensation fill her chest as he got closer. At thirteen, Luke had become a very handsome fellow, just as she’d predicted. His hair shone a coppery red, and she adored the scattering of freckles over his nose. His eyes were blue, bluer than any sky she’d ever seen. Sometimes it hurt to look at him.

She adored him and his freckles.

“I know,” she said, huffing with frustration. “And I don’t see why I must wear the dratted things. They’re impossible.”

“You’re impossible,” he said, grinning at her. “And you know why. It’s so you can be a proper young lady and not a hoyden. Your father wants you to have every advantage, now he can afford to dress you properly.”

“I don’t want to be a young lady,” Kitty replied, a stab of anxiety hurting her heart. Her father wanted to send her away soon, to live with her aunt and uncle in London where she would learn to be a proper lady and grow up to marry some impoverished nobleman who needed her dowry. She’d have to leave Luke and Khan behind. She’d rather die. “I don’t want to grow up. I want us to stay here, just like we are, forever.”

His face softened and the breathless sensation increased. “But if you don’t grow up, I shan’t be able to marry you.”

Kitty felt her breath catch and hold this time, and she could do nothing but stare at him.

He blushed, the colour vivid on his pale skin. “Unless… you don’t want to—”

“Of course I want to!” Kitty exclaimed and threw her arms about his neck, then felt a blush rise to rival his. “You know I do,” she added, a little chagrined for her outburst as he was looking smug again.

Of course he knew. She’d never hidden it from him, not from the very first day when she’d found him all alone and miserable. They’d been inseparable ever since. It was her and Luke against the world, it always had been and it was just how they liked it.

“Come along,” he said, helping her untangle her skirts and find a suitable foothold. “We can’t discuss the future with you stuck up a tree.”