Page 38 of Engaging Sir Isaac

He hung his head as though shamed. “I suppose I am rather late. I apologize.”

“To me?” She gave him an amused nudge with her shoulder. “For shame. I am not the hostess. Your sister was not sure you would come at all.” She fell into step with him easily, notwithstanding the disparity in their heights and stride.

“Essie will forgive me.” He straightened his posture, unrepentant.

He did not direct her to the tables, knowing she had already visited them, but to the archway leading to the sea path. While he had tamped down the urge to escape, he yet preferred the open stretch of beach to the gardens.

Beyond the small hill covered in long grasses, the sand stretched north and south, and the waves lapped at the shore. “The moon will rise soon,” Isaac said, as though that were the reason he directed them away from the small crowd to the sand. “Directly ahead of us, as though from the sea.”

“A full moon,” she added softly, her words a breath on the night air. “I watched it, last evening, come into view of my window. Just before dinner.” She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “My family stays in London most of the year, and the skies are never so clear there as here. I have wanted to take a walk in the evening many times since my arrival in the country.” She raised her chin upward, her eyes turning to the heavens above. Her smile fell away, yet a softness came into her expression. She had such a gentle soul, a kindness about her he hadn’t encountered often outside of his circle of friends.

“I watched many a moon creep across the sky during my time on the Continent,” he murmured, then clamped his mouth shut tightly. He had no wish to speak of the war. Ever. Yet when she turned her attention back to him, a question in her eyes, he found himself answering. “There were nights I could not sleep. I had a tent, of course. Officers were given the best of the worst accommodations.” He forced a chuckle but turned his gaze away from hers to the ground as they walked upon the sand. “But it was easier to be in the open air, before it filled with smoke from battle. To lay beneath the stars and find my favorite constellations from boyhood. From a time before I knew the truth of what it meant to be a soldier.”

When she spoke, her words were slower, as though each came with the weight of her thoughts. “I think we all look for peace where we can find it. At war, in the noise of London. Even in the midst of a ballroom, with music, swirls of silk, and heavy perfumes. There are quiet corners. Windows for peering out to remember there is a wider world than where we find ourselves.”

That she echoed his thoughts, that she could understand what he had never attempted to explain to anyone, made his heart take up speed. She knew. “Yes. I—I often feel that way. That I need to look beyond a crowd, a room, and remember there is more.”

His reasons were different from hers. He knew that without asking. She likely had no wish to escape, for fear of revealing a weakness, for fear of breaking apart. But she understood, and that alone brought him comfort.

Millie nudged his shoulder with hers, then stayed near, her arm upon his. “Are you telling me we have something in common, Sir Isaac?”

He let his shoulders droop and lowered his head dramatically. “This truly is the end of all things, if we find ourselves at such an accord.”

“You are a terrible man.” Her laugh was soft and warm as the breeze. “But I suppose that makes me terrible, too.” She turned her face away from him, to where the Inglewood groundskeeper and his crew of six men worked to arrange scraggly branches and driftwood into a mound that would burn well. “That will be a large fire. Will it burn all night?”

“Most likely several hours, should we keep feeding the flames.” He nodded to the shoreline. “Would you care to walk until it is lit?”

“Thank you, I would.” She adjusted her skirts, taking them up a touch with her free hand to keep the hem from sand.

They kept to their walk, southward. The sun had faded away beyond Inglewood Keep in the west, and a soft glow above the sea indicated the moon was ready to take the sun’s place. He did not take her far. They were within full view of anyone upon the beach, though details might not be so clear in the moments between the sunset and the moonrise.

“Sir Isaac,” she said, her voice hesitant and faint against the sound of the surf. “I have a most impertinent question to ask.”

“I am not the least surprised, given our conversations of the past.” He turned her about, ready to walk again to the fire. A soft orange glow low upon the sand indicated the bonfire had at last been lit. “Ask. I will not take offense.”

They took a few more steps before she stopped them, tugging gently upon his arm. Isaac looked down at her, and the moon broke the surface of the North Sea, turning her copper hair silver. His breath caught. For the barest moment, he wondered what her reaction might be were he to lean down and kiss her.

“What is it that makes Lady Olivia dislike you so?” she asked. The question removed temptation more soundly than a slap. Though she asked it gently. There was a pleading in her tone as though something important depended upon the answer. As though she depended upon it.

He released his breath, turning away from her. The moment of enchantment had left him confused, but not so befuddled as to answer that question honestly. Not entirely.

“As a gentleman, I cannot answer that. No matter how I feel toward Lady Olivia, it is not something I ought to tell.”

“I understand.” Yet she did not, given the disappointment in her eyes.

He sighed heavily, the weight of his concerns over Millie returning. Her place among the marquess’s family could only cause trouble, but whether for her or someone else, he could not decide.

If only she had come to the country as the guest of some other person. If he had met her at a gathering such as this, with moonlight and the surf to lend a touch of magic to her first glimpse of him. Instead, his perception and hers were colored by the likes of Lady Olivia. But on their own, on a night such as that, perhaps they might have—

Isaac caught himself before completing that thought. It did not matter who had brought her to Suffolk, to Aldersy, or to the very door of Inglewood. Miss Millicent Wedgewood was nothing to him but the friend of his sister. Perhaps his friend, too. But she had no more desire to entertain notions of more toward him than anyone else had. A baronet. A damaged man, in body and soul. A burden to all those who actually did care for him with his ill-disposed humor.

He took her back to the fire, and she asked him nothing further. They said not another word. The rest of the party began to come down from the gardens, and servants were putting benches about the fire.

Millie’s hand started to slip from his arm, and he let it this time. “Thank you for the walk, Sir Isaac.” She curtsied, as though they were in a drawing room for her to take her leave, rather than upon a beach.

“Miss Wedgewood, wait.” He did not touch her, though he had to remind himself to keep his hand to himself. “Will you sit with me, near the fire?”

Her eyes flashed up at him, surprise in their depths. “You are a strange one, sir.” She angled her head to one side, narrowing her eyes at him. “One moment, I am certain we are friends. The next, I think you wish me away in your silence. Then we are friends again. Which is it?”