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Cassian ran a hand through his damp hair. "I rode directly from London. I have not stopped since yesterday morning."

"From London in this weather? Why?"

He hesitated. "Do you remember Julian Hawthorne?"

The name struck her with sudden force, draining the breath from her lungs. Julian—the boy who had drawn dragonflies beside the lake, the young man who had laughed over her pressed flowers, the dear friend who had vanished thirteen years ago following his brother's death. When Thomas had died, he had never written or looked back.

"Of course I remember him," she said softly. "He is the Duke of Ravensmere now."

"He is." Cassian's jaw set tightly. "And he has returned to England."

Adelaide stared at him. Thirteen years of silence, of reading his published journals from distant continents and catching the small errors he missed, all while telling herself she no longer cared.

"When?" she asked.

"Three weeks ago. He has been staying at his London townhouse, where I met with him."

"And you rode through a tempest merely to deliver gossip?"

Cassian shook his head. "No, Adelaide. Julian is coming here to Ashwood."

"Here?" The word escaped her in a breathless whisper. "Why would he come here after all these years?"

Cassian met her gaze steadily, the firelight catching the shadows beneath his eyes. "Because he asked me where he could find you," he said quietly, "and I told him."

Adelaide sank back into the chair, her legs suddenly lacking the strength to hold her up, entirely uncertain of what she would say when he arrived.

CHAPTER 2

"You look as though you did not sleep," Adelaide said, walking beside Cassian between the formal rose beds with her hands resting behind her back. The morning had risen fresh after the storm, the air thoroughly washed and the gravel damp underfoot.

"I did not," Cassian admitted. "I lay awake considering what I told you last night."

Adelaide kept her eyes on the path. "That Julian is coming. Yes. I thought of little else myself."

"He is not coming for a simple social call."

"I assumed as much. Dukes do not ride through tempests to exchange pleasantries with country spinsters."

Cassian stopped abruptly. Adelaide took two more paces before realizing he was no longer beside her, and turned back to face him.

"You are not a spinster," he said firmly.

"I am thirty and unmarried. By every standard, Cassian, I am a spinster. It is hardly an insult; it is merely factual."

"That opinion fails to account for choice."

"Then call me someone who made three poor choices and let us end the matter." She resumed her pace, moving faster now. "Tell me the real reason Julian is coming. You promised an explanation."

Cassian fell into step beside her. "As I said, he returned to England three weeks ago after thirteen years abroad, bringing back an impressive collection that I've no doubt scholars at the British Museum would fiercely contend to house."

"What manner of collection?"

"Journals filled with observations from every continent, pressed botanical specimens, ancient maps, and historical artifacts from regions most Englishmen have only read about in texts."

Adelaide's stride slowed. "That is not merely a collection. That represents a lifetime of labor."

"It is the work of two lifetimes," Cassian noted quietly. "Thomas gathered much of the botanical materials before his death."