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“Another day, my dear boy.” Gran smiled. “She gets her independent streak from me, you know. I had big dreams once, too.” Her smile faded. “If it weren’t for my unfortunate bout with pneumonia last winter, we might both be living our dreams now. I always wanted to travel, and Evaine wanted to finish school.” Shaking off her melancholy, she said, “Have some willow bark tea before you go to bed. It will help with the pain.”

“Only if you make it for me, Hazel.”

“You stay right there, young man.”

Evaine rolled her eyes. Gareth shot her a crooked smile. Hazel was doting on him and the man was eating it up with a spoon.

Evaine took care of the washing up. When it was time for the three of them to retreat to their bedrooms, she made sure the fires in the stove and beneath the hot water boiler were both out, then tucked one of her statues into her elbow and carried the hurricane lamp in the other. Gareth’s shoes and his wrinkled jacket dangled from one hand. In the other was the matching alabaster statue. As they were leaving the kitchen, Evaine frowned at the empty hook where she’d hung her cloak up near the door leading out to the overgrown kitchen garden. At the far edge of the unkempt yard the low-slung outline of the groundskeeper’s cottage lurked.

“Where is my red cloak?” she asked her grandmother. “Did you see it on the hook where I left it?”

Gran’s brow furrowed. She shook her gray head. “It was there earlier. I haven’t touched it. Perhaps one of your ghosts took it.”

That was not a comforting thought.

Chapter 21

Gareth

Gareth was loath to admit how much he had enjoyed Hazel’s fussing. He was supposed to be above such things. Her attention was probing without fawning, helpful without turning intrusive, and charmingly frank. He liked her a great deal.

Even more peculiar, the old lady had taken a shine to him, too. He kept trying to drive her off. She was not having it.

Upstairs, he gestured at the washroom and said, “There should be plenty of warm water until the morning. Leave some for me, I would like to clean up after today’s visit to the dusty attic.”

“I’ll go first,” Hazel said, hastening into the bathroom and slamming the door in their faces.

Shameless woman. Utterly flagrant in her efforts to push him and her grandmother together.

Evaine huffed and glared at where her grandmother had disappeared. “If you don’t mind bringing the statue in here, I’d like to keep them together.”

“You want them.”

“Put it this way—I wish I were in a position to purchase them for myself. Since I am not, I would like to enjoy them for the time I have with them.”

He was of half a mind to gift the statues to her on the spot. But that was the act of a lovesick fool, not a mercenary duke determined to extract every farthing of value out of this place before he surrendered it to the crown.

Besides—Evaine wasn’t gazing at him with adoration in her aquamarine eyes. She was gazing fondly at a couple of pieces of artistically carved rock.

He dropped his shoes and jacket in a pile beside his bedroom door and limped into the room she was sharing with her grandmother. Evaine had set up each bed with fresh linens and quilts from their cottage. Two matching threadbare but good quality towels hung from a bar beside the chipped pitcher and basin standing on one dresser. The other was empty but for a small wooden lacquered box. Evaine placed the female dancer on one side and the male figurine on the other, their arms outstretched as if they had just missed reaching for one another’s hands.

“Don’t you want to place them closer to one another? Like so.” He pushed them next to one another. The outstretched arms fit perfectly together. The male figure’s arm curled around her waist while the female dancer’s rested gently against his shoulder.

“They must have been carved from a single piece of stone,” she said in awe. “What incredible talent it would have taken to match the pieces so perfectly.”

He wasn’t looking at the statues she was so enamored of. The only beauty he saw was hers. Abruptly, she turned and caught him staring at her.

Gareth was lost. Tiny gold striations glinted in those aquamarine depths. Deep-teal in this light like the sky after the sun had sunk below the horizon. He should look away. Or kiss her. Do something, anything, other than gawping at her like a cow.

Before he could move, she rose on tiptoe and kissed his good cheek.

“What was that for?” he blurted.

“For saving me from the falling clock,” she said.

Gareth lost control. Riding a tidal wave of hope and yearning, he cupped her face and brought his lips down on hers, his kiss hard and devouring.

To his utter shock, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she made a tiny, startled sound in the back of her throat and parted for him. Her small hands clutched his wrists where he held her in place. Instead of fighting him, she welcomed him. He was lost. Drowning in the taste of her. In agony over the softness of her skin and the warmth of her lips.