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“You’re right.” Neal made the admission, a curious expression on his face. “About the book, you’re perhaps too harsh. I won’t let you burn it, or even shoot it. But you’re right to demand more from me than flattery.”

She stared at him. “I’m often right,” she said. “And often demanding.”

She let her lips curve and saw his eyes flick to her mouth. What would she demand from Neal Traymayne? Last night, she’d wanted him to hold her. Now, in the light of day, the wind blowing against her, cool and scented with herbs, she suddenly felt bolder and more playful. She was a vagabond, after all, capable of anything. A pirate of lives. She’d captured the Mrs. Pendrake and could steer her in any direction, full sail.

Not a bachelor and a widow. A ruffian and a vagabond. The way forward more perilous and more delicious.

The wind changed direction, and she gathered her skirts and ran with the strong gust at her back. He was at her side in an instant, and together they crested the long, low hill. The inn rose before them. She didn’t care that her feet were wet, that she had fleabites on her ankles. This feeling was worth anything. She turned to look back at the moor, that strange, earthen ocean, the shadows of the quick-moving clouds streaming over the grass.

“There’s none of this in the book. The way it all makes you feel. That’s what’s missing.” She turned her head. He was closer than she’d thought, below her on the hill so their faces were almost level.

“How does it make you feel?” His tone was light, amused, but his gaze had become speculative.

She laughed. What was the word? Intoxicated?

“Free,” she said. When she smiled, she heard his breath hitch. He wasn’t smiling. He was looking at her, the hollows standing out below the hard bumps of his cheekbones. His lower lip was full. You hardly noticed the fullness of that lip on a face so dominated by cheekbone and nose. Until you did. She decided a legend could refer to herself in the third person.

“How do you feel about Muriel Pendrake?”

Now he smiled. “I’m afraid you’ll accuse me of flattery.”

“Another of your faults.” She shook her head, mocking him. He wasn’t the only one adept at teasing. She had no siblings, but as children she and Effie and Anthony had twitted each other mercilessly.

“I was schooled to flattery in London. I didn’t grow up in Society, but I’m not a stranger to it.”

She hid her smirk. “You attended balls, then—pardon, human zoos—as an ethnographer?” She managed an innocent smile.

“Not exactly.” The sun was behind him, his eyes in shadow. “Or if so, I took it too far. I engaged myself to an inmate.”

“Engaged!” Amazement made her sputter. Amazement and displeasure. But . . . he was her discovery. A Cornish gardener, for the love of God. Yes, he’d lived in London, even gone to Oxford, albeit briefly, but he was refreshingly removed from the ton and its intrigues. Wasn’t he? An unknown, like a hardy, inconspicuous weed no one had yet ruined with a string of pompous syllables. Bachelor rusticus. He couldn’t have been engaged to a woman in Society! When? Who?

“I planted an avenue of monkey puzzle trees for her father.” He shrugged. “It was not a good match. Ultimately, we agreed on that, if on nothing else.”

Her eyes traced the lines of his naked neck. Had he shown himself to his fiancée without a collar? Had she tolerated canvas? Unbelievable. Granted, he cleaned up well, but nothing could be done about the fact that he planted trees for a living.

“Her parents couldn’t have approved.” She felt her frown deepen. Her own papa would never have indulged an attachment formed with a hireling who pushed a wheelbarrow, even if he was the head of his own nursery.

He pushed his hair off his forehead. His naked hand was broad and the sight of it did something queer to her insides.

“They made no objections.” He moved his head and the sun glittered darkly along his jaw, the roughness there. He needed to shave. Badly. The rooms at the inn did not come equipped with basins. “On the contrary, my mother voiced her very strong displeasure.”

She blinked. “But that’s impossible.” Was there something wrong with the girl?

“Why impossible? You haven’t met my mother.”

She didn’t think she wanted to meet his mother. She pictured the woman in trousers, wielding a pickaxe and breathing fire. She let it pass.

“Your fiancée,” she persisted. “She was a member of Society, and I assume not without the advantages a mother would wish for her son, particularly if that son had no certain prospects of his own.”

“Are you asking if she was rich?” That bluntness couldn’t have served him well at Society dinners. He sighed. “Quite rich. Beautiful too. But beauty fades. If you marry for beauty, you find your wife fades too.”

“Wonderful line. Your mother’s?” She folded her arms. The wind gusted but it didn’t set her body to tingling or lend her feet wings. She felt heavier. “So, your fiancée was too beautiful for your mother’s liking. How vexing for you. But some mothers are competitive with their daughters-in-law and prefer their sons marry dowdy women. Sons, however, tend to do what they please.”

“My mother was right, though.” He shook his head. “About Elizabeth and me. We would have made each other miserable.”

He couldn’t mean Elizabeth Fletcher? Her father owned a dozen factories. She’d have made Neal a fortune. She was rich enough, and frankly vulgar enough, to get away with marrying a gardener.

“It’s a misery, yes, when you have too much money.” She scoffed, even as images of her friends rose before her eyes, smiling cold smiles, dripping with jewels. George, sick with drink, clinging to the balcony railing, rings on every finger. You could choose to be miserable with too much money, certainly. But once your money was gone, you had no choice in the matter.