Page 32

After staring after the woman in mild confusion, Mariah concentrated on adding several final notes after her conversation with Mrs. Applewhite. When she looked up again, Captain Harrison Reed was standing before her.

“The last I heard, you m-might never speak to your brother again. Then, the next thing I know you are burning something behind the inn. Does this have anything to do with you removing that painting from the breakfast room?”

Harrison maintained a thoughtful silence before he spoke, his remaining eye fixed upon her as the firelight flickered across his scarred features.

“I am under strict instructions,” he began, his lip ticking up in a way she had rarely seen on Harrison Reed. “That you are not to worry about the tenements. They are financially taken care of. All logistics are set.”

“Beg p-pardon?” Mariah stared at the man. “B-but there is f-food to be brought and⁠—”

“All will be seen to,” he said, that playful smile returning. While she ought to be overjoyed at the expression on her dear friend’s face, all she could think was that she had no use anymore.

“But I—” she began, then closed her mouth. “Why are you d-doing this?”

Harrison kept his gaze steady. “It isn’t me.”

James. What the devil was he about?

“Why is h-he not here to tell me so himself?” she asked, as she spread the notes she had taken out before her. She had purpose, blast it. Her husband could not decide he had changed, then come back to Barnsley and take over all her projects.

“Because you told him to go. And he went.”

She sighed, as she stared without seeing at the papers before her. She had told him to go. While this new move made her blood boil, he was indeed, honoring her wishes.

“Very well.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in the functional yet uncomfortable velvet chair that Lionel had chosen for the study.

“You’re furious, aren’t you?” Harrison’s small grin did not fade. She could not recall if she had ever seen him smile quite so much.

“I am n-not,” she lied, even as a seething flush of indignance rose along her throat.

“I think perhaps you should go down and give him a piece of your mind. You deserve that much.”

Mariah let out a small huff at her brother-in-law’s transparent maneuver. While she was acutely aware that she was being manipulated, Harrison’s countenance lacked any trace of malice. Yet, she agreed, she certainly deserved the opportunity to confront her husband. Whatever was he about now?

“Excuse me, captain. I am headed into town.”

And that was how she found herself before the most orderly building site she had ever encountered. The men, all former sappers as Harrison had told her, were preparing to lay the foundation, the brick and wood all expertly stacked. Mariah inhaled as the scent of fresh earth and timber temporarily blocked out the smoke and flax that always filled the air.

“Excuse me, my lady. I need to get in there. I can’t have my brother showing me up.” From behind her, Harrison began to remove his great coat, despite the December chill of the air.

“James!” she exclaimed at Harrison’s implication. “James is h-helping dig the foundation?”

Holding his great coat under an arm, Harrison began to roll back his shirtsleeves. “And not doing a poor job of it, that I can see. Who would have thought those aristocratic hands would come to good use?”

At that, Harrison left her standing alone, her mouth agape like a fish.

“Mariah?”

Mariah started at her husband’s voice, a tiny part of her heating at the memory of their kiss before his departure.

Exhaling, she turned toward the voice. And her jaw dropped even further.

There before her stood James Reed, the 8th Baron St. George, appearing in a state of disarray that was entirely foreign to her existing knowledge of him. And damn her eyes, she had never been more attracted to him.

Like his brother, he had shed his great coat and jacket, standing before her in his mud- stained waistcoat, white linen shirt, and braces, his shirtsleeves rolled back to reveal surprisingly muscular forearms. Mariah swallowed, forced to remind herself to blink and seal her mouth shut. Oh, blast, she had been gaping at her husband, hadn’t she?

The rational side of her mind quickly asserted itself to remind her that this was not a man to be relied upon. Just because she enjoyed his forearms did not mean that her reason should turn to mush and that she should lose her power of speech as she had the day he had strode into her chambers sans clothing. They rarely made love in the light of day, so she had never fully seen her husband naked before. His evident momentary embarrassment had awakened a heightened awareness of him within Mariah, even as she sought to rid herself of thoughts of the man.

Mariah drew a labored breath, seeking to quell the heat that pulsed within her core. Upon lifting her gaze, she found him watching her with a startling intensity, his eyes vivid against the mask of soot and northern earth that marred his features. That pale blue, almost gray, showed an open curiosity and something deeper she could not quite name. Something like…a yearning for connection. Zounds, she dreamed of playwriting. Why did the right words never come where this man was concerned?