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Nodding, Lancaster studied the arch of the bones of her foot.
“Oh, fine,” she huffed. “Just read it.”
“Hm?” He watched her walk to her room, bare feet padding, new hips swaying.
“Come on.”
“Right.” He followed the view of her hips into the smaller room.
Cynthia slumped into a chair and opened a drawer in her desk. “Here it is.”
“Thank you.” The cover of the diary lay rough against his palm when he grasped it. He didn’t know what to say now. Their conversation was over, but he didn’t want to leave.
Just as she was closing the drawer, Lancaster spotted what had lain beneath the journal. “Say, what’s that? Another drawing?” He reached toward it and Cynthia nearly slammed the drawer shut on his fingers. “Hey!”
“It’s nothing,” she snapped. And she was right, of course. Just another crude drawing by a young boy. But it was something to speak of, all the same.
“Looks like that habit of spying on nude bathers runs in your family.”
“Pardon me?” she barked.
“Your great-uncle. It looked like a drawing of a nude woman in the sea. Or a nude man. I couldn’t quite tell because the waves come up to her, or his, waist. And the rest of it was, well…indistinguishable.” Nipples came in both kinds, after all. And the figure’s hair had been rather seaweedy in appearance. A mermaid, perhaps.
“I think it was a man,” she grumbled.
“I’m not sure. The shoulders were rather wide, but that’s likely just a problem with the proportions. I remember what I thought about at age eleven and it had a lot to do with unclothed females.”
“You can leave now.”
Well, perhaps that hadn’t been the right topic of conversation. Nick very slowly and reluctantly turned and plodded out of the room. But he left the door open just in case she got the urge to follow.
He had the journal anyway. That was what he’d come for, but strangely, his hands felt empty as he dropped into a seat next to the fire and stared balefully at the cover. A faint trace of the name “Edward” ghosted across the upper corner, though it seemed to fade the harder he looked.
He ran a finger over the name before carefully turning back the cover. “Edward Merrithorpe,” the first page read. “Spring, 1797.” Strange to think that members of Cyn’s family had been canvassing these cliffs, searching out nudity for decades. Centuries, perhaps.
The first few pages seemed to be solely devoted to the lambing of 1797, followed quickly by the excitement of shearing season. Edward Merrithorpe, as the son of a conscientious landowner, had been expected to learn all there was to know about owning and breeding sheep, and he thoroughly enjoyed the education. The boy was a gifted storyteller, painting a picture that Lancaster recognized from his own childhood. Despite that the boy hadn’t yet mentioned the cliffs thirty pages into the journal, Lancaster found himself spellbound by the descriptions of Edward’s world.
“Nick?” Cynthia’s voice shocked him so much that he dropped the book in his lap. She stood only five feet from him, one hand clasped around the opposite wrist.
“I haven’t found anything yet, I’m afraid. Though your great-uncle was a far better writer than he was an artist. A natural storyteller.”
She shifted her feet against the wood, and he saw with some disappointment that she’d slipped on thick stockings.
“Would you like to keep me company until dinner
?” When he gestured toward the chair opposite his, Cyn nodded and sat down, tucking her feet beneath her. Lancaster picked up the book and tried his best to get back to the narrative, but he found himself sneaking constant glances at her face to see if she watched him or the fire. So far, she’d only looked at the fire.
He crossed his legs and tried to look serious as he read the same line for the third time.
Rain has flooded the north field. One ewe drowned and now her lamb has been killed. I found an excuse to avoid the butchering, though father didn’t notice. He was—
“There is something I wished to tell you,” Cynthia murmured, relieving him of his pretence of reading.
He closed the book quickly and set it on the narrow table to his left. “What is it?”
“Our earlier discussion…” She paused to brush a stray thread from the skirt of her new dress. “I wanted to make something clear.”
A blush touched her cheeks. Or perhaps the fire was too warm. He dipped his gaze down to her chest to see how low the pink extended.
