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He was handsome—there was no mistaking that. She couldn’t even imagine the scores of women hoping to catch his eye. And fit, as was evidenced when he’d removed his coat, his lawn shirt stretched over lean muscles instead of fat.
But she had always known he would be a handsome man. She had loved looking at his face when she was a child and he was her best friend, and that hadn’t changed. He’d grown into a man that could steal hearts with just a glance.
Handsome. Dangerous. One of those things God-given. The other manifested by whatever had happened to him in the last seventeen years.
He shifted slightly, his right eye opening the tiniest crack.
So he was awake. Just avoiding her.
He closed his eye.
She looked out the window, watching an undulatingfield of mature wheatroll by, the fat tips of the grain a golden yellow with late summer.She should leave him be. It was what he wanted at the moment.
But then her mouth opened. “Will you tell me what you’ve learned about this family? Are you sure they are my mother’s kin?”
“You are questioning me?” He didn’t open his eyes.
“No…it’s just that you said in your first note that there were several possibilities you’d uncovered. I just wanted to weigh whether the family we are travelling to are the most likely to be my mother’s family.”
“You were the one that was convinced I could find the answers.”
“Iamconvinced of that. I just want to know if you are convinced as well.”
With a sigh, he opened his eyes, his look pinning her. “I wouldn’t be in the carriage right now if I wasn’t fairly certain.”
“Oh…fine.” She blinked hard. “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes again.
Her gaze went out onto the countryside. Leave him in peace.
Her still tongue only lasted for two minutes. “But why are you certain? The note you sent that reported you found them was short with no details. Not even a surname.”
His eyes stayed closed for three long breaths and just when she thought he was going to completely ignore her, his eyes opened. “Did you want a book on their history that you would have to explain to the Flagtons, or did you want a discreet note slipped into your palm by the collier?”
She bristled. “The note. It was sufficient. But that does not stop me from wondering what you’ve learned.”
His look slid downward and he plucked invisible lint off the knee of his trousers, stalling like he was pondering how much to tell her, how delicate her constitution was.
“You have the name—Willington, of your father—I remember my father mentioning that once when we were small and I was trying to understand why you didn’t share our surname. Whether it was the truth or not, he said your mother and father were married in Scotland and then set off on a ship to the Americas days later. Do you remember that?”
Her head tilted to the side, her look going to the roof of the carriage as she dove into her memories. Her cheeks scrunched up slightly and she looked at him. “I think—I think maybe that sounds familiar. But I’m not sure if you told me that or your father did, or maybe I just overheard you talking on it.”
“You overheard it. You were hiding under the desk in my father’s study. We were playing hide and seek and he came in and I wanted to torture you because I knew how uncomfortable it was to hide under there. So I made sure the conversation went on and on.”
She laughed, her eyes scolding him. “You would be so cruel.”
“You did the same to me. Remember the chicken coop? I couldn’t fully straighten my legs for days.”
She laughed again, harder, her hand going to her mouth to hide the guffaw of it. It’d been so long since she’d laughed, she apparently didn’t know how to do it anymore. “I do remember that one quite vividly. I took such pride in the pain you were in.”
“Now who’s the blackheart?”
A smile still wide on her face, she shrugged as she shook her head.
His hand flipped into the air, dismissing the lighthearted moment. “I thought to trace back to your mother through your father, as I could only recall the ‘Jac’ in reference to your mother. I believe I found the correct Willington—Rupert—he was a captain in the Royal Navy and I imagine the right age to be your father. But beyond that, there was no further record of him. He came into the navy with no family recorded, and then he just disappeared one day. He didn’t retire his commission or anything. Just disappeared. Presumed dead.”
“You’re saying my father and my mother ran off and disappeared together?”
