“Cats are fairly uninterested in their owners,” Alaric agreed. His eyes crinkled as he smiled.
“I left my knotting bag hanging from a chair overnight,” Willa said, the words tumbling out. “She pulled it down, and took everything out. She didn’t break anything, although my locket suffered.”
“How so?”
“Gold is easily marked by sharp teeth.”
Something twisted in the area of Willa’s heart every time Alaric laughed. It endangered the shell she had constructed around the inner her. The shell she’d built after her parents died, and she’d turned into Lady Gray’s perfect daughter.
“What is it like to travel?” she asked impulsively.
“There are long days when nothing happens,” Alaric said. “Weeks spent on a ship without an island in sight, and nothing but a trunk of books and some grumpy sailors for company.”
“You read all day?” It sounded like heaven.
He nodded. “You read, fish, listen to salty tales. Watch for whales and bad weather. At length, a shore appears. Contrary to those engravings, I have no interest in danger, but I am fascinated by the different ways people live.”
Sweetpea clambered into her basket and curled against the silk lining.
“Do you like roses?” Alaric asked.
“Yes, certainly,” Willa said. “The white ones are so beautiful.”
To her surprise, he took a knife out of his boot and began gathering a bouquet. His face was all the more beautiful for the austerity of his black coat. He was confident but not arrogant, likely the distinction that allowed him to walk into the midst of a tribe like the Meskwaki. Listen to their stories, eat with them, walk away undisturbed.
“The Meskwaki?” Willa repeated. “What a curious name. You don’t make up any of the stories in your books, do you?”
He turned to her, his arms full of white roses. “The world is a strange place. I’ve never had to embroider the truth. I’ll send a footman back for these so that I can carry Sweetpea’s basket.” He put them to the side of the path.
Willa suddenly realized that she would forever associate the perfume of those roses with Alaric. White roses would bring to mind smiling blue eyes, shoulders too broad for their coat, honey skin marked by a scar.
The scar gave him a wickedly rakish quality.
She could feel pink creeping up her neck. “Lord Alaric—”
“Not ‘Lord Alaric,’ ” he said firmly. “We have already agreed on that. I am Alaric and you are Willa. Actually, I learned from Aunt Knowe that you are Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche. I like Everett. Is that your mother’s name?”
“Yes.”
Most improperly, Alaric reached out and ran a hand over her hair. “I was curious to know what color it was and here it is: dark as midnight without a moon.”
“I prefer not to powder,” Willa confessed. “It’s so tiresome to wash out.”
“Obviously, I feel the same.” He had a half-smile now, direct and yet subtle. “My brother says I resemble a blacksmith.”
“It doesn’t appear to chase away your admirers,” Willa said, before she thought.
“Does it chase away detractors like yourself?”
“I’m not a detractor,” she said primly. “I now accept that the stories you recount are true.”
Alaric bit back a smile.
Willa Everett pretended to primness, but he saw through her now. She was adventuresome, but not reckless. Intelligent and logical. Funny. Behind that placid demeanor, she was funny.
“Thank you for the roses,” she said. “I’ve never had so many at once.”
“It’s mating fervor,” he said thoughtfully.
Her brows drew together. “ ‘Mating fervor’?”
Too late, he remembered that a gentleman shouldn’t discuss mating with a gently bred young lady. He shrugged mentally. “Haven’t you noticed that when spring comes, all the male animals begin flinging themselves around, trying to impress the female of their choice?”
“Like your peacock Fitzy?”
“And my brother North,” he said wryly.
Before she could hide it, he saw that she agreed.
“I need a friend more than a mate. One who isn’t impressed by Lord Wilde,” he added.
“Lavinia would be an excellent choice,” Willa suggested, her bright gaze making him want to laugh again. “She would do an excellent job of keeping your bravado in check.”
He shook his head. “Lavinia’s collection of prints makes her ineligible for friendship.”
“What if I read your books, and succumb to the appeal of Lord Wilde?” Her expression made it clear that was most unlikely.
“I wouldn’t discourage you.” He couldn’t stop grinning at the thought.
“It won’t happen.”
Willa was so sure of herself that the urge to prove her wrong ripped through every pretense of civilization that clung to him, childhood training, everything.
“Will you accompany me back to the house?” she asked, seeming not to notice his hungry gaze. Like a gazelle frolicking in sight of a tiger, he thought.
“Are we friends?”
No gazelle had such a direct gaze, unwavering and solemn, as Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche. “We shall be friends,” she said, nodding, “but only if you don’t try any nonsense.”
“Meaning what?”
She waved her hand. “You know what I mean. Gallantry.”
“I’m not known for gallantry.”
“The way you bend your head to listen to Lady Biddle,” she said. “And there’s that look. The look you have right now!”
“The one where I’m suppressing a smile because I can make neither head nor tail of the conversation? Helena Biddle has left for London, by the way. I have also informed Miss Kennet of my penchant for dark-haired women.”
“You do realize that ladies often dye their hair?” she asked, with that contained smile that made him half-mad. “Poor Eliza will probably appear at breakfast tomorrow with hair the color of Sweetpea’s fur.”
“How old were you when your parents died?” he asked, picking up the basket and turning back toward the castle.
“Nine years old.”
“A difficult age for a girl.”
“How on earth would you know?”
“My sisters. When Boadicea was nine, she was a terror.”
“I haven’t met your younger siblings. Did you say ‘Boadicea’?”
Alaric nodded. “We are all named after warriors. Boadicea prefers Betsy, and Spartacus insists on being called Wilder, after spending his nursery years as Sparky.”
“Wilder?”
“I believe it is something of a jest; I am accused by my siblings of having ruined our last name with my books,” Alaric admitted.
“They do have intriguing titles,” Willa said in a tone of reserved congratulation.
But he was coming to know her. She was most polite when she was most disapproving. “You don’t like Wilde Sargasso Sea?” he asked, glancing at her. “That’s my favorite title.”
“I prefer Wilde Latitudes, if only for the boldness of renaming a significant part of the world after oneself.”
“Ouch,” Alaric said, with a grin. “In case you’re wondering, I believe that my writing days are over.”
“Over?” Her voice squeaked, waking up Sweetpea, who looked around groggily.
Alaric carefully rocked the basket back and forth; Sweetpea tucked her nose under her tail again and lapsed into sleep. “I fancy new challenges. I own an estate near here that my brother has been managing for me.”
He looked up to find her blue eyes assessing him. That’s right, he thought to himself—not letting anything but friendship show on his face—I am an agreeable man. I will stay in England and spend my days peacefully tending to my estate. I am an excellent prospect for marriage.
“I see,” she said. “As opposed to fighting off pirates, now you’re going to spend your time paying morning calls?”
“Would you believe me if I said yes?”
“No.”
“Paying a call on a pirate is not so different from a visit to a duke,” Alaric observed.
Willa was enormously relieved to discover they had reached the castle walls. They were carrying on two conversations at once, and she wasn’t certain that she understood the second.
Alaric’s face was harsh in its angles: the way his eyebrows flared above his eyes, the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose. It was the face of a man who strolled into a den of pirates and made friends.
He probably looked at the pirates the way he looked at her: with that piercing interest backed by raw, masculine strength. She wanted him to look at her again. To listen to her. To ask her questions.
To put his arms around her.
Willa’s heart was beating a syncopated rhythm that she’d never experienced before. Part of her—the logical part—was thinking, Flee. Flee.
Flee before he strolls in, sits by your fire, takes your stories and possibly your heart, and walks away just as casually.
And yet … he was big and strong. He would take the world and make it into a smaller, protected place.
“Thank you for the walk,” she said, marshaling years of careful civility.
He put the basket down and took a step toward her. Her back touched the castle’s stone wall.