“While I can understand your reticence, please permit me an opportunity to offend you before you presume I have.”
“So, what great beast were you referring to, in your touching soliloquy?” He found it difficult to draw his gaze away from those lashes. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. Her lashes lay against her cheeks like dark fans.
“I certainly wouldn’t call my speech to myself ‘touching,’” she prevaricated.
“What would you call it?” He went back to working on the poor bush he’d nearly pruned into submission a few moments before. It was much safer than looking at her.
“I would call it weighing my options,” she said, her voice a bit uncertain.
He didn’t even look up at her. “And what options would those be?”
“I look forward to getting to know you better while we’re here,” she replied. She stepped closer to him and the scent of bluebells reached him. He looked around his private garden. Not a bluebell in sight. It must be her. He continued to pick at the plant until her hand landed on top of his own. He drew in a heavy breath as she squeezed it gently.
“You’ll kill the poor plant if you don’t stop that.” She drew her hand back. “I promise I don’t bite.” She grinned wildly at what must have been a stricken look on his face. “And, although I have it on good authority that you do…” She laughed deeply, a rich sound that made him want to smile with her. She dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Although I have it on good authority that you do bite, I feel fairly safe in your presence.” She eyed the plant. “The foliage, on the other hand…” She let her voice trail off.
“Tell me why you’re here, Miss Thorne,” he said. It meant a lot to him to have a true answer, but the odds of getting that were slim to none.
“I’m on a mission,” she said, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips.
“A mission?” He wanted to kiss her. He hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone in a very long time. It made him feel slightly off balance.
“Yes, a mission. But I can’t tell you more than that.” She twirled around in his garden, gazing at the sun. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she glimmered there in the sunlight. It had been too long since he’d been in the proximity of a beautiful lass.
“So, I’ll have to remain ignorant and hopeful. A typical state for a man,” he murmured.
“What was your interruption?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“I wouldn’t call my wife’s death an interruption,” he said before thinking. But she covered those rosebud lips with the tips of her fingers and withheld her laughter. “You weren’t referring to that, were you?” he asked with a chuckle and a self-deprecating grin.
“I was referring to the noise at the door a moment ago,” she laughed. It was a melodic sound, one that made him feel happy. How long had it been since he’d felt truly happy? A very long time.
“That was my brother, Phineas, who wanted entrance to my garden,” he explained. “So, he could complain about our mother, no doubt. My footmen kept him out.”
“So, this truly is your sanctuary, as your daughter explained.”
“It is.”
“Why is it special to you?”
“My problems are not admitted into my garden,” he explained as cryptically as he could. And as he searched for appropriate words to explain it, the need to do so was robbed from him.
“What’s that beautiful sound?” she gasped as she turned and rounded the corner of his garden.
He didn’t hear a thing. But he followed her as she disappeared from sight.
***
Sophia didn’t know what the sound was or where it came from, but she knew it was one of the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard. It was better than raindrops on a tin roof. Better than the songs the crickets chirped at dusk, better than anything in that moment.
“Can you hear that?” she asked of no one in particular as she turned a corner in the garden and stepped into an open area, with a fish pond directly in the center. She stepped away from the fish. Fish were not a faerie’s friend. Of course, these fish appeared to be small. They probably weren’t a threat at all.
The wind picked up the hair on her forehead and the tinkling sound began again. It took her attention, so much of it that she didn’t even notice that the duke stood beside her until she heard him breathing harshly beside her.
“The next time you’d like for me to give chase, Miss Thorne, you need to warn me so I can commit to a full breath.”
The wind stopped and so did the sound. “Where did it go?” she cried, glancing left and right, trying to find the source.
“Where did what go?”