“I need to continue on,” she said.
“May I walk with you?”
“I cannot stop you from walking your lands, Your Grace.” Perhaps he needed time to determine the best way to say he was sorry.
“I suppose I should speak with both Mr. and Mrs. Wells,” he said stiffly.
“Very well, then.” Selina moved forward and he kept pace with his horse trailing behind.
After a few minutes of silence, he finally asked, “Why do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Care for the sick, deliver the babies and everything else you do.”
“Who else will?” She cast him a sideways glance, noting the way his coat cut across his broad shoulders.
“A physician, perhaps?” he offered.
Selina laughed. “The only physician is in the village and he’s a drunken sod. I wouldn’t let him touch a soul on this property.”
“But why you?”
“Because I am of the same blood as my mother and her mother before her. This is what we do and have done for centuries.”
“But couldn’t someone else do it?” He held up a hand to stop her interruption. “I mean what if something happened to you? Or what if you wanted to go to London for a fortnight?”
Selina laughed. “London? Why would I want to go there? All those people in that small space, it must be rife with disease.”
Colin looked at her in confusion. Had she never been to London? Was it possible that she’d never seen the most important city in the world? Why did he have a sudden urge to show her everything in town?
“London is beautiful,” he said slowly. “There are museums and parks, the opera, and wonderful shopping. Why wouldn’t you want to see London?”
She laughed again. “And there is poverty and sickness. Why would I want to see that? If I need to buy something, I go to the village. But here I have all this,” she said, sweeping her arm at the vista.
He couldn’t fault her eyesight. His lands were beautiful rolling fields that seemed to go on forever. Looking around, he realized just how much he’d missed visiting this particular estate.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She stopped and then looked up at him with a frown. “For what? That kiss? I most certainly didn’t mean to let you kiss me.”
He laughed gruffly. She wanted an apology for their kiss. “I was saying thank you for taking such good care of my tenants and servants.”
“I am just doing my job, Your Grace.”
“When we are alone, I wouldn’t mind if you called me North or Colin.”
“No, Your Grace. That implies an intimacy that we should not have.”
He smiled again. In fact, he couldn’t remember smiling this much in one day in years. “Hmm, perhaps it’s an intimacy that would help us to get along with each other better.”
“I highly doubt calling you by your Christian name will help us get along.” She started walking again and he tagged along.
“I do believe you’re wrong. Already, we are having a pleasant conversation and all it took was a kiss.”
She turned on him with her eyes flashing like emeralds. “A kiss you stole. A kiss for which I never gave my permission—”
“Asking permission for a kiss takes all the excitement out of it. If I were to ask you for permission to kiss you right now, the kiss would be as dull as a Sunday sermon.”