“I have to leave,” she said. “Miss Eliza, Miss Nelly. Mr. Hawkins.” She gave him a quick look, a mistake, as the sight of him threatened to send her brain packing once more, before looking back to the girls. “I had a lovely time,” she babbled, spinning about to begin the trek back to the manor. “But I really must go.”
“Girls,” Mr. Hawkins murmured from behind her, “why don’t you hurry on up to the house and make certain Miss Pickering’s carriage is ready so she might leave all the quicker.”
“But we don’t wish for Miss Pickering to leave!” Miss Nelly cried plaintively. “It feels as if she has just arrived, and we were just beginning to have fun.”
“Yes, I imagine so,” the man continued, even as Bronwyn, head down, kept on her course. “But if we do not assist her now, she may not wish to return.”
Which was so preposterous that Bronwyn stopped dead in her tracks. Before she could proclaim to the girls that the only way she would not return was if her parents forbade it—something that, unfortunately, was quickly becoming an all too real possibility the more she delayed—the girls darted past her.
“Have no fear, Miss Pickering,” Miss Eliza called out over her shoulder, her younger sister’s hand tight in her own as they raced full tilt over the landscape. “We shall have your carriage ready for you in a trice.”
And they were gone. Leaving Bronwyn quite alone with Mr. Hawkins. Or, as alone as two people could be out in the middle of a meadow where anyone could come upon them.
Suddenly that man was there beside her. In one hand he held his horse’s reins—how had she not noticed the horse?—and the other arm he held out to her. “Shall we, Miss Pickering?”
Discombobulated, Bronwyn nevertheless could not allow his comments from a moment ago to pass without mention. “Why would you tell your wards that I would not return?” she demanded. “That was not kind of you.”
“I did not mean to be unkind. I merely hoped for a moment alone with you. So we might get to know one another a bit better,” he continued when she gave him a suspicious look. “Seeing as the girls seem to have made fast friends with you.”
Which made much more sense than she expected. And, as he was still holding out his arm in that solicitous way, there was little else Bronwyn could do. And so, gingerly placing her hand in the crook of his arm, as one they began the walk back to Caulnedy.
But, though Mr. Hawkins had declared that he’d wished for time alone with her to talk, there was nothing but silence between them. It was so charged a silence, in fact, that Bronwyn found herself wishing for that thing she hated so much: small talk. At least then she wouldn’t be quite so aware of his arm against her side, or the muscles beneath her sensitive fingers bunching with each movement of his large—ever so large—body. She swallowed hard.
When he spoke, however, she was made achingly aware that she had been a fool to wish for him to speak. His voice, so deep and gruff, was a sound she felt in every nerve of her overly stimulated body.
“I suppose I can understand now why you reacted as you did yesterday when I nearly swatted those beetles from your skirts. You are a naturalist then?”
Bronwyn flinched, looking sharply up at him, searching for any indication he was mocking her even as she protectively hugged her bag close to her. But no, the eyes that gazed down at her were utterly serious. She blinked, not certain how to proceed. No one except her group of friends had ever acknowledged that what she was working toward was at all valid. And yet here was this magnetic man asking her if she were a naturalist as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I am,” she finally managed. “An entomologist.”
He nodded, as if it made perfect sense. A strange reaction that, as most people tended to sneer or laugh when discussing such things with her.
“My wards seemed incredibly interested in your work,” he continued, his voice turning thoughtful. “I have not seen them so engaged in a long while.”
Bronwyn felt her cheeks flush. She scoured her mind for something to say, finally settling on, “They are sweet girls.”
“Are they?”
Why did it sound as if he was asking her? They were his wards, after all. Wouldn’t he know?
Utterly confused, Bronwyn directed her gaze forward and pressed her lips tight, focusing on her footing. That was all she needed, to twist her ankle on a rock. And in front of this incredibly capable, virile male specimen.
Mr. Hawkins remained silent as well. A relief, for she did not think she could speak to him with any coherence. Though it certainly did not help that as they walked he seemed to look down at her with a disturbing regularity. Truly, did she have something in her hair? Perhaps a smudge on her cheek? Surreptitiously she lifted a hand to rub at her face. Just when the house came into view and she was finally beginning to relax, knowing this tension-fraught moment would soon be over, he spoke.
“You are unmarried.”
She stumbled. Right away his hand was on her arm, steadying her. She gasped at the contact, her gaze flying to his. To her shock, his eyes had found her mouth. Was it her imagination or did she detect gold sparks of fire in the amber depths?
And then he released her, breaking the spell. She dragged in a deep breath, her head spinning.
“Do you prefer to live on Synne, or would you rather live in London?”
What the ever-loving blazes was he going on about? She shook her head, certain she had heard him wrong. “Pardon?”
“Synne? Do you prefer to live here?”
“Er…yes, I do,” she answered hesitantly, not quite certain why he was interested in such a thing.