Page 35 of A Convenient Fiction

He looked steadily back at her, his expression completely unreadable. “He doesn’t have anything to do with what happened yesterday, does he?”

“George?” She stopped short at the top of the hill, under the wide branches of a magnificent yew tree with a split trunk. A stretch of grass spread out before them, the stones of the Roman ruin in the distance. “No. Why would he?”

Mr. Archer stopped as well. The tree cast his face in shadow. “I haven’t any idea. I don’t know what upset you.” He paused. “I’d like to know.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps…” He looked away from her, the lines of his firm jaw set as immoveable as granite. “Perhaps I could help you.”

Her stomach trembled. It was nerves. Either that or the threat of butterflies. One was as bad as the other. “You can’t.”

“Try me.”

His deep voice sent another tremor through her core. “The ruin,” she said. “We should—”

“It’s thousands of years old. It can wait another hour.”

An hour? Did he mean for them to linger here together—to talk—for as long as that?

Under other circumstances, Laura might have resisted. But she was hot and tired, and overwhelmed by her responsibilities. A good night’s sleep had done little to remedy her poor spirits. “Very well. But I shouldn’t like anything I tell you to go further.”

Mr. Archer turned back to her, a glint of wry humor in his eyes. “I can keep a secret, Miss Hayes.”

“I expect you can. But these aren’t just my secrets. They’re my family’s secrets.”

“I’ll guard them as if they were my own.”

Laura didn’t know why, but she believed him. And she wanted to unburden herself. Needed to most desperately. “I’ve told you about my father’s perfume business.”

His mouth hitched at the corner in that wolfish way of his. “Hayes’s Lavender Water, suitable for mothers and sweethearts alike.”

“Yes, well…since my father’s death, the business—what remains of it—has been under the control of his solicitor.”

“The fellow you visited in London?”

“An odious gentleman who won’t permit us to do as we like with the property that was left to us.” She walked deeper beneath the branches, arms folded at her waist. “It’s meant to come to my brother at his majority, but yesterday…I learned that Mr. Weatherwax is refusing to cede control.”

Mr. Archer followed after her into the deep shadow of the yew tree. He removed his hat. “Can he?”

“He says that my brother is unfit, purely because he’s an invalid. He says that he’ll happily take us to court to prove it. Unless I can find a way to challenge him, my family must resign themselves to living on the quarterly allowance he provides us. It isn’t enough. Not nearly.”

“I suppose it’s out of the question to simply ask the man for more money?”

“There isn’t any more. But there could be. There could be. If only the business were in the hands of someone who wasn’t afraid to take a few risks.”

“Your brother?”

She nearly laughed. “Not my brother. Me.”

“Ah, I see.”

“You don’t.” She could read as much in his face. “You think I’m just a silly impetuous female. But sometimes, Mr. Archer, in life as well as business, we must be bold. We must risk everything to gain even more. And so I would have done if my brother gained control.”

His brows lowered. “I don’t think you’re silly, Miss Hayes.”

“No?”

“I think you’re…”