Page 50 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

“Was I not doing a good enough job?” she asked tartly.

“His grievance was against me. You can hardly blame me for wanting to address it.”

“And?” It was all the curiosity she dared express.

He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll be joining Hamish and Benjamin on their fishing trip tomorrow.”

“It’s a start, I suppose.”

“A start,” he agreed.

Stephen crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. Vera noted the little lines at the corners of his eyes. He looked exhausted. She was tired, too, and she hadn’t done nearly as much at the Edgar residence.

“We should go and visit Mr. Douglas the day after tomorrow,” he said lowly.

“All right.”

After a few moments, Stephen’s eyes slid closed. With no one else in the room, Vera was able to study him as closely as she desired for the first time since they’d met. She’d dared not do so before—those eyes of his were sharper than any hawk’s. They seemed to note every flicker of expression, every slight frown she tried to hide.

Stephen was tall, she’d known that, of course, but his current posture—long legs out before him—only accentuated the fact. His arms weren’t as large as some men’s, but they were in proportion to the rest of him and well muscled, with a dusting of dark hair along the forearm.

His face eased into sleep, and she was struck by how much younger he looked when he was relaxed. Thank goodness for that calamity of a beard, or the effect might have been overwhelming against her determination to keep the man at a distance.

Suddenly she was irritated at him for wandering in and falling asleep on the sofa across from her own. Didn’t he have anywhere else to nap? It was distracting.

“Are you watching me sleep?” he murmured without opening his eyes.

Vera jerked. “What? No.”

He cracked one eye. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said, closing his eyes once more. “Because that would be strange.”

CHAPTER 14- STEPHEN

Two days later, Vera and Stephen loaded into the cart. Hortense wasn’t feeling well, but Vera insisted upon accompanying him to Mr. Douglas’s anyway. Since his mother was out of the house on one of her infernal rambles through the undergrowth with the marquess’s secretary, Stephen thought she perhaps had lost the ability to balk when it came to matters of decorum. Still, Stephen rounded up one of the downstairs maids to go along—a silent, trembling little thing that reminded him of a field mouse.

He frowned, staring off across a wild field and the stand of trees beyond. What was going on between his mother and that Hamish fellow? Stephen was so perplexed by the notion, he didn’t have the courage to demand answers from his mother. Besides, he knew if he did demand answers, she’d deny him any on principle. Lady Jacqueline Winthrop was not the type to be bullied, especially by her own son.

“How was fishing yesterday?” Vera asked stiffly, breaking him free of his unwelcome thoughts.

“Well enough. We caught enough for dinner, but you were there for that.”

In fact, she’d already sat through dinner, in which Benjamin regaled them with a detailed description of every hooked fish—including much conjecture on the three that slipped the line and escaped. Vera must want to know something different altogether, something that hadn’t been answered yesterday evening.

Vera bit her lip. It was terribly distracting, those teeth sunk into that plump lip. Stephen frowned and averted his eyes, too. The horse plodded his way down the country lane, head bobbing to the musical tempo of his own steps. Birds twittered from the trees or flitted through the sky. It was a lovely fall day, the perfect weather—cool but sunny.

Stephen still needed a jacket, though it wasn’t all that cold. He hadn’t yet reacclimated to England’s weather. This first winter would be brutal.

He turned and broke the awkward silence. “What do you know about this Hamish?”

Vera’s eyebrows rose. “Your mother seems to approve of him. He’s certainly a witty fellow.”

Stephen’s mouth twisted. He didn’t need a reminder of the man’s cleverness—not when he himself was the unwilling recipient of many of the man’s rejoinders. In fact, that was probably why Vera had brought it up.

There was no easy way to ask what Stephen truly wanted to know: was the man courting his mother? The question was damned embarrassing, and the idea itself made the little boy within him want to howl, made the rebellious youth within want to smack the man in the nose.