Page 13 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

Emily tilted the hat barely enough to peer inside. The bird stared up at her, feathers puffed and eyes blinking slowly. As though it might sleep there. She laughed quietly, unable to help herself.

“I truly did not think how I would manage if it let me catch it,” she admitted. “It seems my impulses often outrun my good sense.” At least since leaving the countryside, where her impulses had been praised rather than censured.

“Then they are admirable impulses,” he said quietly. “Not many would trouble themselves for a creature so small.”

Her cheeks warmed, and she was glad to keep her eyes on the hat. “I think there is beauty, even in small things. Animals, plants, the odd mossy stone wall. Perhaps that is another reason I draw them.”

“You sketch well,” he said at once, then hesitated as though he had spoken too directly. “Forgive me. You have already heard my opinion.”

In that moment, she realized she had not heard him stutter much after his initial greeting. Had she missed it, or did his lack of hesitation upon his words mean something? She thought of asking, but would that stand as yet another breech in etiquette?

The bird gave a soft chirp inside the hat, and Emily adjusted her grip carefully. “Do you draw?” she asked, hoping to turn the attention from herself and her too-personal thoughts.

He drew a breath, the corners of his mouth turning slightly. “Not often. Not as you do. My work is with letters. I copy poems, passages of literature, sometimes only words I find beautiful. I try to shape them so the lines of the ink carry the meaning themselves. That is as close to drawing as I come.”

Emily’s brows lifted, her eyes still on the canary though her interest sharpened. “Calligraphy, then. That is art, surely.”

“It is deliberate, if not entirely artistic,” he answered. “Every stroke considered. Every curve of the pen chosen.” His gaze lowered, as though embarrassed. “Some call it wasted effort, for a gentleman to dabble in such things.”

It sounded as though he had a particular someone in mind, and she instantly disagreed with the unnamed person.

“Unnecessary?” She shook her head quickly. “How can beauty be unnecessary? If words are worth reading, are they not worth beautifying as well?”

“I always thought so.” For the first time in their conversation, his smile came without hesitation. “I am glad you share my opinion, Lady Emily.”

Emily tilted the hat a little, the golden head peeking up at her from the folds of linen. “Then perhaps we are both right to keep at our work,” she said softly. “Even if others fail to see the use in it.”

The bird settled down, wings tucked in close, as though satisfied it had found safety.

Lyness hadn’t any regrets over handing Lady Emily his hat. Each time she peered down to ensure the canary still rested at the bottom, he had to hold back a smile. The wrinkle that appeared at the bridge of her nose when she furrowed her brow distracted him. So when she looked up at him as though awaiting a reply he had to say, “Forgive me. I am afraid my thoughts were elsewhere, Lady Emily. What was that you said?”

“I asked what brought you to the ruins this day,” she said, not the least put out by repeating herself. “This is the second time we have run into each other this week, after going several months without crossing paths.” Her steps slowed on the walk. They had only one corner to turn, and then they would be within sight of her brother and sister-in-law once more.

“My brother and I often come here in the afternoons. I had a meeting nearby, and he brings the dogs out with a groom this time of day. They need to be out of doors or they grow agitated.”

Her lips turned upward in a smile, even as she looked down at the bird again. “They have my sympathies. I often feel the same when kept inside too long.” She sighed and wrapped her arms around his hat, shifting to cradle it against her rather than hold it by the brim.

He wondered if any man had been jealous of a hat before.

Then winced at the impropriety of that thought. He barely knew the woman. Thinking of being held by her was far out of bounds of gentlemanlike behavior. Wasn’t it?

The afternoon breeze stirred his hair, with his hat no longer keeping it in place. He brushed it from his eyes and made a mental note to have Hobson trim it soon.

“So you happened upon my family and they sent you off to search for me?” she said with a raise of her eyebrows. “How terribly convenient for Jack that he need not give up the company of his wife, and yet he manages to herd his sister back to him.”

That made Lyness chuckle. “He seemed concerned that you were out of sight. A common thing for a brother, I would think, when tasked with watching over a sister.”

“He worries too much,” she said quietly. “I used to walk miles every day, all on my own, before this inheritance business.”

That both alarmed and amused him. A woman like her, wandering about without protector or chaperone? It hardly seemed safe. Yet he could understand the craving for such independence. “I cannot imagine if my own steps were shadowed everywhere I went,” he admitted. “But I understand the necessity of it for young ladies.”

“Indeed. The world in which we live must be a singularly terrible place if a woman cannot walk about as freely as a man, without fear of harm. Or even rumor stirred by the mere act of it.” Lady Emily gave him so direct a look, as though waiting for him to challenge her opinion. “It is most unfair.”

Lyness would have solicited her thoughts on all manner of things pertaining to that matter, and others, had he not heard Apollo bark. Roman had arrived at the ruins, and he had likely asked the dog to perform that particular trick for someone else’s amusement.

He cleared his throat and gestured to the abbey wall. “I have kept you long enough, my lady. I fear your brother will send out a second search party if we do not appear soon.”

They were approaching her family’s picnic blanket when Lyness finally looked that direction and realized his brother had joined the Sterlings. Roman stood near their picnic blanket, stance relaxed, speaking to Jack Sterling. All three of them watched as Lyness and Emily approached, and with a word Roman dismissed Apollo to come bounding over to Lyness with tongue lolling out and a happy bark of greeting.