Page 5 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

“I found her in the morning room,” Hobson said, setting the waistcoat on a nearby chair. “She made herself comfortable beneath the window seat. Watching the rain. Likely for the last hour.”

“She likes the quiet.” Lyness scratched behind Athena’s ears, and she huffed with pleasure. “Much like you, Hobson.”

“She has excellent instincts,” Hobson replied. “And finer manners than her mate, though I wouldn’t dare say so in front of His Lordship.”

Lyness smiled faintly. “He’d defend Apollo’s honor with a sword, I think.”

“Or a sermon.” Hobson straightened the cravat he’d taken from Lyness’s chest of drawers, running a practiced fingers over the fabric. “Regardless, the hounds may be Lord Hartwood’s by ownership, but Athena’s made it quite clear she rules the entire household. Cook feeds her scraps. Mrs. Gibbons speaks to her like a person. Even the footmen step over her rather than ask her to move.”

“She has presence,” Lyness said, still absently petting her. “Unlike some of us.”

Hobson gave him a dry look. “Sir, if you wished to command presence, you could easily do so with less ceremony than a German hound.”

Lyness huffed a quiet laugh, though it faded almost at once. Presence. In school he’d been told he had none, or rather, that he made a virtue of keeping himself unobtrusive. That had never troubled him much. Until lately.

Until York had grown smaller, in a way. Smaller because every walk along the walls or through St. Helen’s Square might, by some happy accident, place him in the path of a certain lady.

Lady Emily Sterling had been in the city long enough to be seen at tea rooms, to stroll with her sister-in-law near the ruins of Saint Mary’s Abbey, to pause at the bookshop window and laugh at something unseen, and was noted going to visit Terry’s for confectionary delights. He knew this because York was not London, and news—especially the sort that involved a lovely woman with a place in the peerage—moved quickly.

He had known precisely where she was staying since her arrival. He could have called. But he had no business to conduct, no errand to fulfill, no task that required his presence. Without one, he found himself standing still.

He had no right to expect to see her again, truly. They had met once, danced once, exchanged no letters, no promises, and no verbalized hopes of seeing each other again. Yet the memory of her voice lingered, unhelpfully precise, and had returned to him last night as he bent over his desk.

Perhaps that was why the loops of his pen had curved upward like climbing ivy. Why he had lost all sense of time.

Hobson cleared his throat, drawing Lyness back. “Shall I bring hot water, sir?”

“No,” Lyness said quickly, setting down the pen he’d been turning between his fingers. “We needn’t bother, and I told Roman I would meet him in half an hour. I will not keep him waiting.”

Roman likely would say he did not mind, but Lyness had already inconvenienced enough people with his late rising. He would be where he said he would, at Roman’s side, when he said he would be there.

Dependability was, without question, one of his greatest talents. It had never failed him yet.

Chapter Three

As Emily kept pace with her brother and sister-in-law on the New Walk, trees on either side and the water lapping the shore, Emily suspected her brother regretted his easy compliance to his wife’s request. The rain of the previous day had left the air damp and cool, but Juniper declared it a perfect afternoon for walking, and Jack had agreed. Somewhat grumpily.

Now, he strode with too much purpose for a man out to enjoy the fresh air, his gaze darting toward the River Ouse as though searching for either an escape or an enemy.

“You look as though we have dragged you to the edge of the unknown,” Juniper teased, taking his arm. “A stroll along the river is hardly a forced march through hostile territory.”

“I have no objection to walking,” Jack replied, though his tone suggested otherwise. “I object to walking without purpose.”

“There is purpose,” Juniper said, amusement in her tone and the way she leaned against his shoulder. “We are parading your sister before York’s most eligible gentlemen. Or perhaps the least eligible. I am not certain yet which of them we ought to like.”

Emily managed a small laugh, though her cheeks warmed. “You make it sound as though I am a mare to be inspected at market.”

“Hardly!” Juniper straightened, all wide eyes and kind sincerity. “More like a jewel in need of the right setting. And York is full of goldsmiths.”

Though tempted to mention her lack of success with the “goldsmiths” of London, Emily wrinkled her nose and remained silent instead.

Jack gave an exaggerated sigh. “Is this truly necessary?” He looked over Juniper’s head to Emily’s, and she wondered if he was trying to take her side or measuring the amount of work it would be to find her a suitable match. It was difficult to tell with Jack, sometimes, whether he saw her as an ally in their sudden rise in rank or yet another obligation to fulfill.

“Yes,” Juniper said firmly. “And I am in charge because your sister is far too agreeable to object, and you have nothing better to do this afternoon.”

Emily kept her eyes ahead, pretending the exchange amused her, when in truth her stomach had knotted. She was willing to meet new people, of course. Willing to try—but each time the subject of her future arose, the weight of how little she understood about navigating such waters pressed upon her.

She would rather not be another weight on Jack’s shoulders or another worry for her parents in this world of new worries.