turned her gaze to the arching branches above them. The stream spilled over a rocky patch, chattering and burbling in conversation with the birds. “This is an enchanting little spot, isn’t it?”
“Best fishing on any of the ducal properties. Across the way, there’s an excellent chestnut tree for climbing. It’s a good place to raise a boy.”
He clearly spoke from experience. The house had been closed twenty years, had he said? That made sense. It would have been shut up after his parents died. It was difficult to imagine him ever climbing chestnut trees and splashing about in a stream. But even the most imposing of men had once been a boy. With him divested of his coat, clad in only his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, she could almost see it.
They walked the short distance back to the house.
Emma didn’t see the carriage. “Evening’s coming on. Shouldn’t we be starting home?”
“Yes, we should be. Jonas still hasn’t returned.”
She tucked her skirts under her thighs and had a seat on the front step. “I suppose we’ll wait and enjoy the sunset.”
They waited. And waited.
The sun set.
Still no Jonas. Still no carriage.
It was full evening now, and fast fading to night.
“Where the devil is he? He could have broken a team of wild horses by now.”
A knot of suspicion formed in Emma’s stomach. “Oh, dear. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Don’t fret. He’s an experienced coachman. He won’t have encountered any serious difficulty.”
“That’s not what I mean. I have a bad feeling that Jonas won’t return tonight at all. Not because of an accident, but on purpose.”
“What possible purpose could that be?”
Emma propped one elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. “It’s the servants. All of them. They have formed this silly notion that if they force us together, we’ll . . .”
“We’ll what?”
“Fall in love.”
“Fall in love?” Ash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That’s—”
“Absurd,” she finished. “Of course it is. I tried to tell them as much. It’s not going to happen, I said.”
“The very idea is—”
“Ridiculous. I know. But they seem determined to force the matter, one way or another. They’ve been concocting all manner of schemes. Telling me to trip and turn my ankle. Spill wine on my gown. They even contemplated locking us in the attic of Ashbury House. It seems they’ve settled on abandoning us here for the night.”
How dare they. Ash didn’t care about his own comfort, but to leave Emma in an empty house overnight? Insupportable. If not criminal. After a moment of grim silence, he rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I am going to walk into the village and find that perfidious runagate.”
She leapt to her feet. “Oh, no, you won’t. You’re not leaving me here. It will be full nighttime before half an hour is out. I’m not staying here alone.”
He could hear the quaver of fear in her voice. She was right. It was too late to leave her here by herself.
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.” He put his hands on her arms and rubbed briskly. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make you a fire.”
He set aside his irritation. There was nothing more to be done about his traitorous house staff at the moment. Emma must be his concern for now. She was his wife, by Jupiter, and the least he could do was keep her safe and warm.
He walked into the house, draping his topcoat over the staircase banister in the entry. She followed with caution, clinging to his side. When his foot fell on a creaky floorboard, she jumped.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Suddenly this house doesn’t seem as friendly as it did this afternoon.”
Just wait until night’s properly fallen, he thought.
There would be no moon tonight, and Swanlea was too isolated to catch any light from a neighbor’s lamps or hearth. They would be two fleas swimming in a bottle of ink.
“With any luck, there’ll be a tinderbox in the parlor.”
Ash used the last fading glimmer of twilight to search the area near the hearth. Yes, there was the box—and it still held a bit of crumbling moss and a flint. Thank God.
What he lacked, however, was wood.
There was no chance of locating an ax at this hour, let alone finding and hacking down a small tree. He would be just as likely to chop off his own hand. However, he’d promised Emma a fire, and he’d be damned if he’d let her down.
His gaze fell upon a solitary chair. He lifted it by two of its legs, reared back, and bashed it against the stone mantel. At the other end of the room, Emma jumped. The back of the chair dangled loose, but other than that, the thing remained intact. Curse his grandmother’s appreciation for fine craftsmanship.
He reared back for another swing. The second crack was enough to splinter one leg from the base. Another few good cracks, and he had a pile of flammable wood and a wicked pain shooting from his arm to his neck.
“How are you able to do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Swing with such force, despite the injured shoulder.”
He arranged the chair legs in the fireplace, then stuffed tinder in the cracks. “When I woke from fever, the surgeon told me I must stretch and lift the arm every day if I wanted to keep the use of it. Otherwise the scars will heal too tight and then there’s no moving it at all. It’s as though the joint rusts over.”
“So you play badminton.”
“Among other things.” He struck the flint.
“And it doesn’t pain you any longer?”
Hurts like hell every time.
“No,” he said.
Crouching, he blew steadily on the ember until it caught and crackled into a flame. The lacquer helped the bits of chair catch quickly.
“There.” He stood back, chest heaving with exertion. “I made you a fire. You may now admire my manliness.”
“I do, rather.”
Emma moved forward and held her hands out to warm them over the growing blaze. He had precisely three seconds to admire how her skin glowed in the firelight
