overhead or down to a yellow butterfly, unnoticed almost at her feet.
She picked a tiny bunch of wild flowers—one sprig of cow parsley, one long-stemmed buttercup, a spray of a blue creeping thing she had never seen before—and tucked them into his button hole. He retaliated by capturing her straw hat, which she had been swinging by its ribbons, unheeding of the effect on her complexion, and filling it with dog roses, won at the expense of badly pricked fingers.
The path began to meander away from the riverside. Then Theo pointed through a tangle of bushes to where a shelving stretch of close-cropped grass ran down to the water. ‘Rest there a while, then walk back?’ he suggested.
Elinor nodded. ‘I could wander along here all afternoon in a trance, but I suppose we had best go no further.’ It was the most curious sort of holiday, this day out of time with the almost-stranger she could recall from her childhood. Restful, companionable and yet with an edge of something that made her not uncomfortable exactly…
‘You’ll have to duck.’ He was holding up a bramble. Elinor stopped pondering just how she was feeling and crouched down under a hawthorn bush, crept under the bramble and straightened up. ‘Careful—too late, stand still.’
Something was grasping her very firmly by the net full of hair at her nape. Impatient, she shook her head and felt the whole thing pull free. ‘Bother!’ She swung round, her hair spilling out over her shoulders, only to find Theo disentangling the net from a blackthorn twig. ‘Thank you.’ Elinor held out a hand.
‘Torn beyond repair, I fear.’ Theo scrunched it up in his hand and tossed it into the river where it bobbed, forlorn, for a while, then sank, soggily.
‘Liar!’ Elinor marched up until she was toe to toe with him. ‘It was fine. It is just like my gowns.’
Theo dropped to the ground, disconcerting her as she stood there trying to rant at him. ‘I wanted to see your hair. Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes, I would, but I’m not drinking river water—look, cows. And you did not have to throw my hairnet away.’
Theo was fishing in the satchel she had thought contained only sketching equipment, emerging with a bottle, a corkscrew and two horn beakers. ‘I did. What would you have said if I’d asked you to let your hair down?’
‘No, of course.’ Exasperated Elinor sat down too, hugging her knees. Hair was in her eyes and she blew at it.
‘I rest my case. Here, try this. It really ought to be cooler, but never mind.’
‘Do you always get what you want?’ Elinor took the beaker resentfully. The first mouthful of wine slid down, fruity and thirst quenching. She took another, her irritation ebbing away. It seemed impossible to be cross with Theo for very long.
‘I try to.’ He was lying back, his beaker balanced on his chest, hat tipped over his eyes. ‘There’s a leather lace in my bag somewhere if you want to plait it.’
‘And a comb, no doubt.’ Elinor began to rummage. ‘Honestly! And men complain about all the things women keep in their reticules. You could survive for a week in the wilds on what you have in here.’
‘That’s the idea.’ Theo sounded as though he was dropping off to sleep.
Notebook and pencils were the least of it. There was rye bread folded in greased paper, a water bottle, a red spotted handkerchief, a fearsome clasp knife, some coiled wire she suspected was for rabbit snares, the comb, a tangle of leather laces, some loose coins… ‘Ouch!’
‘That’ll be the paper of pins. Have you found what you need?’
‘Thank you, yes.’ Sucking a pricked finger, Elinor bundled everything back into the satchel and began to comb out her hair. Thanks to the careless way she had stuffed it into the net that morning it was full of tangles now and the task took a good ten minutes.
Finally she had it smooth. Her arms ached. Plaiting it seemed like too much trouble. She reached for the beaker of wine, found it empty and refilled it. As though she had called to him, Theo picked the beaker off his chest, sat up and pushed the hat back out of his eyes. ‘Finished?’
‘I have to plait it yet.’ The late afternoon sun was warm and the burgundy, unaccustomed at this hour, ran heavy in her veins. Sleep seemed tempting; Elinor straightened her spine and tipped the unfinished half of her wine out on the grass.
‘I’ll do that.’ Theo was behind her before she could protest, the weight of her hair lifting to lie heavy in his hands. ‘Give me the comb.’
He seemed to know what he was doing. Elinor reached up and passed the comb back over her shoulder, then wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and rested her forehead on them. It was curiously soothing, the sweep of the comb through her hair from crown to almost her waist. Soothing to sit there in the warmth with the birds chattering and the river splashing and her own pulse beating…
Chapter Four
‘Time to go.’
‘Mmpff?’ Elinor woke up with a start to find the shadows lengthening over the meadows and Theo on his feet, stretching hugely. ‘I’ve been asleep?’
‘For about half an hour. Me too.’
As she moved her head, the weight of her plait swung across her shoulders and curls tickled her cheeks. ‘What have you done to my hair?’ Reaching up, she found he had braided it, not from the nape, but elaborately all the way down from the crown, leaving wisps and curls around her forehead and cheeks.
‘Plaited it. Isn’t it right? I did it like I would a horse’s tail.’ Elinor eyed him, unsure whether this was the truth or whether she had just been given some other woman’s hairstyle.
‘Thank you,’ she said at last, settling for brief courtesy and wishing she had a mirror to check it in. She ran a cautious hand over her head, half-expecting to find he had woven in buttercups while he was at it.
Theo was moving about now, stooping to pick up the wine bottle and the beakers, fastening the satchel. He moved beautifully, Elinor realised, the image of his body elongated in that luxurious stretch proving hard to dislodge from her mind. Long legs, long back tapering from broad shoulders to narrow hips—all those markers of perfect classical proportion it was acceptable for a lady to admire, provided they were depicted in chaste white marble.
She seemed to have spent the past few months surrounded by men acknowledged to be the best looking in society—some of them her cousins, one Bel’s new husband—and she could honestly say she had felt not the faintest stirring of interest in anything other than their conversation. Why she was noticing now that Theo’s boots clung to his muscular calves in quite that way was a mystery. It was not as though he was good looking.
Elinor got to her feet, brushed off her skirts and catalogued all the ways in which he was not good looking. His nose, though large and masculine, was undistinguished. His jaw line was strong, but his chin had the suspicion of a dimple which somewhat diminished its authority. His eyebrows were much darker than his hair and he showed no tendency to raise one in an elegant manner. His mouth was wide and mobile and he seemed more prone to cheerful grins than smoothly sophisticated smiles. Yes, she could quite see why Cousin Theo would not fit in to London
