Page 4 of A Touch for All Time (For All Time #3)

G ray sat alone on a cushioned bench high above the Dart Estuary and, having taken in the stunning beauty around him, closed his eyes, letting the sounds of nature fill the rest of his senses. The rolling waves blended with the waves slapping against the rocks below, creating a melody more profound than any man had ever written. Every so often flocks of birds took off from the bare branches around him and on the other side of the estuary, adding to the percussion with their flapping wings. The wind on its journey here or there moved over his ears and through the trees like woodwinds.

Ever since he was a little boy he heard music in almost everything. Even in the thunderous sounds of horse’s hooves shaking the earth or musket balls firing from guns—

He rose to his feet to escape the sounds of war.

The moment he was on his feet his back arched until his hand touched the ground behind him, stretching his belly taut. He swayed, then cranked himself back up and jerked his movements like a marionette controlled by strings.

He’d gone mad, alone on a battlefield of pointing fingers, whispers, and laughter. He’d had nothing to fight the emptiness within. It was so much worse than the loneliness outside of him. He understood that he’d lost his mother and grandmother, but there were other things. He couldn’t remember any of them.

Dreams of his mother’s dulcet voice changed the melody to one of haunting beauty that made his smile deepen and match. He brought his arms together as if to hold someone close, but there was no one there, and his smile began to fade. The serene sound of her began to echo his loneliness. Why had she left him, in life and in his dreams? She wasn’t the only one who had abandoned him.

How could anyone blame him for resenting them all and making him hate who he was?

With a pained expression, he beat his fist against his breast, then he pushed out his chest and sank it with a groan.

He’d gone off to fight France when he was eighteen, hoping to get killed quickly. He killed instead—with his pistol, his sword, and his hands. He never found a moment of comfort or peace.

He leaped high doing a double pirouette, then a grand jeté that felt as if he could reach heaven if he stretched just a bit more.

“Grayson!”

Harper’s screech rang through Gray’s ears, and he landed a few inches from the short wall. He shook his head, then set his eyes on her. “I would have landed before leaping over the wall.”

“Really?” she asked doubtfully. “For whom?”

“What?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair to clear it from his eyes.

His grandmother had left Harper Black to take care of him when she was twenty-three. No matter how much he’d defied her or how hard he worked at ignoring her, she never left his side. She played the violin, and she played it well. When he was twelve, he began letting her play for him while he practiced. After that, she became his friend. When he returned from battle two years ago, she was there to welcome him home.

The only one.

“For whom would you be keeping yourself here?” she clarified and tossed his coat to him. “You were close, Grayson,” she said, softening her voice. “If I hadn’t stopped you, who would have?”

He couldn’t think of anyone. Not a single lady who’d ever occupied a thought of his. He didn’t have a friend besides Harper. He didn’t want any. He had saved the lives of the men he fought with so many times because it was his duty to keep them alive.

“Not who, Harper. What.” He put on his coat and took a step closer to the door, and her. “Dancing saves me. It always has.”

He watched her sigh with resolve. She knew he was speaking the truth. More than anyone, she knew.

“Why didn’t you send for me to play for you?” she asked.

“It was spontaneous,” he told her, leaving the rooftop. Then, “What brings you up here?”

“Your guardsman Ector was looking for you to report that the woman staying with the Gables left the perimeter.”

Now Gray stopped and turned to her.

“What?” she asked. “Who is she?”

“A woman who is lost and alone. She turned up here…” in a blur like a wrinkle in the way the world was supposed to work.

“Yes?” Harper asked, her interest piqued. “She turned up here…?”

“She turned up out of nowhere. That is, nowhere that I know of.”

“I see,” she said after a moment and a slight breath. “Well, according to Ector, when your men tried to stop her, she kicked two of them in the jaw and sped away before the others reached her.

He felt the insane urge to laugh. In the jaw? She wouldn’t be constrained. Very well.

“She’s quite a delicate looking creature,” he mused on a soft breath. “More like a feral cat.”

“You like cats,” Harper remarked.

“I like all animals,” he countered with a playful smirk.

“Who is she?” Harper’s question brought him back to the present. “And why did you tell thirty of your men to make sure she doesn’t leave?”

“It wasn’t that,” he defended with a pout and started walking again. “The forest is a dangerous place. Are Mrs. Gable and her daughter not my tenants? Shouldn’t I protect them?”

“Yes. Yes, you should,” Harper agreed. “But Mrs. Gable and Sarah have been here for years, yet you never put your men around their holding. Why now?”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, “there are more and more thieves in the woods every year.”

“Does the stranger staying with them have something to do with it?”

He stopped and turned to her again. “Let me find her and then I’ll answer you.”

Gray knew Harper wouldn’t stop him when he went in search of the girl. As he made his way to the stables, he wondered how a slight veil like her could kick two of his men in the jaw? How did she even gain that much height?

He didn’t wait for Ghost, his horse to be saddled but leaped onto her back, grabbed fistfuls of her mane, and took off. He’d ridden bareback many times before. In fact, he preferred it to the bulkiness of a saddle. He had a feeling Ghost preferred it as well. The mare ran faster and longer unsaddled.

He broke through the woods as if he knew where every tree was and didn’t come close to barreling into any of them.

He hoped he found the girl. She piqued his interest. Besides appearing in the gossamer fog as if God Himself had dropped her down to earth, her eyes were as vast and as stormy blue as the sky from which she’d fallen. When he’d spoken to her at the Gable’s, her eyes had borne into him, challenging him, unafraid. He’d never met a woman like her. She wasn’t demure. There didn’t seem to be a prudish bone in her body. She wore her silky sun-streaked hair loose around her pretty face. Her cheeks had been red from the cold. Her clothes were out of the ordinary to be sure. She’d worn hose covering her shapely legs under a little skirt in one layer of sheer silk. It was quite indecent. Gray couldn’t say he was opposed to it.

It didn’t take him long to reach the village. The Gable’s homestead was about a mile farther away. But this was the first village she would have come to, so he decided to look here first.

When he didn’t find her, he asked if anyone else had seen her. Old Beatrice Herderson told him a pretty, young stranger came through earlier asking how to get to Dartmouth Castle.

“My castle?” he asked, not sure he heard her right.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she said, staring at him as if she just remembered something, “she was looking for you in particular, my lord.”

“Me?” he repeated, looking surprised. “Did she say why?”

Old Beatrice blushed. “Now, my lord, who needs a reason to want to see you?”

“She does, Beatrice.” He pouted, curling his lower lip. “She doesn’t like me.”

He was in the habit of doing one of two things—either remaining utterly detached or wearing his heart on his sleeve to anyone who would listen. Besides, almost everyone in the first village of Dartmouth liked Gray. Many of the older tenants, like Beatrice, remembered his mother and his grandmother, and how he was treated when the animals killed George Gable. After everyone had time to think about the accusations against the duke’s odd son, they realized how mad it was to believe that he had ordered the animals to do it, and that they obeyed him.

“Why wouldn’t she like you, child?”

Listening to her, Gray was reminded of the many times she or one of the other elders had tried to convince him that he was wrong about the other children not liking him. He looked at the dirt beneath his boots and put on a slight smile. He wasn’t a child anymore.

“She has every reason to find you appealing,” Beatrice defended him. “You are kind and generous. Edward the butcher told us how you made a deal with cattle farmers to supply Edward with all his meat at substantially less than what he paid elsewhere, saving his business. You are the most handsome young man in the castle and the three villages! You are not haughty, despite being the duke’s only son, a Barrington, and dripping in power and prestige. You do a good job appearing as if you do not care about much—but some of us know better.”

Now he settled his gaze on her and let a warm smile shine on her from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t believe words had the same impact as a well-timed, earnest smile.

Why was the girl looking for him? Despite Beatrice’s reassurances, he didn’t think the stranger cared much what he looked like. From the way she argued with him, it was clear she didn’t care about his power or prestige.

She kicked two of his guardsmen in the jaw to get away. And where was she headed? His castle! Where in the blazes was Will Gable? If he couldn’t stop her, why hadn’t he gone with her?

Should he go to the Gable’s or to his castle?

He decided on the latter and took the shortcut along Castle Road. He’d almost made it back to the castle when he saw her walking up ahead, alone. He slowed his mount, watching her.

She moved at a slow pace, her arms dangling at her sides. She wore a coat, likely belonging to Elspeth or the youngest Gable, Sarah, and today she wore a petticoat beneath her skirts, most likely belonging to one of the other women in the Gable household.

Madly, Gray felt grateful that her hosts were taking care of her, and that today was noticeably warmer than the day she arrived.

He was happy to see her hair falling down her back, free to snap around her when a breeze blew by. Sizing her up, he decided he liked her gait. It was feminine and unhurried, confident and—the thing he liked best—graceful. Even brushing away a strand of her hair from across her eyes captivated him. He barely realized in time that she was turning. She must have heard him behind—

“Are you following me?” she demanded.

Her eyes were large and so very—

“Hello?” she asked with a sharp snap of her tongue when he didn’t answer her. “What are you doing sneaking up behind me? And didn’t you think I’d hear and smell your horse?” He opened his mouth to speak but her eyes, like storm-filled skies growing darker and more menacing as they bore into him, quieted him.

“How long have you been back there, following me? What are you, a creep?”

Creep?

“A stalker?” she went on. “Because let me warn you right now, I’m not like the other girls here. I’ll fight you.”

He felt a stirring to smile, but even this beautiful woman couldn’t lure him on a path he didn’t want to travel. Nothing ever made him happy for long. Half the women he knew wanted to mother him, the other half wanted to tame him. A mother was the one thing he didn’t want. And taming him…well, he wouldn’t be tamed by anyone. His father knew it well enough. So did anyone else who tried to mold him into someone he wasn’t.

He let any traces of humor or softness fade from his expression. “The same way you fought my men?”

He thought he saw tendrils of smoke puff out of her nose. “Yes.”

“I can assure you,” he warned with thunder in his own eyes, “I won’t be so easily defeated.”

“Good,” she told him. “I like a challenge.”

He quirked his mouth. It wasn’t really a smile, but more like a mocking smirk. “You have courage, little lion. Is that why you’re walking out here alone? If so, you’re a fool if you think you can fight against a man and his sword.”

“What’s my alternative, Marquess? Lay back and let some—”

He leaped out of the saddle, landing like a lithe cat and took a step toward her. “I am not some scoundrel,” he replied calmly, though inside the seas were stirring. This conversation with her felt familiar with him trying to defend himself. He would find out what she wanted and then leave and forget her. “Why were you looking for me?”

“What?” She blinked and the storms were swept away leaving clear, blue eyes. Then her cheeks slowly grew pink in the cold—or her temper. “Oh, right. I wanted to tell you that I won’t be a prisoner here. I’ll come and go as I please until I find my way home. Release your men from their station. Yes, I know it’s dangerous here, so I’ll ask Will to come with me next time.”

Gray looked around for Gable, then cast her a doubtful look.

“I told him not to follow me. I was angry about you trying to keep me here.”

“Why were you angry about that? Even though that’s not why I stationed the men there. But if I had, wouldn’t it simply mean I know what kind of world it is and I would keep you safe?”

“I would appreciate that, but I don’t need you to watch my back. So, I would have to decline your protection.”

“Why?”

“For a lot of reasons. I don’t know you, for one. I can protect myself. I grew up in New York City.”

At this, he gave her a confused look. She didn’t clarify.

“Mostly because your protection feels like you’re keeping me in, not keeping the bad guys out. As I’ve said, I don’t like that.”

He stared at her. Damnation, she was stubborn. He didn’t particularly care for stubborn people, women especially. This one insulted him every time she opened her mouth. He also knew she was lying about where she came from. New York City? Gray’s father knew the duke of York. It would be simple for Gray to do a little investigating. But why should he? Did he really care where she came from? Still, he should prove to her that she, in fact, did need protection.

While she was still speaking, he drew his sword. He was quick, intending to grab her and hold the blade’s edge to her throat.

But in one fluid movement, she snapped her coat off and swept her foot across his ankles.

He sat there in the grass on the road, on his arse. He looked up at her with a silken side smirk and he came up gracefully, using only his feet. Facing her, he tossed away his sword and reached for her. She kicked his hands away, fascinating him with her skillfully evasive maneuvers. He grabbed. She kicked. He smacked her boots away. She tried to kick him in his groin. He stepped back just in time and glared at her. But he wasn’t angry. He was impressed and curious about her.

“Where did you learn to fight?” he asked, staying back.

“I took classes with my brother.”

Who taught women how to fight, because it was clear that someone had indeed taught her. “Are you going to tell me where you came from?” he pressed. “Are you a witch?” When she gasped, he was quick to hold up his hands and correct her. “I don’t care if you’re a witch.”

“I’m not!” she snapped. “And you could get me killed with that kind of question.”

“Not in Dartmouth. My word stands firm here.”

She stepped closer to him and leaned in conspiratorially. “Fair or not fair?”

He knew what she was doing—trying to figure him out. Was he a tyrant, a man of decency, a charmer whose promises were as frivolous as his heart?

He chuckled in her face. “I’m fairer than any man in the castle or the three villages because I have no favorites. I feel the same way about everyone.”

Her pretty smile returned, tempting him to stare at it. “The people who spoke to me in the village seem very fond of you.”

He thought of Old Beatrice. “Some have been acquainted with me since my childhood,” he told her quietly. “Their opinions of me have no bearing on how I feel in return.”

She became quiet for a moment, then. “Who hurt you?”

He raised his gaze to her. “What?”

She appeared as if she wanted to say more. She didn’t.

“I’ll let the men who are protecting the Gable holding know that you are to have access to anywhere you wish to go, as long as you have an escort.”

She nodded, still looking at him as if she were trying to see inside him.

Not wanting anyone to see that deeply, he turned away and went to his horse.

“Hey—” she stopped, and then, “My lord, thank you for the invitation to the ball. I—”

“I didn’t send it.” he said, mounting his horse and chuckling, though he was angry at whoever gave her the invitation. He didn’t want her at the castle with his stepmother and her son.

“Oh, I assumed you did.”

“Why would you assume that?” he asked lightly.

Her lips tightened. “Because I don’t know your stepmother, and she doesn’t know me. Since you’re the only Barrington I do know, I thought it was you.”

He thought it was amusing that she lost her temper so fast. Despite being nothing but a pain in his neck, and reviling him every chance she got, she was amusing.

“What are you called, little lion?”

“Aria.”

Damn him. He was tempted to smile. “Aria, as in a solo performance in an opera. Your name is musical.”

“Do you like music?” she asked him.

“Yes. Yes, I do.” he told her. Then, “What family are you from?”

“The Darlings.”

“Aria Darling?” he repeated, well-practiced at keeping any emotion from his heart, or his expression. Most of the time.

He’d already been ready to smile, so it came more easily when he spoke her name. He suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe. His belly also knotted and made him feel ill.

“Miss Aria Darling from New York City. You might not feel welcome at the castle, so it’s best if you don’t attend. It’s probably something you wouldn’t like anyway.”

Her expression hardened, and he was sorry that it had.

“Oh, of course I was about to decline before you began talking,” she let him know icily and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well, it was…interesting. Goodbye, or farewell, whatever you people say in this century.”

Her voice faded into a mumble as she turned.

In this century? It was the second time she mentioned it as if she didn’t come from the one they were in. What did she mean? He watched her walk off. He didn’t call her back or go after her. He’d head home and find out who sent her the invitation. Who at the castle knew her? Commoners were rarely on the invitation list. So, why was Aria Darling’s name on it? Was the invitation to one or both of Gable’s children? Sarah and Elspeth were maids for his stepmother. The duchess sometimes invited them to her balls. Yes, that had to be it.

Miss Aria Darling was unusual.

He rode off and didn’t realize he was smiling until he was halfway home.

Harper was the first person he met once he left Ghost to his stable hand and returned to the castle.

“Where have you been?” she asked, following him into his rooms. Basically, the entire west wing was his.

“You know your father wants you to take your guard when you ride off.”

“I fought a war, but I need guardsmen to protect me now?”

“Even in war, you had a regiment at your back.” Harper defended his father.

At your back. An odd thing to say. Where had he heard it before? He stopped so suddenly, she walked into his back. He turned to stare at her. “She speaks like you.”

“Who?”

“The woman staying with the Gables. Do you know who sent her an invitation to my stepmother’s ball?”

“Are you saying she received one?” Harper asked. “Who is she?”

“Aria Darling from New York City .”

Harper looked as if she stopped breathing.

“A pretty name, I agree,” Gray told her, continuing through his rooms in the castle.

“Yes, it is,” Harper said. “Did you go out to find her?”

“Yes.”

“And did you?”

“Uh huh,” he replied, using her words.

“What happened?”

“We sparred,” he told her while she followed him into his bedchamber.

“You sparred with a woman?” Harper asked with a doubtful smirk.

“She was well-trained. She bested me.”

Harper stared at him, open-mouthed, when he turned to her.

“Harper?”

“Mmmh?” she mumbled.

“Are you from New York City ?”

She snapped to attention and shook her head. “Just because someone speaks like another person doesn’t mean they came from the same place.”

“It usually does.”

“You speak like me,” she pointed out. “That doesn’t mean you come from the north, like me. You picked up my words and some of my accent because I raised you.”

She was clever, reminding him what she was to him. A replacement mother for the one who left him. A father for the one who preferred to work from dusk until dawn rather than spend time with his son. And lastly, Harper was a friend for the ones who laughed at him and then bullied him his whole life. If someone asked him who he cared for the most, he would say Harper Black. He trusted her.

“Harper, I don’t think she comes from here—or the north. I saw her as if she fell from the stars. Will Gable got to her before I did.”

“Oh…” Harper lamented. “You mustn’t speak of this to anyone. They will say you’re mad.”

“They already say that,” he reminded her. “Anyway, who would I tell? I just want to sleep before we eat.”

Harper nodded and left him without another word. Something wasn’t right about her behavior, but Gray wouldn’t ponder it. If Harper knew something and had never told him, it would be difficult to trust her again—so he wouldn’t ponder that.

He’d much rather ponder Miss Aria Darling. Aria-music, Darling-beloved. Music beloved. Yes, music was his beloved.