Page 11

And while Fanchette Tarbell and her family rolled ever closer to Pennyroyal Green from their Northumberland estate, every single one of Isaiah’s senses were pitched for the arrival of another girl entirely.

He straightened alertly when the gate squeaked.

He heard her before he saw her; she was humming a lilting tune. An enormous straw hat came into view. Beneath it was a girl, merrily swinging her own bucket of water. The skirts of her practical brown dress, covered in an apron, swayed gracefully at her ankles.

She stopped so abruptly when she saw him that the only sound for a moment was the water sloshing in her bucket.

The stillness during which they regarded each other felt to him as complex as a conversation.

A faint, pretty flush moved into her cheeks.

They both knew why he was here.

“Well. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m destined to encounter you beneath trees from now on, Mr. Redmond.”

“I’m relieved that you said ‘destined,’ and not ‘cursed’, Miss Sylvaine.”

She tipped her head and assessed him. “I suppose there are worse fates,” she concluded, airily.

He smiled slowly. “How fares your toe today?”

“Almost completely restored to health, thank you for asking, Mr. Redmond.”

“My sister and I agreed it would be noble of me to volunteer. Mrs. Sneath sent me out to the churchyard,” he told her.

Her brow furrowed in mock concern. “Is ‘noble’ really the word for it?”

He grinned, and she grinned, and suddenly the very air seemed made of champagne.

“I also see you were given the bucket with the red handle, Mr. Redmond. That’s the best one.”

He glanced down at it, confused and a little flustered. “Then I insist you have it.”

Her eyes were dancing. “I’m jesting,” she told him gently. “But as it so happens, I do like the red handle better, so I shall accept your kind offer, thank you.”

He was absurdly overjoyed to have something to give to her.

She lowered her bucket of water to the ground. He transferred the red-handled one into her outstretched hand.

That hairsbreadth of space between where their fingers almost-but-not-quite touched during this exchange hummed like the air before a thunderstorm.

He was gratified and fascinated when the color in her cheeks deepened.

“How did you come to be assigned to the churchyard, Miss Sylvaine, when all the other ladies are helping with the bits and bobs in the hall?”

She hesitated. Then her eyes lit conspiratorially.

“I will confess something to you, Mr. Redmond. Mrs. Sneath thought it best that that Maria and I be given different committee assignments, as we’ve a tendency to make each other giggle, which causes everyone else to giggle, too, and this is apparently, I quote, ‘disruptive’. ”

“ So difficult to believe,” Isaiah commiserated somberly.

Her smile was brilliant. “Isn’t it? But it’s a fair point.

I admire Mrs. Sneath very much, mind you.

And as it so happens, I like it out here, even if there’s a slight possibility that she invented this chore out of exasperation with the Sylvaine sisters.

And Maria prefers to help with the inside decorations, and so all’s well that ends well.

I welcome the opportunity to get better acquainted with Pennyroyal Green’s former citizens. ”

She swept out a hand to indicate the Hawthornes and Tingles and Postlethwaites and all the other families who had called Pennyroyal Green home over the centuries slumbering beneath the sod.

Most of the headstones were well-tended and tidy, kept so by family members; others were furred by lichen and moss and weeds.

Church volunteers usually managed the maintenance, but it wasn’t always easy to keep it up.

The street fair accompanying the town hall opening would attract people from villages all around, and Pennyroyal Green wanted to look its best.

“Have you ever cleaned moss from anything before, Miss Sylvaine?” Isaiah retrieved the rags from his coat pockets.

“Well, not as such. I’ve certainly worked a little in a garden before, as well as in a house.

But we now have five people in to do for us since we moved to Pennyroyal Green,” she told him happily.

“Bess is in charge of the kitchen and housekeeping, and we’ve two maids of all work, and Thomas for the heavier chores, and little Dougal who helps with everything.

He sleeps in the kitchen by the fire and helps turn the spit.

He has the reddest hair I’ve ever seen.”

Isaiah didn’t know why he was charmed to his core by this recitation. A battalion of servants facilitated the Redmond’s existence—two dozen, at least. Fanchette’s family likely employed close to that many, too.

He imagined Fanchette would smile vaguely while gracefully backing away from Miss Sylvaine and her talk of five servants and a boy who sleeps in the kitchen. She had an uncanny skill for bestowing warmth in precisely calibrated degrees based on someone’s social rank.

“It’s a fine thing to have help,” he decided to say.

Miss Sylvaine cast a dry look up at him. “You’ve probably five hundred and sixty-two servants.”

“Five hundred and sixty-one. We recently had to let go one who failed to polish my scepter to my satisfaction.”

She smiled, looking surprised and pleased, as though he’d passed some sort of test, and he felt as though she’d pinned a medal to his chest.

“Well then, Mr. Redmond, since the vicar hasn’t yet appeared, why don’t we start here. I’ll do the weeds if you clean the marker.” She gestured to a furry green stone.

They both crouched and set to work.

He tried to look handsome and earnestly industrious as he scrubbed gently at the lichen and whisked it away with the little brush.

A pair of birds exchanged trills from somewhere above them in the trees.

He was distantly aware of the wheels of a cart and hooves clattering on cobblestones beyond the churchyard fence, of a voice raised to call to a neighbor in greeting.

If it wasn’t precisely bustling, the Pennyroyal Green main street wasn’t sleepy, either.

Presently his industry revealed the words on the headstone.

Eleanor McElroy

1682-1720

“Well.” Miss Sylvaine sounded pleased and reflective. “That’s not a lot of information. I don’t know of any McElroys in town. Do you?”

He shook his head. “Perhaps my parents would.”

“And look how lovely you’ve made her stone. Are you good at everything then, Mr. Redmond?”

“I do hold myself to an exacting standard,” he told her earnestly. “I was a wrangler at Cambridge and I was the top boy in all of my subjects, too.”

He realized too late that he’d sounded like an absolute prig—worse, a nine-year old prig— whereupon his cheeks went warm. It was just that he felt a peculiar urgency to impress her as much as he could as quickly as possible.

But she merely raised her brows.

“Oh my. A wrangler ! Isn’t that the highest level in mathematics a student can reach at Cambridge? Well done, indeed, Mr. Redmond. Is it really necessary to be so clever when you're already rich?”

He gave a short, startled laugh. The cheek of her!

But her sidelong glance was full of mischief and challenge, and her lashes cast little shadows on her cheekbones, and these two things made it impossible for him to feel anything but enthralled.

“As with my dart game, I endeavor to continually refine my expertise in all things over time.” He said this ironically. He gestured broadly at the newly clean headstone. “What are you best at, Miss Sylvaine? You don't strike me as a bluestocking.”

She startled him by sitting back abruptly and eying him indignantly for three silent seconds.

“Oh, ho! I can tell by your tone that you consider that a compliment, and I'm not at all certain it is, therefore I shall not thank you for it.” She used the late Mrs. McElroy’s headstone to push herself to her feet, then brushed her hands together briskly.

“Because I fear I read everything I can get my hands on, Mr. Redmond. Not just dance steps and romantic novels, both of which I adore. My father has a phobia about being bored at the dinner table, and so we are all prepared for lively debate. I’m certain, in fact, there are a lot of things I can do better than you can. ”

“For instance...” he indulged, as he stood, whisking his hands together to get dirt and lichen off his gloves. He was far too eager to hear her say anything at all.

She paused and studied him thoughtfully. “Whinny. I'll wager you can't.”

“Why on earth would I ever need to whinny?” He replied with great practicality.

“What if....” she tipped her head back in thought, treating him to a view of her lovely, long white throat and the blue ribbon tied beneath her chin. “What if an apocalypse occurs, and everyone apart from you and all the horses in the world perished? You'd be obliged to learn their language.”

He gave a short laugh.

He thought she might laugh, too.

Instead, her smile wavered. And then, to his alarm, her expression went somber and bleak.

He instantly felt bereft of all light, as if she was the sun blotted out by an eclipse.

“It's just so sad…” she finally said wistfully. “And so very disappointing. Because it's very clear that you're afraid that you can't whinny. You haven't a shred of adventure in you, have you?”

She was jesting. Wasn’t she? She was calling his bluff.

It was just that her devastation was so bloody convincing. Her eyes were limpid with woe.

Into his mind flared the image of Jacob Eversea, standing on the deck of a ship somewhere on the ocean, sailing headlong into adventure.

He was certain that feckless bastard was unafraid to try anything .

“Bah. I'm afraid of nothing.” He shrugged. Hedging.

Though he was in fact afraid of everything he felt in this moment.

“Bold statement,” she said idly, examining the fingertips of her gloves, as if bored. “But probably mere words.”

He was now less amused but increasingly impressed at her tactics.

“Are you daring me, Miss Sylvaine?” he said mildly.