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“Naturally. One must guard fortunes and tend them as carefully as the kitchen garden, lest the rabbits get in.”

His smile flashed again. And as it faded, a thoughtful expression settled in.

She had at first thought the leaf-filtered light was playing tricks, but she realized Mr. Redmond's eyes were indeed green. It seemed a peculiarly intimate thing to know about him.

They were extraordinary, actually.

She inwardly flinched away from that heretical thought. How she longed to be fixed in the blazing, blue regard of Jacob Eversea, who could make her forget her own name by just looking at her.

She wanted to touch the little enamel celandine in her apron pocket now for some sort of reassurance, but she couldn't quite reach it at the moment with anything like grace or subtlety.

Mr. Redmond cleared his throat. “If it is not perhaps too intrusive a question, may I ask what brings you to the oak trees just before sunset, Miss Sylvaine?”

Mr. Redmond didn't add “alone, like a looby or a doxie,” thankfully.

“How could I refuse to answer, when you ask it so eloquently, Mr. Redmond? I am on my way home after a day out with my sister. We attended the meeting of the decorating committee for the assembly at the new town hall. Perhaps you’ve heard about it, as your sister is participating, too?”

He nodded encouragingly.

“We’ve been assigned duties—I’m going to help tidy the churchyard, and Maria will help decide upon the decorations in the hall.

And then Maria and I visited Tingle’s bookshop, where Maria inadvertently left her gloves.

She went off to fetch them. I've a sore toe, so I'm compelled to stay rooted. Much like these trees.”

His face was alight with flattering attention as he listened to this.

“Has she lost her gloves? Have you a sore toe? I'm sorry to hear both.”

He sounded genuinely sympathetic. But when he glanced down, she was tempted to tuck her toes under her skirt, as if with his interesting light eyes he could peer straight through to the thin place in the sole of her shoe.

“That is very kind of you, Mr. Redmond.”

“Would you be curious to know what I'm thinking now, Miss Sylvaine?” he said almost mildly.

The little hairs at the back of her neck prickled with portent.

“If you would like to share, I'm amenable to hearing.”

“It strikes me as unfair that you've had at least thirty more seconds to look at me standing beneath these trees than I've had to look at you. I feel the imbalance acutely. I am not in the habit of allowing such injustices to stand.”

Her breath hitched.

Mr. Isaiah Redmond was most definitely flirting now, too.

And in an unnervingly adult way.

She felt as though she’d unexpectedly stepped into a swift-moving stream, with all the exhilaration and dangers that entailed.

She nodded thoughtfully. “I take your point. Then in the interest of parity, I shall now turn slightly to the left and cede those thirty seconds to you.”

She at once turned and presented him with a three-quarter view of the right side of her face. She and her sister had determined that this was her best angle one evening upon making faces for an hour or so in the mirror and at each other.

This angle also afforded her a view up the hill. The shadows were lengthening. The gold light deepening to apricot and flame.

Oh, please hurry, Maria, she thought . I don't know what is happening to me. I don't know what I'm doing .

Simultaneously she thought: Please take forever, Maria.

“Are you timing it with your gold watch?” she asked Mr. Redmond.

She thought he might laugh.

But he didn't reply.

Suddenly the notion that he didn't speak because he couldn't while he gazed at her made her heart lurch, then thunder as madly as...

...as madly and joyously as Jacob Eversesa racing up to their house on his mare.

“Thirty,” Mr. Redmond said quietly.

Somehow, she wasn't surprised he had indeed timed it to the second.

She slowly turned to face him.

He seemed subdued, almost transfixed. As if he had come up against a conundrum.

“There now. I believe we are even. Are you a great believer in fairness, then, Mr. Redmond?”

It was a moment before he spoke, as though he’d needed to compose himself.

“I think...fairness is relative, and should be considered in the context of the circumstances.”

He still sounded distracted.

She didn’t quite take his meaning, and this was both exciting and a trifle disquieting.

She was certain that Jacob would have snorted at the notion of fairness being mutable.

Yes or no, right and wrong: those were the choices.

Some people mistook Jacob’s brisk certainty for simplicity.

She had come to know that a thousand thoughts whirred through his mind before he came out with a statement that sounded immovably definitive.

Mr. Redmond asked, “Did you come away from Tingles with anything interesting?”

Oh, dear.

The problem was: She had, indeed.

“A book and a pamphlet,” she confessed.

He detected her hesitation and narrowed his eyes in amusement. “What sort of book?”

She hesitated. Then she sighed. “Laugh if you must.” She handed over both of them.

He accepted her proffered purchases with great care into his elegant hands. She was startled to realize he hadn’t far to reach. Somehow, they had inched closer to each other with every word they’d exchanged.

“Laugh at you?” he replied, absently. “I?”

As if they'd known each other forever.

He examined the pamphlet first. “Ah! I see you have a new cotillion with...apparently a great many leaping steps. Intriguing. It looks challenging, indeed. And what have we here...”

Excruciatingly slowly, he read the title of the book: “ A Venetian Romance . By A nonymous .”

He looked up at her with mischievously shining eyes. “Such a prolific author, Anonymous.”

Now he was teasing her. Her cheeks were warm. “You are humoring me, Mr. Redmond.”

“Not at all.” he said gently. “I suspect some stories are so potent they simply torment the author if they remain untold, even if the author must remain unknown.”

And with that, he had stolen her ability to be glib.

Because that sounded like an innuendo.

Her heart was thudding now in a way it hadn’t in…eight entire months.

He looked up again. “Do you enjoy dancing very much then, Miss Sylvaine?”

“Oh, very much. It's how I...” She couldn't very well tell Isaiah Redmond that she'd injured her toe while dancing boisterously by herself in her night rail. “Yes, very much. I’m looking forward to the assembly. What brings you to the oak trees just before sunset, Mr. Redmond, if I may ask?”

“I've arranged to meet my friend, Mr. Finchley, here. And then we'll be off to the Pig & Thistle for darts and a pint. The winner will buy dinner. He's a bit late. Hence my obsession with my watch.”

“And do you enjoy playing darts very much?” She was teasing him.

He smiled indulgently. “I enjoy winning very much. And I invariably do.”

Something unsettling glinted around the edges of those words.

She could well imagine that this sort of enigmatic arrogance might set a more forthright man’s teeth on edge—and Jacob was both forthright and accustomed to winning at nearly everything—and yet she found Mr. Redmond’s confidence alluring, despite herself.

“Well, if you ever find yourself without your watch, Mr. Redmond, you can always have a look at the roof of Miss Endicott's academy. At about half past four on a clear day, the sun lays a stripe of gold along the edge. All of Pennyroyal green is a clock if you know how to use it.”

“I have never thought of Pennyroyal Green in quite that way before, Miss Sylvaine. But I suspect I shall always think of half past four as a magical hour from now on.”

Her heart skipped.

There ensued a fraught silence, during which they regarded each other in absolute stillness.

Mr. Redmond was half in shadow, half in sunlight, and wholly riveting.

“I think perhaps this conversation might be rather bold,” she said quietly.

It needed to be said.

She’d suddenly felt a need to tether herself to the anvil of propriety, because the pull she felt toward him frightened her. He was already too close. She suddenly, rashly, wanted nothing more than to be even closer.

He gave a thoughtful nod, as if this was a shared problem.

“Do you mind?” His voice was soft and low. He sounded gently, solicitously curious.

So she gave this some honest thought.

“Less than I ought to...perhaps?” she confessed worriedly, on something close to a whisper.

This time his smile was slow and tenderly enveloping.

Something odd and terrible in its beauty happened to her then.

The sensation was both internal and external, as though the very world and her place in it was subtly re-arranging.

Such was her emotional vertigo she reached into her apron pocket and fumbled about until she found the little carved celandine and closed her fingers around it.

She turned away and discovered that Maria was hurtling down the hill. She saw Isolde and thrust her arm triumphantly skyward. Her gloves were clutched in her fist.

Isolde stepped away from Isaiah and out of the alarmingly enchanted, leafy shadows into what remained of the daylight, and waved and smiled.

Whereupon Maria grinned, tossed her head, and broke into a mock gallop.

As she approached, it was clear she was making clopping noises with her mouth.

Isolde's hand flew to her throat in a panic.

Short of bellowing “No, Maria! Not now! Dear God! Don't be a horse!” there was nothing at all she could do to stop her sister from galloping all the way down the hill and coming to a halt with a whinny, a snort, and a head toss.

Which is what she did.

She also pawed the ground.

Isaiah Redmond lunged backward a step put up his arms like a pugilist. As if one never knew what a whinnying girl might do.

“Tingle had my gloves.” Maria was panting happily. “I left them on the?—”

She froze when she saw Mr. Redmond.

Then —Whoosh !—her face went scarlet as the tip of a lit cheroot.

A torturous silence ensued.

Maria’s eyes darted wildly between Isolde and Isaiah.

Finally, she bravely cleared her throat and squared her shoulders.

“Forgive me, Mr. Redmond. I... I didn't see you. If I'd seen you, I...I wouldn't have...” Her nerve failed.

“Whinnied?” Mr. Redmond completed quietly.

Isolde briefly closed her eyes. “It's a game Maria used to play when we were...we were little girls...we were horses named Diamond and Lightning, and...”

Her words evaporated in the rays of amazement radiating from Mr. Redmond's green eyes.

“I don't really believe I'm a horse, Mr. Redmond,” Maria finally assured him, kindly.

Improbably, she curtsied, as if to demonstrate the truth of this.

Isolde was tempted to throw her head back and whinny out of solidarity with her sister.

“Redmond!”

A young man Isolde had never before seen was huffing toward them, red-faced from hurrying, his hand slapped to his hat to hold it on. Men never suffered any loss of reputation if they ran.

“So sorry old man, to keep you waiting,” the young man panted.

“Good evening to you, Mr. Redmond,” Isolde said swiftly. “I hope you win your dart game.”

The sisters dipped swift little curtsies. Isolde looped her arm through Maria's and off they strode, at an absurdly dignified pace, thanks to Isolde’s sore toe.

For a long while, Maria and Isolde carefully did not meet each other's eyes or exchange a word lest they explode into laughter.

But when they reached the little bridge over the main street, Isolde risked a look over her shoulder.

Isaiah Redmond touched his hat.

He’d known she’d turn back.

Just as she’d known he’d be watching her.