Page 24

His features were all the clearer from his place midway up the stairs. Shadows danced across his jawline and the ridges of his cheekbones were made all the sharper due to the candlelight at his side.

He drew a step forward, his voice soft. “If others do not call you wise, what do they call you?”

“You already know one. Difficult.” She held out her hand and counted on her fingers. “Another is strange. Unbearable. And my personal favorite, incompetent .”

Mr. Branok’s brow drew deep and low, his voice like unsettled thunder at the edge of a horizon. “Who would dare call you such things? A gentleman?”

“If he could be called as such,” she said.

Mr. Yates had given her those qualifiers and more over the short months they’d courted.

“You mustn’t walk on your own, Miss Fernside,” he would say. “It isn’t safe.”

“Surely nothing can happen to me, Mr. Yates. They are the grounds to my own estate.”

“Our estate,” he’d always corrected. “But I must insist that you allow me to help you. Your distraction for birds renders you incompetent.”

Lark hadn’t realized until later that everything he had said to her, everything he’d done to her, had been to manipulate her so that he might have full control over her life and property.

Remaining where she stood near the top of the stairs, she released the deep breath she’d been holding onto, letting go once more the frustration that arose whenever she thought of the man.

He was in her past for good now. And in her future was freedom and birds.

“It is no wonder you have such a poor opinion of gentlemen,” Mr. Branok said, “if the ones you interact with behave so poorly.”

She peered down at him, only a few steps between them now. “In truth, I haven’t a poor opinion about all of you. Only some. And those gentlemen are of no importance…any longer.”

Mr. Branok’s eyes bore into hers, but she looked away, unwilling to share anymore.

“At any rate, I truly am not so very wise,” she said, attempting to steer the conversation back to the playful nature from before. “Otherwise, how could I have ever mistaken you for Mr. Dunn?”

It took a moment for his eyes to shift from sobriety to cheerfulness once more, but when they did, her heart took flight.

“You have a point,” he said. “I have wondered how on earth you were able to confuse me for a balding gentleman well advanced in years.” They shared a quiet laugh. “But that begs the question, were you relieved or disappointed when you discovered who I really am?”

“I was mortified. But you already know that.”

“Only mortified? Not relieved? Perhaps, pleased?”

He flashed a smile, and she shook her head. “I’m certain you would love to know precisely what I thought when I first discovered you were not Mr. Dunn. However, I do not believe you need the increase to your pride.”

“Are you saying I’m arrogant?” he asked, smiling as he climbed another step. “Is that not you calling the kettle black?”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I am the furthest thing from arrogant.”

He gave her a dubious look, though his eyes still shone with delight. Lark was positively bubbling with merriment. She most certainly should have gone by now. No good could come from blatantly flirting with a gentleman alone after dark. But she couldn’t get herself to stop.

“Very well,” he said, “perhaps you are not arrogant. But you do have a certain allure about you all the same. An ability to draw others closer to you.” He motioned to the step he was on, then to the ones behind him. “The evidence is fairly damning.”

She smiled. “You’ve drawn closer of your own accord, sir. I have no sway over you.”

And yet, as his eyes trailed across her features, attraction clear in his gaze, she knew her words weren’t entirely true.

This gown always did the trick.

A hint of guilt crept up behind her, reminding her of why she’d worn the gown in the first place—and how she’d retreated because of it. And yet, now that Mr. Branok stared at her exactly as she’d hoped he would, she could not find the desire within her to stop him.

Even with knowing the rumors about his name.

She hesitated at the thought.

Long ago, when gossip had spread about her around Suffolk—word that she’d scared Mr. Yates off due to her strange obsession with birds or that she was too greedy to share her inheritance with a husband—Lark would have given anything to have the chance to share her side of the story—the truth . But no one cared enough to ask.

Had Mr. Branok ever had the opportunity to share the truth? Dare she ask?

“Or perhaps,” she began, her heart rapping against her chest, “we both hold a certain sway over others.”

His eyes met hers, curious.

“Or so at least I hear,” she ended heavily.

He tipped his head to the side, so the angle of his jaw looked even sharper. Slowly, recognition settled in his expression. “Listening to rumors, are we?”

She shrugged, keeping her shoulder raised in the air. “I suppose I am not so very wise after all.”

He eyed her shoulder still raised in the air, then followed the length of her arm before allowing his gaze to linger on her bare hand on the banister.

“What have you heard, then?”