Page 15 of Lyon on the Lam (The Lyon’s Den)

“Are they farmers, like your father?” Tavie asked. It was refreshing to talk about young men with a girl who hadn’t memorized Debrett’s and didn’t work her prospects’ titles, estates, and annual income into the conversation.

“Some are, though several of them pay more attention to the grain yield than they do to me.”

“Matthew did the same thing.” Tavie heard her words as though someone else had said them. She closed her eyes and prayed that the girl was too busy baking to pay them any heed.

“I thought you two might be sweet on each other,” Margaret said. “Mam thinks so too. She says there’s no possibility that two such pretty people would be anything but.”

It’s not like that . The words sat on Tavie’s tongue, but they refused to slide off. She didn’t want to lie to the girl, but it also felt disrespectful of the history she and Matthew shared.

“We were once,” she confessed. “But I…” She wouldn’t talk about Albert; it didn’t matter how dishonest she was about her life in London. She didn’t want to think about it. Not right now. “I hurt his feelings—and his pride, I suppose.”

“But he’s rescued you from London and is traveling with you here,” Margaret said. “And he looks at you like he’s found a sovereign in a puddle.”

Tavie laughed at the description. The girl couldn’t be blamed for such romantic thoughts. When Tavie was her age, the same notions had consumed her. Sometimes she wondered if the feelings had conjured Matthew, or if it had been the other way around.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that her parents had pushed her at Albert. She had made the choice. She had failed to find the strength to fight for what she wanted. She had done worse than hurt Matthew. She had disappointed him.

“Some things you can’t repair,” she whispered.

“Repeat that,” Matthew said. “You’d like me to do what ?”

He couldn’t be blamed for his lack of focus.

He’d spent the day with numbers in his head as he’d tramped the fields next to Eloise Miller.

His boots were covered in dust, he was still partially blinded by the sun, and the sweet air that could only be found on farms in the early spring still clung to his clothes.

“I think you should ask Eloise and Meg to stay on the farm and manage it for you,” Tavie said. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs that separated her floor from him. Her hair was in a single, thick braid, which complemented her simple day dress. Her toes peeked from beneath the hem.

This was the Tavie he remembered, the loose-limbed girl who wanted to feel the world beneath her feet. Now, like then, her bare toes were a distraction. Instead of staring at them, he focused on freeing himself from his boots. “If they wanted to stay, Eloise wouldn’t have posted it for sale.”

“If they wanted to leave, they wouldn’t be continuing it like they are.

” Tavie left the doorway and entered his room, breaking the agreement they had made with their hostess.

“There are cows with calves and sows heavy with piglets. Hens are sitting on nests full of eggs. They’ve planted , Matthew. This is an operating farm.”

“Then perhaps, in trying to keep it going, they have realized it’s too much for them.” Farming was difficult, even with a whole family, even with able-bodied young men. He was exhausted from today, and all he’d done was think.

“Does this look like it is too much for them?” she countered.

“The fields are plowed, the fences are whole, the animals are well tended. The only exception is the mill.” She waved her hand at the motionless millstone and its replacement leaning against the far wall.

“And even you couldn’t fix that by yourself. ”

No, though he could have hired several strong lads to do it for him. “They can’t afford to pay for help.”

Tavie was pacing now, her skirt swishing and her toes flashing from beneath her hem. “They could, Matthew. If you paid for it.”

He had hoped that a day away from her would ease the pull she had over him, that sunshine and fresh air would clear his head. All it did was make it more pleasant to see her. Everything he had learned bubbled on his tongue, eager to spill out, much the way it had years ago.

But she didn’t want to talk about him at all.

“You want me to pay for them to repair the mill?” He lifted his eyebrows with the question. “And not buy the land?”

“What would you do if you buy the land and they move to Hadleigh? Are you going to move here and manage it yourself?” She had stopped to face him, her hands on her hips.

“Of course I’m not, and you know better.” He wished she would leave. He wanted to wash. “I will hire a suitable manager and—”

“Move a strange family into the Millers’ home.”

“That’s unfair.” Matthew pushed himself from the chair. “Eloise listed the farm because she and Margaret want to begin anew in Hadleigh.”

“Are you certain of that?” Tavie asked. “Have you asked her?”

“If she wants to go?” Of course he hadn’t. It was none of his business, and it would be foolish to consider.

“If she would stay.” Tavie’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. “You would have to pay a manager—why not pay her to do it? It’s in their name , Matthew.”

It was too simplistic to think that because their name was Miller, they wanted to make their living that way. Besides that, was he supposed to pay Eloise to live in her home as a tenant and work land that she no longer owned? “Don’t you think that would be insulting?”

“Don’t you think it’s insulting for them to move to a village where they’ll have a tiny garden and a schedule of when they will be expected in someone else’s shop?”

“Not someone else , Tavie. Family. They’ll be looked after and safe.”

“They’ll be paid a wage that never varies regardless of how successful they are, where demands aren’t in their own interests. They’ll have a house on a noisy street, with neighboring houses so tall they block the stars, and a landlord who refuses to mend things in a timely fashion.”

Matthew wasn’t certain what to say, or whether to say anything at all. What had Margaret said to her today to get her so worked up? And if the girl didn’t want to leave the farm, why hadn’t she told her mother?

Tears dampened the corners of Tavie’s eyes. “You have no idea what it’s like to lose control of your own life.”

“Don’t I?” His father’s death had put him at the head of a business and the head of a family, both of which he’d never planned to manage alone.

Her luminous eyes widened. “Matthew, this—”

“Because I remember standing in the moonlight and offering you everything—and having it handed back to me on your parents’ say-so.”

“You walked away,” she shouted, the last word trembling. “You didn’t say a word.”

“I wasn’t going to beg you.” His words bounced back to him from the walls.

Tavie widened her stance and leaned forward, her now-dry eyes narrow. Her freckles seemed brighter. “You didn’t let me say anything.”

“Other than Mother thinks I should marry a baron ?”

“I do not sound like that,” she snapped. “I never have.”

“That’s how I recall it.”

“Well, I recall you leaving me to muddle through on my own.”

“And you muddled your way straight to Mayfair and into a baron’s bedchamber.” Matthew’s heart pounded in his ears. “So don’t moan to me about not controlling your own life, Lady Burridge .”

Tavie went from battling harridan to icy statue in two blinks of an eye. She had always been mercurial, but this lightning-quick shift was new—and disturbing.

She turned on her heel and walked to the door, an invisible armor settling on her squared shoulders and keeping her skirt straight and still. “Good evening, Matthew.”

He knew better than to celebrate the victory of driving her from the field of battle. She had a history of returning to the argument the moment he lowered his guard.

Rather than following that pattern, she exited the room without a backward glance, and he tracked her path upstairs by the squeaking protest of each riser. Unspoken words rattled about in his head, stoking his agitation.

He strode to the bottom of the stairs. “We aren’t finished.”

She looked over her shoulder. “I believe we are.” Her flat words were echoed in her dull eyes, and her now-pale complexion added to her icy composure. Only her white knuckles on the stair rail hinted at the emotions she was keeping at bay.

In that moment Matthew realized that, though he’d won their battle of words, he had possibly lost much, much more.