Page 2

“You are a naughty, naughty cow,” Lily Grayling grumbled as she guided Blythe through the barn doors and into her stall before securing the latch with exaggerated care.

“I really am quite cross with you,” she went on, her voice stern even as she reached across the gate to give the sweet cow a scratch behind the ear.

“I thought we were friends, yet you refused to come home with me, and it was only when that man came along—a perfect stranger, mind you—that you finally decided to behave like a lady.”

Blythe gave her snout a slow swipe with her long black tongue, seeming somehow both contrite and embarrassed, although Lily was well aware of her own propensity for seeing what she wanted to see.

Still, she couldn’t help but take pity on the dear girl.

“I know,” she said, patting Blythe’s sinewy neck. “He was a handsome man, and handsome men can be difficult to resist.”

Blythe let out a mournful low, making Lily laugh. “Even so, next time you might want to remember who it is that feeds you, hm?”

With one last scratch behind Blythe’s velvety ears, she left the barn and headed for the inn, her thoughts straying to the handsome stranger who had so gallantly come to her aid.

She hadn’t asked for his help, and certainly hadn’t welcomed it, but she had to admit she was glad he’d come along. If he hadn’t, she and Blythe would likely be on the road right now, still playing tug-of-war with no end in sight.

Still, the encounter had left her feeling unaccountably peevish. His kindness, his charm, his handsome face and deliciously broad shoulders made a powerfully attractive package, and Lily had most definitely been attracted. Any woman would be.

With his glossy black hair, warm blue eyes, and roguish grin, he was an exemplar of the male sex, and he knew it. Worse, he knew she knew it, which was precisely why she hadn’t bothered to deny it.

She hadn’t been so attracted to a man in ages, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit. Neither did she like the twinge of regret she felt that she had not learned his name.

Fortunately for her, he was long gone now, and she would never see him again.

Determined to put the encounter behind her, she shoved the stranger from her mind and made her way inside the inn.

She passed a quick glance over the almost-empty dining room, exchanging a nod of greeting with Roger Witherspoon, a kindly old farmer who stopped by the inn nearly every afternoon for a mug of ale and a bread-and-butter sandwich.

Lily headed for the kitchen and was greeted by the delicious scent of baking bread, which made her stomach growl. She paused in the doorway just as her diminutive, gray-haired grandmother glanced up from her place at the well-worn wooden table.

She did not pause in her work, her wrinkled hands, still strong and graceful, continuing to knead the ball of bread dough with the speedy confidence of one who had done so a thousand times before.

“There you are,” Charlotte Grayling said, smashing the dough ball onto the table and sending a puff of flour into the air before continuing with her kneading. “You found Blythe then? Is the sweet, daft girl all right?”

Lily nodded. “She’s fine. She was in Mr. Richardson’s field again, happily munching his grass.”

She did not see the need to mention that she’d had help from a certain stranger. Telling her grandmother would serve no purpose, and Lily was supposed to be forgetting the man, anyway.

“She does love it there, doesn’t she?” Gran said with a chuckle, her deep brown eyes warm with affection. “We’ll have to find a way to keep that gate closed. We’ve been lucky so far, but next time Blythe could be hurt.”

“You’re right,” Lily replied. “I’ll take a look at it later today.”

But she would do no such thing, of course.

There was no need to. The gate was in perfect working order, as long as it was properly latched, but Lily didn’t have the heart to say so.

It was her grandmother who had milked Blythe this morning, as she did every morning, and it was she who had left the gate unlocked.

This was the third time in as many months that Gran had forgotten to latch the gate, and Lily worried that her forgetfulness was worsening.

She couldn’t bring herself to mention it, though, and risk hurting the one person in the world who had always been there for her. So, instead, she pretended the problem didn’t exist and hoped it would somehow correct itself on its own.

“By the way,” Gran said, “your Mr. Carstairs asked after you on his way out. He was most disappointed to miss you.”

Lily bit her tongue to keep from insisting—again—that he was not her Mr. Carstairs. “Did he?” she asked disinterestedly. “And what was it the gentleman needed?”

“He didn’t need anything, Lily. He wanted to see you.”

Lily wrinkled her nose. “I can’t imagine why.”

Gran gave her A Look. “Poppycock. You know why. The gentleman likes you.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she repeated, this time with an edge of exasperation as she perched on a stool at the table. “I’ve given him no reason to like me. And no encouragement to continue doing so.”

Her grandmother clucked her tongue, her hands still working the dough. “That is certainly true, though I don’t know why you dislike him so. He is a respectable gentleman, and always so polite.”

“He is a pompous dolt.”

“He is our guest, Lily, and you should not speak that way about a guest,” she scolded, though her lips wore a little smile. “Besides, he is only pompous around you, and that is because he’s trying to impress you.”

Lily harrumphed. “Well, I wish he would stop. In fact, it would impress me greatly if he would never do so again. And I would be positively overjoyed if he would leave the inn altogether. Isn’t his mother awaiting his arrival?”

Mr. Charles Carstairs had arrived at the inn three days ago, intending to stay only one night and leave the following morning for Glastonbury to stay with his mother. At least, that was the impression he’d given when he’d booked his room.

“I believe he wrote to her and told her he’s been delayed,” her grandmother said. “I don’t think he has any intention of leaving until he’s secured your hand in marriage.”

Lily blanched. “Heaven forbid.”

“Come, he isn’t that bad,” Gran said with an amused shake of her head.

Lily, however, wholeheartedly disagreed.

Charles Carstairs was bumptious, conceited and, worst of all, incapable of taking no for an answer.

He had only been here for a short time, but she’d already declined three invitations to walk with him into the village, and while the offers had seemed harmless enough, the gleam in his eyes had not.

She wrinkled her nose. Gran might believe Mr. Carstairs’ intentions were honorable, but Lily did not.

He was their guest, though, and she had no wish to upset her grandmother, so all she said was, “Maybe he isn’t. But he is not the man for me.”

Gran sighed but said nothing in return, and Lily left the kitchen for the dining room, grabbing a damp rag on her way out.

Roger Witherspoon had gone, and Lily pocketed the coin he’d left beside his empty plate before moving the dishes to a neighboring table so she could wipe up the crumbs he’d left behind.

Her grandmother meant well, she knew, and only wanted her to be happy, but surely anyone could see that Charles Carstairs was not the man for her. Truth be told, she doubted there was anyone out there meant just for her, and she had no intention of searching for such a man, if he even existed.

There was a time—not two years ago, in fact—when she’d wanted to be a wife. She’d even fancied herself in love with her betrothed and had fostered dreams of creating a home and family with the man she’d given her heart to.

That fantasy was snuffed out, however, the day Stephen confessed that his affections—and his offer of marriage—had shifted to another woman. To Lily’s sister, Rose.

The confession was devastating, and all she could think to do was run away.

She’d left London almost immediately, fleeing her feckless former-betrothed, her unapologetic sister and unsympathetic mother, for the sanctity of Little Bilberry where she’d thrown herself into the comforting busyness of running her grandparents’ country inn.

These twenty-two months at The Weeping Whiskers had been precisely what her broken heart—and injured pride—had needed. Time had softened the wound left by Rose and Stephen’s betrayal, but it had left a scar, and even now, it still ached on occasion.

After all, her betrothal with Stephen had been a long-standing one, formed by her parents and his when they were but children.

Most of her life was spent with the surety that she would be Stephen’s wife, and the mother of his children, until that day when, seemingly out of nowhere, he’d confessed that he did not love her.

That, in fact, he loved her sister and wished to marry her instead.

The look of regret in his eyes had seemed sincere, and Lily knew he had no desire to cause her injury, but the fact remained that he had hurt her. He’d hurt her deeply.

But not as deeply as Rose had done.

Lily moved on to another table, and though it was already spotless, she ran the rag over it, scrubbing with unwarranted fervor.

She hadn’t seen her sister since she’d left London almost two years ago. She hadn’t written to her, either—and Rose had sent not a single note to her. What was there to say?

Lily hadn’t attended the wedding, of course.

She still cared for her sister—Stephen, too, to some extent—and she did not wish them ill, but neither could she sit through their wedding ceremony, wearing the expected smile and pretending to be happy for them.

She wasn’t strong enough for that nor a good enough actor.

According to her mother’s letter, the ceremony was exceedingly lovely, as was the bride, and Rose and Stephen were now happily settled in his ancestral home in Sussex.

Lily’s mother kept her abreast of the happy couple’s comings and goings in the letters she sent, one every month without fail, and Lily read every word faithfully.

She hadn’t forgiven Rose yet, not entirely, and if she were being honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she ever would. But she did sometimes miss her sister, and she would never stop caring for her, so she would go on reading her mother’s letters, and would welcome every mention of Rose.

Satisfied that the dining room was clean and tidy again, Lily returned to the kitchen where her grandmother was pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven.

“I do wish you would at least consider giving Mr. Carstairs a chance,” Gran said, apparently picking up the conversation as if Lily had never left the room. “He is a wealthy man, and I hear his property in Glastonbury is quite impressive. You could be mistress of it, Lily.”

“But I don’t want to be mistress of an impressive house,” Lily replied, making her way to the wash basin. “I want to stay here, Gran. I’m happy here.”

“Well, then, maybe Mr. Carstairs would agree to live here with us. Think how nice it would be to have a man around to help.”

Lily scoffed as she began scrubbing the dishes clean. “Can you honestly see a man like Mr. Carstairs running an inn? Tending to the guests’ needs? Making repairs?”

Her grandmother’s silence was answer enough.

“Besides,” Lily continued, “we don’t need a man’s help. We manage quite nicely, the two of us.”

“And what about when there is only one of us left? What will you do when I’m too old to help? Or when I’m gone altogether?”

The thought sent a shard of panic through Lily’s chest, and she turned to her grandmother as if to answer, though what reply she meant to give she did not know. In the end, it didn’t matter, for Gran spoke before she could.

“I was married to your grandfather for fifty-one years,” she said, a wistful smile touching the corners of her lips.

“And we took over the running of this inn nearly thirty years ago when his parents decided they no longer wished to work.” Her misty brown eyes met Lily’s.

“I’ve enjoyed running this place, but I wouldn’t have liked it half so much if I hadn’t had Henry by my side. ”

Lily smiled, though her heart twisted at the thought of her grandfather and the hole he’d left behind when he died suddenly in his sleep just last April.

“Grandfather was an exceptional man,” she said softly.

“Yes, he was,” Gran replied. “He was kind and wise. Someone I could talk to and rely upon to help shoulder the burdens. I want that for you, Lily. A husband who will be your partner in every way.”

Lily sighed and reached for a square of linen to dry her hands. “Grandfather was matchless in nearly every way, but even if another like him exists, it’s unlikely I would meet him here in Little Bilberry.”

“Unlikely, maybe, but not impossible.”

“ Nearly impossible.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” Lily said firmly. “Besides, I have no need for a husband.” She crossed to the table and wrapped an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, bussing her cheek. “I have you, Gran. And I’ve decided that you are going to live forever.”