They reached the end of the field, Caleb and Claire each adjusting their steps, taking greater care, as they navigated an uneven footpath.
“Oh, d-dear,” Claire said, her teeth chattering from the cold. “You’ve gone all serious again, which leads me to believe I need worry after…” Her words trailed off as they rounded the corner. “Oh, my,” she whispered, that soft exhalation leaving another little puff of white air from her lips.
He might as well have been forgotten as her gaze moved over the huge gorge that was Gordale Scar. Jagged stone had seized the landscape, transforming it into some ancient-looking land of the gods, who’d laid a stone path up to the waterfall that rained down foamy white water high up at the center.
“It is… magnificent,” she breathed.
He touched his eyes on every plane of her face, the delicate point of her chin, to the high planes of her cheeks, to that lone freckle he’d not noticed until now, which graced the tip of a pert nose. “Yes,” he murmured, his eyes only on her. “Magnificent.” Odd how Caleb, with his artist’s eye, had failed to appreciate such a masterpiece before this moment, alone with her in this ethereal land.
Perhaps that was all it was. Perhaps it was simply the majesty of this place and the intimacy of their being here alone together.
And yet, as she pulled her gaze from the peak of Gordale Scar and her blue eyes went to his, those quixotic irises glimmering in that mix of greens and turquoise and azure, he knew the lie he fed himself.
“I never knew such a place existed.”
“I passed by here once.” The first and only time he’d visited property his grandfather had passed down to him. He’d taken one look at everything that estate… wasn’t and returned to London so he could put his work on display and live the life he wanted. The only memorable part of Caleb’s travel to his property had been this place he’d now taken Claire to.
She’d returned to her study of the gorge, her eager eyes, her artist’s gaze touching upon everything—the limestone clints, the white tufa formed upon that stone, the gaps within the gorge that had created a sanctuary for the vast wildlife that dwelled in this mystical place. He recognized that eager glint, caught the way she flexed her fingers, eager to create, as all artists were wont to do.
You’re no artist, Claire. You’re a pastel and paint miss who has no place in an art room.
He flinched as those words he’d hurled at her came back to haunt him.
Had he really been such a judgmental asshole?
Caleb already knew the unequivocal answer to that silent question—he had. He’d judged, and he’d done so unfairly. And he didn’t expect that he could make amends, nor would it ultimately matter if he did or did not. She’d go on her way. He’d go on his. And this would be the last they ever saw of each other.
The truth of that left him peculiarly hollow.
He felt Claire’s stare slide back his way, and equally unnerved by that turbulent emotion and the lady’s penetrating stare, he stretched out his hand to get them moving along. “Wanna explore?”
“Do I…?” Her eyes widened. “Yes!” she blurted, and taking his fingers in her own, she tugged him along this time.
And this time, he let himself be led.
“When my family lost the lands they’d stolen, their… our previous land reverted back to my brother,” she said as they walked. “It was moorland. Often rainy. Gloomy. Morose. Unforgiving. I quite loved it,” she said, surprising him. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke. “My sisters and I would sneak away at night and play hide-and-seek upon the moor, our laughter lost by the howl of the wuthering.”
She chatted so easily.
The sound of all talk had once grated on his ears, yet another gift from his time on a ship that had been his prison. Her dulcet tones, and the ease with which she spoke about that which she loved, stripped away his usual discomfort with any and all discourse.
She brought them to a stop some ten paces up their climb. “But I’ve never before seen anything like this.” She stretched a palm toward the jagged cliffs all about them.
He looked about, taking in that same view she praised, the juxtaposition of the ragged, colorless gorge with the hint of green that clung to that stone. “It is pretty wondrous.”
“It is,” she murmured, her gaze turned out.
Plucking her sketch pad out from under his arm, she rushed off, picking carefully along the uneven earth before ultimately finding a smooth boulder that she turned into an earthen seat.
Just like that, she was lost to him.
Flipping through her pages, she stopped on one, and then she froze.
Caleb was immediately there. “Looking for this, sweetheart?”
Claire tilted her head all the way back, glancing at the small pencil she was never without.
Happy surprise filled her face. “You brought it.”
“Why else did you think I brought you here?” he asked gruffly.
Her breath caught on a quick intake, and her eyes softened.
In a way that caused his chest… to shift.
In a way it had never before done.
Because no one had ever looked at him the way this woman did now.
Not even the woman he’d been inclined to marry.
And now this one did, all because of a pencil. The reason for that glimmer of adoration only strengthened this ever-growing bond with a woman he’d no place being enamored of.
“Thank you,” Claire said and plucked the little nub from his fingers and set her fingers to dancing upon that page.
He was instantly forgotten.
It was an absorption he’d once known and one he’d begrudged her and any other artist for. Why should what had once come so easily and joyously to him have become a chore in life, a stress and a struggle?
Now, in these wilds of Yorkshire, away from the noise of London and stripped of his own preexisting opinions about Claire Poplar, he’d a new glimpse, a new view, and a new feeling. There wasn’t the resentment there had been. There was an appreciation for someone who should love the craft so deeply. That wasn’t anything to be bitter about, but rather, to admire.
As she sat there working, the wind whipped around them, angrily tugging at Claire’s skirts, nature demanding the lady’s attention and failing mightily against the pull of her work. That same wind also wrought havoc on the dark strands drawn back at her nape. Those loose tendrils escaped the knot there and danced across her face.
Periodically, Claire paused to raise a hand and distractedly tuck the hair back behind the shell of her ear.
And then it happened.
Caleb went absolutely still as he felt it.
A stirring deep down, familiar and yet at the same time foreign for how much time had passed since he’d experienced it. A hungering. A yearning to create, to put an image down upon a page. Her… He wanted to capture her, Claire Poplar, as she was in this moment in this ethereal-looking place, enlivened and absorbed by an image that she brought to life.
His fingers twitched.
He’d begun to despair at ever again knowing what this felt like. He’d begun to wonder if he would even recognize that desire within him if he’d ever found it again.
But he did, and he wanted to hold on to… this.
And he cursed himself for having left behind his own sketch pad, for not having even considered to bring the book that had been a greater sense of frustration than joy. When he’d ordered the carriage to stop, he’d done so in part to slow their journey to her beau, but in larger part to allow her… this.