During this time, his future—the one ordained by the gentlemen who decide this kind of thing, not the one unfolding between our bodies—was set. An understanding between families a decade in the making became a public courtship, one I could observe on Sundays at church and at balls held by neighbors. And still, we met at the bridge. We met until finally his betrothal was announced in a room where I stood ten feet away, applauding as though it did not slice me open.
Up until the banns were read, I believed him when he said he was waiting for the time to tell his father the truth about us. That he would, of course, marry me and make it right.
That he loved me.
That this was all a terrible mistake.
But, of course, you know this part.
He didn’t.
She drained the rest of the wine from her glass and considered refilling it.
Too much and she might be tempted to indulge in more accounting than she ought. The story sitting on the pages of her desk was a story of loss. At the time she had assumed the loss of him would be the painful one, but looking back, it barely stung. It was the others that were more difficult to bear, when tallied. Tamsin. Her stepmother. Her father. This place, and all the people she had known. The girl she’d been. The woman she’d imagined she’d grow into.
She’d never meant to become Seraphina Arden.
It had been thrust upon her. The best of the fates that remained when the other, more obvious endings had been taken.
She stood and looked out the window.
A storm was coming.
You could always sense it in the air before the clouds rolled in. She remembered the feeling from her youth. The way the light went sickly. The thickening of the air.
This afternoon the ocean had been flat as glass. Now the chop of the Kestrel was shucking up around itself. Soon it would turn into breakers.
A gust of wind smacked that rickety wooden shutter against the windowpane so suddenly she yelped.
“Are you all right?” Tompkins called, rushing into the room.
Sera clutched her heart. “I—yes.”
“You don’t look it,” Tompkins observed, taking in her mess of papers, her ashen face.
Sera relaxed her shoulders. “I am perfectly well. I cannot be blamed if the shutters knock against the house with the subtlety of a murderer.”
Tompkins pursed her lips, and Seraphina wished she had not been so responsible as to hire a woman of great perception and ability as her secretary. Such people sometimes saw more than one liked.
“Mr. Anderson is here,” Tompkins said. “He hoped for a word, if you have time.”
Mr. Anderson? But what could he want from her, when they’d parted not three hours ago? Would it be too wicked to hope he’d been so beguiled by her facility with picking apart a crab that he’d reconsidered her offer of carnal abandon?
Doubtful. Still, a distraction from her thoughts was most welcome, whatever he was here for.
“Yes, show him in,” she told Tompkins.
“He’s waiting in the parlor.”
“I’ll join him there.”
Another gust of wind rattled the doors off the terrace as she entered the room.
Mr. Anderson stood looking out the window. She should not torture herself lingering over his physique, which was so perfect as to be a kind of punishment, but with his back to her, he was in the very pose he had assumed when she had first seen him in the belvedere.
The memory made her breath quicken. She cleared her throat.
“Mr. Anderson. Good evening.”
He turned and smiled at her. He had such a nice smile.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No. I was just going over budgets. Never my favorite task.” She didn’t know why she lied about what she had been doing, but she felt protective of him. Like if she spoke of her work, its sadness would infect him.
“Ah, accounting.” He winced in sympathy. “I share your lack of enthusiasm for that particular chore.”
She noticed that more of a Scottish brogue had entered his speech. His accent seemed to ebb with his sense of formality. Clipped and nearly English when he was focused, lapsing into a decidedly Celtic lilt when he seemed more at ease.
She could not help but think that in the throes of passion he must sound like a right highlander. She bit back a laugh at the direction of her thoughts and arranged her dress neatly over the settee, sitting nice and prim like a lady who did not receive injured birds as symbols of her unsuitability.
Stop it.
“I hope your men are prepared for a bout of bad weather,” she said, gesturing outside. “We are due for an impressive storm.”
“Aye, the builders predicted it hours ago. Said they could feel it in the air. I gave them grief. Thought perhaps they were looking for an afternoon’s leave to sunbathe.”
“Anyone who grows up in Cornwall knows not to trust the sun. I could sense it coming, too. It’s the heaviness, you know. And the smell. Can’t you feel it, that premonition in the air? It makes my skin prickle.” She shivered.
He paused, and she could tell he was trying to feel the weather. He nodded, slowly. “Perhaps I can. It almost gives one gooseflesh.”
Oh, the thought of him with gooseflesh.
She really must stop. “You wished to speak to me about something?”
His face turned grim. He had the kind of face that looked good when it was grim, for the lines became more pronounced and brought out the character in it. She wondered how old he was. Younger than her, she thought, but not by much.
“Yes. One of my apprentices was returning from the tavern last night with a few of the local boys and caught your vandal in the act.” He pulled a poster out of his satchel and handed it to her.
She inspected it. The same unsettling design she’d found above her door this morning.
She wanted to clutch herself against the uneasiness that once again went through her at the knowledge that people were coming here, to her own home, intent on scaring her. But it would not do to fret in the presence of Mr. Anderson. Men were for displaying wit and cleavage to, not emotions.
“How unoriginal,” she said dryly. “Trust defenders of decency to fall short when it comes to creativity.”
He frowned. “Apparently the man who hung it is a groundskeeper at Gwennol Bluff. Do you know the place?”
Her insides wrenched.
She knew it well.
She tried to find her voice but suddenly it seemed she did not have one.
Mr. Anderson watched her closely. “Are you all right, Miss Arden?”
She took a deep breath. “Quite. Yes.”
“I thought I might go and have a word with this fellow Baron Trewlnany, the owner. Let him know his man is stirring up trouble.”
Christ, that was all she needed. “Oh, please don’t. I’ll see to it myself.”
And by see to it, she meant ignore it. If Trewlnany was behind this, she would not give him the satisfaction.
Mr. Anderson wrinkled his brow. “If there’s local trouble, it’s best to smother it immediately. Get the magistrate involved if need be. An unprotected property is vulnerable at night.”
Please. As though the magistrate would care.
As though her property was the thing in danger.
It was not the rotting beams and timber that would be perceived as a threat. It was her presence here. She hoped she was mistaken, but between the bird, and Gwennol Bluff—