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  “Here,” Mr. Thornhill said. “Take my arm. I’ll not let you fall.”

  She did as he bade her and, along with Mr. Boothroyd and Bess, they made their way toward the house. As they approached, the front door opened and two enormous black mongrels charged out. The figure of a large man emerged in the arched doorway behind them. He called out, but his words were lost in the wind.

  To Helena’s horror, the dogs headed straight for them, barking as they ran. They were as large as mastiffs. The kind of dogs that, between them, could easily tear a person to ribbons.

  “Down,” Mr. Thornhill said sharply as one leapt toward her.

  Helena pressed her face instinctively into his arm.

  “Are you afraid of dogs?” he asked.

  Her heart pounded in her throat. Afraid? She was terrified beyond belief. She nevertheless forced herself to turn her head from Mr. Thornhill’s sleeve and face the two giant beasts. “I don’t know. Should I be?”

  “Not of these. Here.” He took her gloved hand very gently in his and extended it toward the first dog. The great beast padded forward and tentatively sniffed her fingers. “His name is Paul.”

  “Paul?” she echoed, still clinging to Mr. Thornhill’s arm. “And that one?”

  The other dog stood at a distance, watching the two of them. He was growling.

  “That’s Jonesy,” Mr. Thornhill said. “You can make his acquaintance later.”

  Helena cast a wary glance at the unwelcoming hound as Mr. Thornhill led her up the steps and into the house.

  The man who’d let the dogs loose stood in the flagstone entryway, twisting his cap in his hands. He was a strapping fellow of indeterminate years with close-cropped blond hair and a slightly vacant expression in his pale eyes.

  “Neville,” Mr. Thornhill said. “This is Miss Reynolds. She and her maid will be staying for tea.”

  Neville bobbed his head at her. “Ma’am.”

  She inclined her head in return. “I’m pleased to meet you, Neville.”

  His face reddened. He gave another stilted bow and then, with a wary glance at Mr. Boothroyd, disappeared back into the house without a word. The two dogs loped after him.

  “Neville sees to the stables and the livestock,” Mr. Boothroyd said as he stripped off his hat and gloves.

  “At present, he’ll also be seeing to our tea.” Mr. Thornhill lifted his own hat from his head and tossed it onto a nearby table. His coat and gloves followed suit.

  There was no footman or butler to take their things. She removed her bonnet and gloves and handed them to Mr. Thornhill. “Are Neville and the coachman your only servants?”

  “We have a woman who cooks and cleans.” He ushered her through the hall. “And we’re in hopes of obtaining a new housekeeper within the week, though how long she’ll stay is anyone’s guess.”

  The main hall of Greyfriar’s Abbey was spacious but spare. Dim light filtered in through the high stone-framed windows to illuminate a console table, a few straight-backed wooden chairs, and a threadbare carpet. The most impressive feature, by far, was a single flight of stairs constructed of what looked to be new oak. It rose to a landing from whence it divided into two separate branches leading to opposite wings of the floors above.

  Helena had no idea how large the interior of the Abbey really was, nor how many rooms were currently open and in use. What she did know, even in her limited experience, was that a house of even half this size could never be run successfully with only a cook, a coachman, and a slow-witted giant who served as both groom and footman.

  “Perhaps Bess might help Neville with our tea?” she suggested.

  Mr. Thornhill shook his head. “Your maid stays with you.”

  He escorted her into a drafty wood-paneled room that bore some resemblance to a library. Half-filled bookcases lined the walls and mismatched tables were scattered about with maps and books lying open on them. A bank of windows draped with heavy wine-colored curtains looked out toward the sea.

  Mr. Thornhill gestured for her to have a seat on one of the two faded chintz sofas that faced each other in front of a colossal stone fireplace. “Are you cold? Shall I build up the fire?”

  “No, thank you. I’m quite comfortable.” She sat on the edge of the sofa cushion, settling her skirts all about her. In truth, the room was damp and rather chilly, but she didn’t want Mr. Thornhill to think she was difficult to please. Nor did she wish to give Mr. Boothroyd further cause for disapproval. He’d retreated to a desk in the corner, where he was presently hunched over a ledger. She had no doubt he was listening avidly, just as Bess was listening—with a great deal less subtlety—from her place beside Helena on the sofa.

  She and Mr. Thornhill had no real privacy. Was that why he looked so ill at ease as he took a seat across from her?

  “It’s all just as you described in your letters,” she remarked for lack of anything better to say.

  “Yet still you came.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  He pointedly did not answer her question, saying instead, “The Abbey won’t be what you’re accustomed to.”

  Helena’s eyes fell briefly to her hands, pale and slim, folded one over the other in her lap. What she’d been accustomed to didn’t bear thinking of. “Why do you say so?”

  Again, he didn’t answer her directly. He seemed to be brooding over something, for when she lifted her gaze she found him staring at her with a strangely somber expression.

  “There aren’t many who can live happily in such a remote place,” he said. “The solitude can be…difficult to bear.”

  She wondered if he was referring to himself. Perhaps he found the solitude difficult to bear. Perhaps that was why he’d placed a matrimonial advertisement. “I don’t mind it. Indeed, I expect the peace and quiet will suit me very well.”

  “On occasion, it’s more than peace and quiet,” he warned. “It’s total isolation. There are problems that can arise—” He broke off, raking his fingers through his already disheveled black hair. “I don’t want you to think I have misled you.”

  A troubled frown knit her brow. “Misled me? How?”

  “There are risks that come with living in such a place as this. For one thing, it’s a treacherous journey from the nearest town. And that’s at the best of times. During the winter months, there are days when the road is completely impassible.” Mr. Thornhill paused, appearing to weigh his next words with care. “If someone were in urgent need of a doctor, there’s every chance they would die before he could be summoned from King’s Abbot to attend them.”

  Helena did not immediately comprehend the significance of what he said. “Has such a thing ever happened before?”

  “No. Not that I’m aware. But with a woman such as yourself—”

  “I enjoy excellent health,” she assured him.

  “I’m pleased to hear it. But that’s not quite what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Only that the natural result—” Mr. Thornhill stopped mid-sentence, his attention arrested by Bess. She was tilting forward in her seat, lips half parted, as if he were about to reveal a scandalous secret. His eyes narrowed.

  “I understand,” Helena said swiftly. “You’re concerned I’ll injure myself somehow and you won’t be able to summon a doctor in time.”

  He looked more than a little annoyed. “Something like that.”

  “Is King’s Abbot the nearest village?”

  “If one travels by land, it is.”

  Helena went still. “There’s a way to get here by water?”

  “Anyone willing to brave the currents can sail straight up to the beach from Abbot’s Holcombe. If the wind’s at your back, the voyage can be made in a fraction of the time it would take a carriage to travel on the cliff road.”

  “I didn’t realize.” Her mouth went dry
at the implications, her mind already conjuring one thousand and one scenarios—all of them completely unrealistic.

  Or so she hoped.

  She forced herself to remain calm. “Where is Abbot’s Holcombe?”

  “Thirteen miles in the opposite direction. It’s a resort town. Far more fashionable than King’s Abbot.”

  “They’ve ever so many shops there, miss,” Bess volunteered. “And a dressmaker with all the fashions from Paris.”

  “If one can afford them,” Mr. Boothroyd muttered from his desk.

  Helena glanced at the ill-tempered steward. He was still scribbling away in his ledger, seeming to mark his periods and decimal points with extraordinary force.

  “I don’t expect I’ll be too expensive,” she said to Mr. Thornhill. “I really require very little.”

  “And whatever you require, you shall have.” Mr. Thornhill’s deep voice had an edge to it that was as hard and unyielding as adamantine. Helena suspected his words were intended more for Mr. Boothroyd than for her.

  She moistened her lips. “Do you often make the journey to Abbot’s Holcombe?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Because of the distance?”

  “Because of the people who live there,” he said, adding, “I loathe the place.”

  “Oh?” Helena hesitated. She was a little curious, naturally, but Mr. Thornhill didn’t look as if he’d welcome any probing questions. Even if he did, she dared not ask them, lest he be tempted to ask a few of his own. “Then I shall loathe it, too.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. “That loyal, are you?”

  “Of course,” she said. “We are engaged to be married.”

  Mr. Thornhill regarded her in silence for a moment, an expression in his eyes hard to read. “Would you like to go down to the beach after tea?” he asked abruptly.

  She exhaled a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. “Can we?”

  He assured her they could. “There’s a footpath along the side of the cliffs. It’s steep, but if you think you can manage it we can walk awhile and still have time to get you back to the King’s Arms before sunset.”

  Justin felt Miss Reynold’s hand tighten convulsively on his arm as they descended to the beach. As fetching as she looked in her gray silk gown, the fashion in large, billowing skirts was not at all conducive to navigating a narrow cliff path in a high wind. It was an exercise in self-restraint not to clutch at her every time the stones skittered beneath her boots.

  He’d made the mistake once already, much to his regret. The moment his fingers had closed on her upper arm, she’d cried out, pulling away from him so forcefully that she’d slipped and almost fallen.

  “I’m sorry!” she’d said when she recovered her footing. “You startled me.”

  “My fault entirely,” he’d muttered in response.

  It didn’t bode well for their future that she cringed from his touch. He was a physical man and, though he didn’t mind playing the gentleman on occasion, when he married—if he married—he intended to touch his wife in and out of the bedchamber. He would be damned if he ended up wedded to a fragile porcelain doll who recoiled at the sight of him. Such an arrangement might do for those in the upper classes, but Mr. Bray—the blacksmith to whom he’d been apprenticed as a boy—had been openly affectionate with his wife. Justin had always expected that one day, with his own bride, he would enjoy the same sort of relationship.

  Though making any sort of marital example out of the Brays was ludicrous. They’d never treated him particularly well. The long, lonely years of his apprenticeship had been characterized by ragged clothing and a perpetually empty belly. Even so, Mr. and Mrs. Bray had cared for each other, and for their own children, too. As a child himself, Justin had been envious. Had yearned, on occasion, for a gentle word or a consoling touch. But the Brays had had little kindness to spare for the parish orphan in their care.

  Had Miss Reynolds’s parents been any kinder? Any more affectionate? Justin hadn’t the slightest idea. She’d never written a word about her mother and father, or any of her other relations for that matter. He’d not even known she had a brother until she mentioned him during their conversation at the King’s Arms. She’d been maddeningly opaque. Though he could hardly blame her. His own letters had been no more forthcoming.

  He released her hand so he could jump from the end of the cliff path onto the beach. Miss Reynolds looked down at him from where she stood. The wind had blown some of her hair loose from beneath her bonnet. She brushed it from her face with her fingers.

  He stepped toward her with upraised arms. “If you’ll allow me.”

  She nodded her permission and he took hold of her waist, swinging her lightly to the ground. She weighed no more than a feather, the crown of her bonnet scarcely reaching his shoulder, but there was no mistaking her for anything other than what she was—a warm, softly rounded woman.

  A woman wearing far too many blasted clothes.

  Still, Justin thought, it could be worse. Many women he’d seen of late had skirts that were at least ten feet in circumference. Enormous flounced skirts supported by wire hoops prone to flip upward in a high wind. Miss Reynolds’s own skirts were formidable, but he could detect no cagelike contraption beneath them. Indeed, the only bit of armor she seemed to be wearing was in the guise of a tightly cinched whalebone corset, the stiffness of which he could feel beneath his fingers.

  “Are you sorry we didn’t bring Boothroyd and your maid?” he asked, still holding her.

  Her already flushed cheeks turned a deeper shade of rose. “No.”

  “Nor am I.” Justin flexed his fingers on her waist and then reluctantly let her go. He clasped his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out to her again. “Shall we?”

  She nodded and, without another word, they began to walk, side by side, along the dry sand.

  They strolled in silence for several minutes. There was nothing but the sound of the seagulls and the tumultuous waves. The wind was high and the sea was rougher than usual. It crashed against the rocks with a resounding roar. More than once, he saw Miss Reynolds stare out at it, a strange expression on her face. “Are you fond of the seaside?” he asked.

  “I’ve never been until now.”

  He gave her a sharp look. “You’ve never seen the sea?”

  She shook her head. “Not until the accommodation coach crossed a high hill on the way to King’s Abbot. I looked out the window and…there it was.”

  Justin couldn’t imagine it. He’d been born on the coast and had spent the better part of his youth clambering along the cliffs and swimming in the open sea. The beach outside of Abbot’s Holcombe had been his safe haven; the place he fled to whenever life with the Brays became intolerable. “How does it strike you?” he asked her, genuinely curious.

  “Vast,” she said. “Limitless. It makes me feel very small.”

  She resumed looking down the narrow strip of beach as they walked on in silence, staring steadily first up at the cliffs and then down the long, desolate coastline. Justin wondered what it was that captivated her attention to such a degree. There was nothing but stark, isolated rock and empty stretches of sand. He tried to imagine it through her eyes, but it was a fruitless exercise. He was far too cynical and, in the presence of such a fine lady, painfully conscious of his home’s many shortcomings.

  He’d felt much the same when he’d first seen her inside the Abbey. It was to be her home if they married, possibly for the rest of her life. Yet Queen Victoria herself could not have looked more out of place than Helena Reynolds had, sitting so primly on his shabby library sofa.

  “It’s not a patch on London, is it?” he asked.

  “Isn’t it?” She continued to gaze fixedly up at the cliffs.

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he lagged a short distance be
hind her. “There’s no comparison. London is vibrant. Full of energy and industry.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And then there are the amusements. Shopping on Bond Street. Riding in Hyde Park. Visiting the Zoological Gardens. Whatever one is in the mood for is only a hansom cab’s drive away.”

  “Yes, but—” She glanced back at him. “For those who don’t fancy such entertainments, London is rather wasted, don’t you think?”

  “Are we speaking in hypotheticals?” he asked. “Or are we speaking of you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He lengthened his stride so he was once again walking at her side. “I refuse to believe there isn’t something in London you’ll regret having given up. A bookstore, perhaps, or a confectioner’s shop where you buy your favorite sweets.”

  “I don’t care for sweets.”

  “Your favorite books, then. You do like books, I presume.” He saw her lip curve upward a fraction. “There are no bookstores in King’s Abbot. Nor libraries, either. If one wants to read the newest novels, one must purchase them in Abbot’s Holcombe. And since we’ve both agreed to loathe the place…”

  “You have books in your library. I’ll simply read those.”

  “Farming manuals? Architectural journals?”

  She cast him a sidelong glance. “Are those really the only kind of books you keep at the Abbey? I was certain I saw a copy of something by Mr. Dickens on your shelf.”

  He flashed a wolfish grin at her. The brief movement tugged at the burns on the right side of his neck and jaw. It was a sobering reminder that Miss Reynolds would have far more to accustom herself to as his bride than the meager offerings in his library.

  “I may have one or two of his novels,” he admitted.

  “Which one or two?”

  “Which are your favorites?”

  She folded her hands at her waist, appearing to rest them on the swell of her skirts as she walked. “It’s quite hard to choose, really. I did find Hard Times to be rather instructive. And I greatly enjoyed reading The Old Curiosity Shop.”

  Justin raised his brows. “You enjoyed the death of Little Nell?”