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brought her sons home for a visit. None of them returned. Weeks after they were due to arrive, my uncle learned their ship had gone down in the Caribbean. He sent for me earlier than I expected, only a year after I’d left England, because suddenly I was his heir.”
    “You’ve been back in England two whole years? And you never called on us?” To think, all this time she’d been picturing Tris in a jungle halfway across the world, and in truth he’d been half a day’s ride from her front door!
    “When I first returned, things were…difficult. My own father had died while I was en route, and I’d inherited his estate—which was little more than a mountain of debt. I was in dire straits.”
    He hesitated as though he wanted to say more, but she waited a while and he didn’t. “I’m very sorry for the loss of your father.”
    “Thank you.”
    He reverted to silence.
    “It must’ve been dreadful for you,” Alexandra prompted. Still nothing. “An estate full of dependents suddenly counting on you to save them from destitution,” she went on, “and you just a year out of school and quite on your own.”
    “Yes, but all that was solved when I inherited the marquessate,” he said and hesitated again. Their footfalls echoed into the night. “But there’s no need to call me Lord Hawkridge,” he finally added, bringing the conversation back to where they’d started.
    She was certain there was something else he hadn’t told her, and besides which, the account didn’t explain his two-year absence from the social scene. But she felt too shy to press. “You always called me Lady Alexandra,” she said instead. “On the rare occasions you noticed me, that is.” She glanced toward him and smiled—a blithe smile, she hoped. “Last time you saw me I was just Griffin’s vexatious little sister.”
    If only he could see her as more than that now. Shadowed in the moonlight, his features gave her little insight to his thoughts. A lock of his tousled hair had fallen onto his forehead. His eyes looked hooded.
    “I always noticed you, Alexandra.”
    No Lady . She should take offense, she supposed—they weren’t close enough to warrant that sort of familiarity. Not anymore, in any case. But she wanted to be that close. And he’d said…
    Sweet heaven, had he actually said he’d always noticed her?
    “Did you?” she asked breathlessly, even knowing he couldn’t have meant it the way she hoped. I always noticed you . “Probably because I bothered you,” she said with a shaky laugh.
    “Not at all. You used to talk about the most interesting things. Deep things.”
    She’d always been somewhat of a philosopher, even as a child. Her sisters were forever telling her she was too serious. She turned to the ledge and stopped, gazing out over the darkened landscape, the fields and the nearby woods. The River Caine glistened in the distance.
    She felt rather than saw him come up to stand beside her.
    “I hadn’t expected you listened,” she said quietly.
    “Alexandra.”
    Something in his voice made her turn to him. “Hmm?”
    “I listened to every word.”
    When he laid a hand over hers where it rested on the ledge, she realized she’d forgotten to replace her gloves after she stopped playing the pianoforte. And he wasn’t wearing gloves, either. His hand felt warm and a little rougher than a true gentleman’s hand should. Not that she’d ever touched another gentleman’s bare hand.
    The sensation was thrilling beyond words.
    “Tris,” she breathed, the only syllable she seemed capable of uttering.
    He grinned, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. “That’s better.”
    “I…I don’t think it’s proper for you to be touching my hand.”
    “You’re right. I most definitely shouldn’t be touching your hand.”
    But instead of removing his fingers, he tightened them over hers, and his other hand came up to touch the cameo she wore.
    “You kept it,” he said.
    “Of course I did.” She