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fate, and he stood there, unable, unwilling to take it. “It’s a pleasant enough night.”
     
    They said nothing for two heartbeats, a long silence for a man and a woman alone. With no one near. Not even a servant. Mountjoy was far too aware of that fact. Was she? He rather thought she was.
     
    “Ginny said you were at the Sessions,” she said.
     
    “I was. Until quite late.”
     
    She moved down the path, and Mountjoy followed. When he caught up, he took her arm as if they were relatives or it was broad daylight. As if there was no tension zinging in the air between them.
     
    “Am I keeping you from your supper?” she asked. She did not sound as if she were in any way aware of the impropriety of them being alone here. “Or have you dined?”
     
    Some of her nonchalance transferred to him. There was no reason to be anxious about being alone with her. She was a guest at Bitterward. They must naturally meet, and spend a moment or two in conversation, and without any of the speculation that attended a man’s attentions to a woman at a formal social gathering. “With the mayor of High Tearing.”
     
    “Does he have pretty daughters?”
     
    “No.” The scent of roses carried on the breeze. They walked in silence for several steps while Mountjoy idly and improperly wondered what sort of lover she would be. Not passive, but warm, inviting. Adventurous. How could a woman like her be anything but adventurous in bed?
     
    “Will you believe,” Miss Wellstone said, “that until now I’ve never been farther from Syton House than I can walk in a day?” She let out a breath. “It seems I ought to be able to go home by mere thought alone. Or at least as quickly as a walk over the next hill, rather than a week’s travel.”
     
    “You prefer the comforts of your home?” Mountjoy said. He’d have assumed a woman like her would be in constant search of entertainment. One party after another and an endless cadre of admiring men, not keeping at home with only herself and her cantankerous father for company.
     
    “Very much, your grace.” She shrugged, and the movement of her shoulders was achingly graceful. “I love Syton House. It’s been my home since I was nineteen.” She looked away from the roses and grinned at him. “All this time I thought I’d be terribly travel sick. I was before. I was so dreading the journey north. For naught, as it turns out.”
     
    “When was that?” he asked. “Your previous journey.”
     
    Her expression went blank for just a moment, but whatever thought had clouded her eyes vanished. “When I moved to Syton House. It was an unpleasant excursion. I confess, I found the carriage ride to Bitterward by turns dull and exhilarating. But this time, I was never once ill.”
     
    “A long journey always has its moments of tedium.”
     
    “If it weren’t for my father, I’d travel more often.” She faced him on the path, and though he was taller, she didn’t have to lift her chin to look into his face. “I had an adventure on my way to Bitterward,” she said.
     
    His belly hollowed out. “Did you?”
     
    “Shall I tell it to you?”
     
    “Please.” They stood close. Enough for him to see the lace that trimmed her gown. Enough to see the rise and fall of her bosom, the smoothness of her skin. She gestured. Hershawl slid down one of her arms, and he reached out to twitch the material into place over her shoulder.
     
    “Thank you.”
     
    “Tell me your adventure.” The side of his finger brushed her bare shoulder. Neither of them acknowledged the contact. Not yet.
     
    “We’d stopped in Tewkesbury, as I particularly wished to see Tewkesbury Abbey. The nave, I’m told, retains some Norman features, and I hoped to inspect it. I don’t know if Ginny told you of my fascination with architecture.”
     
    “She did.”
     
    Her shawl slipped off her shoulder again. Mountjoy stooped to pick up the trailing end, but instead of handing it to her, he fingered the