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had once tormented him, and he wondered again how hard Olivia Langley was finding life.
    “Thank you,” she said, turning to face him and then dropping into a curtsey.
    Five years ago, Olivia had been seventeen and a young lady who was beginning to understand the hold she had over men, most especially him. She had made him feel like one minute he was standing on his head and the other on his feet. But more importantly, she had become the one person in his life who had understood to him.  
    “Hello,” Will said, looking into her sad, red-rimmed eyes. She was still beautiful; in fact to Will she seemed more so. She had lost the roundness in her face and every bone was now defined, from the line of her cheeks to the curve of her jaw. Her face was pale and dark smudges under her cinnamon eyes told him she was not sleeping well. She appeared fragile and vulnerable, both words he would previously never have used when describing the luscious Livvy Langley  
    “Good day, Lord Ryder.” She looked at him, her eyes expressionless. “How long have you been back from your travels?” Her voice was distant, as if they were strangers.
    “I arrived home last night.”
    “Your family must be pleased to see you.”
    “Some of my family are pleased, Olivia.”
    “Surely your brother’s reaction does not surprise you, my lord. You walked away without a word.”
    Will smiled but she did not respond. “How did you know it was Joseph?”
    “Thea talked of you constantly and always with longing, Lord Ryder, I doubt she would have been anything but happy to see you.”
    The wind caught at her hair, pulling a lock free, and she brushed it aside impatiently.  
    “And you, Olivia? I walked away from you without a word. Do you forgive me?”
    “It matters not how I feel, my lord,” she said, dropping her eyes, which told him it did matter a great deal.
    “Yes, it does.”
    She didn’t know what to say to that so she fell silent, another surprise. The Olivia he had known had no idea how to be quiet.
    “I know my apology is late in coming, Olivia, yet I will tender it all the same.”
    She glared at him then. “I have no wish to hear your apologies, Lord Ryder. They are of no consequence to me.”
    Realizing that now was not the time to pursue this topic any further, he instead took her arm. “Will you walk with me to my parents’ graves and then sit with me on the seat overlooking the village? I need to catch up on the gossip and the Langleys, if my memory serves me well, always knew what was going on in Twoaks.” She didn’t respond instantly, although her fingers curled into fists at her side. Will knew she was going to refuse him, so he steered her along the row of headstones and down the next before she had a chance.  
    “Release me please, my lord. I need to return to my home.”  
    Ignoring her, Will continued on to where his parents were buried in a special, raised area to the rear of the cemetery beside their ancestors. He walked to the headstones with Olivia and stood silently, reading the words.
    “I miss them still, even more so now I have returned,” he said quietly.
    “I always make sure to visit them when I come here.”
    “Do you?” he queried, wondering why.
    She shot him a defensive look.  
    “I’m sorry if you do not feel I have any rights to visit with them, my lord, but I knew them well, especially after they rescued me when I was six years old and had gotten lost in the woods”  
    “I am not censuring you, Olivia.” Will looked down at her; she was studying the headstones, thus avoiding his eyes. “Dare I ask what a six-year-old was doing alone the woods?”
    “It matters not, my lord. I was merely explaining why I visited them.”
    She was bristling like a hedgehog. They had once been friends, very close friends, but now he realized she thought of him as anything but.  
    “Surely you cannot leave me hanging like that, Olivia. To hear something new about a parent, who has been long passed,