She should have expected he wouldn’t make it easy. “Yes. I mean no. I broke it off with you months before my engagement. Besides, you made it clear that marriage wasn’t part of our game.”
Bess sat up, watching the pair.
“You still chose him.” He held the necklace gently between his fingers.
“And now I’m choosing you.” She watched the necklace, her frustration threatening to overflow. She forced herself to breathe and start again in a more moderate tone. “We haven’t time to debate old wounds. If you will help me escape, perhaps even take me to my father, I’ll let you harangue me on my choices for as long as you wish. And I’ll pay you . . . whatever you want.”
“Ah, my lady, be careful what you offer.” He scratched Bess’s neck. “I don’t see how any scoundrel could refuse such a bargain.”
“Can you do it?” She needed to see his eyes, to read affection or enmity there, but he kept his face turned to the dog.
“Better than anyone else.” Unfolding his long legs from the chair, he stood. “Take the gate at the bottom of the churchyard to the woods.”
“I know where the woods are.” She watched the necklace and the watch disappear into his pocket. “This is my estate.”
“Then I’ll meet you at the great oak.” Adam ignored her petulance, or rather he seemed to enjoy it. He must know it wasn’t in her character to run from her responsibilities. It must tell him that she found the thought of marriage to Colin almost unbearable.
“Take these.” He lifted some hothouse flowers from a vase before the window. “If anyone asks, you wish to lay them on your mother’s grave before the ceremony.”
She took the flowers, then looked up into his eyes. She saw only amusement, but what else could she expect from a man who every day skirted the law and social obligation?
“You will meet me? You won’t send me off to miss my own wedding and then abandon me to the scandal?”
“I will not abandon you, mavourneen.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead, a slight touch, but one that gave her the reassurance she needed. It made her long for more.
She snapped her fingers, signaling Bess to come to her side.
“No, leave Bess here. I have a plan.”
“Leave Bess?” She wanted to object. She couldn’t travel out of the county without Bess beside her. But she didn’t want to explain.
“I’ll bring her later, but you must go. You have little time.”
“You promise.”
He nodded, and she saw the first hint of kindness in his eyes.
She held her hand out to the dog, palm down. “Stay, Bess.” The gentle dog sat on her haunches, watching her mistress’s every movement.
“Once in the woods, keep to the shadows.” He held out a heavy shawl. “Take your wrap. It may be some time before I can join you.”
At the door, she picked up her new walking stick.
* * *
Emmeline hurried down the stairs, grateful she was going down, not up. Even in haste, she was careful to place her foot and knee just right. At the carriage yard, she slowed to a walk, one suitable for the solemn occasion of visiting her mother’s grave.
But it didn’t matter. The carriage yard was empty, and all the household servants were already in the chapel. Jeffreys guarded the chapel door, giving her time to escape. As she entered the churchyard, she looked back, and Jeffreys, nodding, crossed the courtyard to the family wing, returning to help Adam.
She placed the hothouse flowers quickly on her mother’s grave. What advice would her mother have given, if she’d lived? Would she point out the quality of the match? The generosity of the wedding settlement? The rich alliance with a powerful and respected member of the aristocracy? Or would she tell Emmeline to follow her heart? That each new society scandal is quickly replaced by newer ones? That the real shame in the marriage would come from marrying a man she could not love or could not love as he deserved?
Knowing other aristocratic mothers, Emmeline assumed Titania would recommend wealth, reputation, and alliance. But, as she had every other time Emmeline had visited her grave, Titania kept her own counsel.
Grateful for the evergreens that shielded her from the view of the house, Emmeline hurried past the other gravestones, bidding a quiet farewell to her sisters, all long buried in a neat row.
On the other side of the graveyard, a well-graveled path sloped down to fork at a pleasant stream. One fork led across winter fields to the village. The other led deep into the forest. There, even without leaves the branches formed deeper and deeper shadows. Looking over her shoulder, Emmeline plunged into the trees, followed only by the reckless songs of the forest birds.
She knew the path well from her childhood.
In the months after the accident, Emmeline had consoled herself that her friends in the forest waited for her to return. Her grandfather, though finding her obsession strange, had still indulged it, buying any book or ballad that mentioned the faerie folk. And she’d read them, every one. Eventually, he’d bought her so many books on England and its antiquities that he’d had to set aside a large section of the manor library for Emmeline’s books.
Confined to her bed as her injuries healed, Emmeline had used all her inventiveness to make the faerie folk gifts. She’d sketched the scenes outside her window, knit (badly) a long scarf, and made up songs she thought they might like, carefully drawing a musical staff, then writing out the notes as best she could. She spent her days in her imagination, dreaming of all the pleasures they would share when she could walk again. Perhaps, she had even hoped, when they saw she could no longer dance, they would repair her leg with their healing magic. It was the sort of dream a lonely child would cling to. Believing it had kept her from despair.
When Emmeline’s leg had healed enough that she could leave the house, she had insisted on going to the oak and placing her gifts on the rock altar. She had sung her mother’s song and waited, her grandfather, silent, at her side. Hours later, having watched the shadows remain shadows, her grandfather had taken her home.
But she didn’t give up. Believing that the faeries wouldn’t appear if her grandfather were with her, she would slip from the house alone, limp to the great oak, and wait. But each day, her gifts lay unaccepted on the rock. Eventually, when the rain had returned her paper to pulp and the birds had taken her yarn for their nests, she’d realized her old friends were not going to return. She’d wept as if she’d lost her mother and sisters all over again.
After that, she had stayed mostly out of the forest. As she grew, her obsession with faerie land became nothing more than an armchair interest in ancient antiquities . . . until the night when Adam’s music had drawn her back in.
The night she first met Adam, she and Bess had been returning from the village, the sun already low in the sky. As they had reached the turn to the forest, Bess had stopped, ears pricking up. Staring into the forest, Bess had stepped forward, then whined, refusing to return when Emmeline called. Looking into the forest, then back at Em, Bess gave Em no choice but to follow.
Once in the trees, Emmeline had heard the faintest hints of music. At first, she thought the wisps of song were a product of her imagination, until deeper in the forest, she recognized the song as one of her mother’s old ballads. She quickened her step. Emmeline’s mature judgment had told her to be wary, that it was impossible that the faerie folk had returned to her. But Emmeline’s childhood heart, wishing against hope and reason that it could be true, followed Bess into the growing dark.
At the great oak, she’d seen him. His face, dappled in the half-light, had been striking, with strong angular features and a soulful expression that spoke of a kind heart. His voice was a deep mahogany wine, caressing the syllables of