Teddy made an impatient gesture in the direction of the door. “Send him in.”

Alex wandered down the upstairs hall of the cottage while Miss Hayes talked with her brother. It was lined with wood-paneled doors, the floor covered with a worn floral carpet. Not all of the doors were shut. A few hung half-open on their hinges, giving glimpses of what lie within. In one, he saw a heavy four-poster bed with faded blue hangings. It had a needlework quilt spread across the bottom of it, and a walnut table at its side, adorned with an oil lamp and a pewter jug of freshly cut flowers.

Miss Hayes’s room, he’d wager.

There was a faint fragrance to it. Roses and lavender, and freshly starched petticoats. Something sweet and clean and unmistakably her.

He gave the door a gentle push. It swung wide, revealing a marble fireplace, an imposing mahogany wardrobe, and a silk-draped dressing table littered with feminine bric-a-brac. His gaze drifted over the crystal perfume bottles, enameled containers, and set of silver-plated hairbrushes.

How easy it was to imagine her sitting there, arranging her ebony hair. His chest tightened with unwelcome emotion at the thought of it.

Helpless frustration followed.

What the devil was he doing? Lurking about outside Miss Hayes’s bedroom like some starving stray dog outside of a butcher’s shop?

But the room called to him, just as its owner did. Home, it seemed to say. A place of respite, and peace. Of crisp sheets and soft pillows.

The orphanage had had none of those things. There, he’d slept in a cold dormitory with dozens of other boys, housed two to a bed. He and Tom Finchley had shared a mattress of perpetually damp, insect-ridden straw. It had never been clean enough. Warm enough.

It had never been a home.

Not like Bramble Cottage. And not like Miss Hayes’s room, the intimacy of it beckoning to him so sweetly. It took an effort to withdraw from her door and return back the way he’d come.

He’d spent the past three days avoiding her. As much as she could be avoided when she was acting as companion to Henrietta Talbot.

And now, here he was, in her house—practically in her room—not avoiding her at all.

If he had any sense he’d return to the vicarage. There was no reason to remain now that Mrs. Bainbridge was settled. No reason save a flicker of curiosity about Miss Hayes’s brother—and a nearly overpowering concern for Miss Hayes herself.

“Mr. Archer?” She emerged from her brother’s room, holding the door open. “If you’d like to come in?”

It was a large room, not unlike her own, except for a general sense of masculine clutter. An enormous black-and-white cat sat on the bed. It regarded Alex with large, unblinking eyes.

Miss Hayes gave it a scratch beneath its chin. “This is Magpie.”