His eyes went vague, as if he were inspecting the contents of his memory. When his vision cleared, he said, “There are several of an old man and one of a young woman. Those?”

“Yes, those. He is able with a few lines to elevate the ordinary to the sublime.”

He paused, moving his uneaten piece of ham from one side of the plate, and then back to the other. This was interesting. Was he fidgeting? She had never seen him act anything less than cool and composed before. Why now? What could—

“Your sketches do not elevate the ordinary to the sublime?”

“There are some very good ones of Oliver when he was a boy, but—by and large—I am far more expressive with stone or even clay. I am not, like Leonardo, a Renaissance genius, able to dabble gloriously in any medium.”

He nodded but made no response. So, that was that. A brief burst of conversation with a man who was on her mind far more often than was healthy.

***

By that evening it seemed as if it had been raining for days. Gareth spent a large part of the afternoon with Oliver in the schoolroom. Mrs. Lombard did not appear and Gareth wondered if she was avoiding him on purpose.

Oliver was a very clever boy with an aptitude for science and math and Gareth relaxed in his presence more than he did with anyone else other than Dec. The boy was not a chatterbox and spent a good deal of his time on solitary pursuits. Gareth believed that was by choice rather than circumstance. He was as Gareth might have been, had his life taken a different path.

As Gareth dressed himself for dinner, he considered Dec’s question from earlier in the day.

“How long are you planning to stay here, old man?”

The nervy Irishman had sought him out hours after breakfast, making Gareth wonder—not for the first time—how his friend spent most of his days. He knew how he spent a good part of his nights, having learned Declan had already made conquests in the village and carried on with his normal enthusiasm at the local inn.

He’d been working on the brewery ledgers when Dec had interrupted. He put his quill in the standish and leaned back in his chair. “I plan to stay until we complete the berm. And you?”

Dec shrugged, tilting back his head until he was facing the ceiling. “It would be hell to travel in this,” he waved to the windows without looking down. “I can’t even be arsed to drive into town.” He brought his head down slowly, his sharp green eyes focusing on Gareth. “You’ve taken to the boy.”

“I have,” Gareth agreed.

“And his mother?”

“What of his mother?”

Dec’s mouth twisted, but he said nothing.

Gareth felt a frisson of irritation at the knowing look in his eyes. Why was it that the people he knew best—all two of them—seemed to think he was some sort of child or village idiot when it came to the opposite sex?