Frowning, she opened her eyes and looked up, as though thinking the cone had fallen from one of the trees whose branches spread high over her head and made the glade darker as the sun went down. Then she looked around her slowly, without expectation or apprehension. But belying her air of assurance, she began to shiver. Shaking out the shawl she had brought with her, she threw it around her shoulders and tied it loosely where its ends crossed her bosom. Folding her arms to hug herself as she felt the chill of the coming night, she looked about her and drew in a slow, deep breath.

She was about to leave, he realized.

He would not let her—not without her learning he was here; and not, his next thought told him, without her knowing this place was his as much as hers, being the property of neither, that he had as much right here as she, and that he had not only been here before her, and after, but had seen her here too.

He stepped out of the shadow of the woods into the glade. Her exclamation of surprise gratified him.

“Who—?”

He found himself bowing to the woman, low and deep, in a mockery of the manners of gentle folk. When he raised his body and head and looked at her again, her face had set into the formal mold it had always assumed when he had met her riding or walking.

“You are Roscoe Elk’s—”

“I am Alonzo Elk,” he said in a tone that matched and mocked her own formality.

“This isn’t your land. Is it? I was told—”

“Nor yours!” he said. He was surprised at the roughness of his tone, but somehow reassured by it too.

“No,” she said. “It is part of Oaks, I believe.”

He stepped twice in her direction before her voice halted him. “What are you doing here?”

He stared at her, astonished to see fear in her face. “I come here too sometimes,” he said and knew that his tone was now too gentle. She would think him afraid of her.

“You say you come here too.”

“I have seen you here.”

“I’ve been only once before.”

“Yes,” He smiled, and as the fear in her face increased, so did the deliberate suggestion of his smile. “I saw you then.” He took more steps toward her.

“Stop! Please—”

He continued to smile, feeling stronger with every step he took. “I saw you with the man. On the ground there.”

“Don’t come any closer!”