LYSANDER ENJOYED THE WALK. The steepness of the slope kept his usual furious pace to a more normal stride and he found that he had the time to look about him. High grass and low growing vegetation surrounded them rolling over the undulating landscape. They must be getting higher now. The wind had an insistence not found on lower ground, with trees and structures to block its force. The sky was a deep and clamoring blue. One never saw such as sky in London.

The perfect air filled Lysander's lungs with every inhalation, and when he exhaled it was as if the purity of the air was cleansing him. Of what? Grief? Anger? Helplessness?

There was something about this place. He felt drawn to it, to being still for a while, to allow his endless battle vigilance to ease, to take the peace where he could.

He slid his glance to the woman who walked sturdily beside him. Her head was bent slightly to watch her footing and her good hand gripped fistfuls of her skirts so that he could see her practical boots stomping upward with energy. With her bonnet on she could not tell he was staring at her. Lysander looked his fill. As she walked, concealed by her blue coat and practical straw bonnet, he was shielded from her breathtaking beauty. That helped a bit. Freed from that distraction, he looked at her not as a stunning woman but as a person.

She was an astonishing woman by any account, beauty or not. Lysander had never been a victim to the lure of beauty alone. Even in his younger days he had been immunized by close association with his own lovely sisters and even Iris, who wore her own slightly faded glory with an effortless serenity, confident in her husband Archie's adoration.

It was not merely the arrangement of lips and cheekbone, nor fortuitous distribution of ample and lithe feminine parts. Mrs. Oakes was beautiful because she what she did was beautiful. She lived beautifully.

She took instant and selfless action on behalf of others. He'd never heard her speak ill, not even of the frustrating war pony she had been burdened with. Her eyes saw truly and easily into his own swirling inner turmoil. She saw beautifully.

Perhaps of all the women he knew she was most like his sister Calliope. Callie had once carried that hint of sadness in her eyes, although Lysander had not noticed it until it was gone, a shadow of isolation most effectively brightened by the flaming love she'd found with Sir Lawrence Porter.

Gemma is lonely.

Lysander took that thought and turned it in all directions, examining it for accuracy. This was a woman who was rarely left alone. She was constantly called out to serve her community. She had the sturdy devotion of Bing and although she did not realize it, Bad Pony and Topknot as well. That shepherd's wife, Mrs. Gosling, also seemed a stout and stalwart friend.