"'Tis a shame you'll be ridin' off soon. With this bum leg, there's only so much I can do about the place. I don't like to let the Missus down, although she'll never so much as hint at it, no she won't. Still, I know she worries."

Lysander wanted to ask about Mrs. Gemma Oakes. He wanted to know everything about her. His piqued interest had flared into burning curiosity since that moment by the window. The slender, lovely Mrs. Oakes was an enigma. Until their heated moment through the window, he'd thought her cool and distant, even solitary. Now her hidden passionate side had been revealed to him. What else was there to learn?

He'd seen a small library full of well-loved volumes on his way down to find the kitchen, but the room had the air of a place long undisturbed. Had she no interest in reading or was she too busy healing dale folk and dogs? And strangers?

Bing went on. "She's a good woman. Rock solid, as they say. She's stronger than she looks, but it's a hard life in t' North."

Harder still for them what's broken.

Was Mrs. Oakes broken? This morning that thought would not have crossed his mind. She'd seemed entirely collected and in control of her rustic corner of the world. But the dark, lost, lonely gaze of the woman in the window belied that impression. She may not be broken, but neither was Gemma Oakes entirely whole. He knew that now.

"I'd take it as a kindness if you'd linger a day or two. 'Tis a big job to get t' place into shape after such a harsh winter. The local lads will help when they can, but it'd be a right blessin' to get a head start on t' job."

Stay?

Lysander felt torn. He was supposed to be helping his family by looking for his brother, Poll. However, he'd suspected from the start that it was a hopeless chase, trying to track down the nomadic theatrical troupe that Poll traveled with, based on nothing but a six-month-old postal address. It been Attie's restless inability to help and his own inability to bear up that had sent him on this road.

He should go home straightaway. He should go back to Worthington House and wait with the others — wait to see if Iris healed or worsened, to watch as she bloomed or faded like the flower for which she was named.

Perhaps he did believe in cowardice, for he felt like a craven at the very thought of going back to that hushed, intense household that filled him with dread. It made him want to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

Even considering returning made that terrible, itchy agitation tighten every muscle in his body.