‘I’m sure you’re very good and kind to Kerensa – I’m sorry, I mean Her Ladyship. She says for me to call her by name, I keep saying it as I first knew her.’

Oliver said nothing and Rosie looked away, fearing she had offended him by mentioning Kerensa by her Christian name. She wished she knew more about how she should treat the gentry. She gulped and brought the conversation back to the foxes. ‘Would… um… Miss Ameline like to come up here to watch Kywarn and his mate, sir?’

‘Not Ameline,’ he said with a laugh, and Rosie was reassured she had not committed a breach of etiquette as far as he was concerned. ‘She’s far too refined.’

‘How about Kerensa? I’m sure she would.’

Oliver tapped the chest with the toe of his boot, making it rock. ‘Yes…’ His voice grew low. ‘Kerensa would…’

‘You must bring her up here sometime, she would enjoy it.’

‘Yes… I suppose I must… I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before.’

‘Probably because you’re deep.’ It was a word she had heard Beatrice use to describe Oliver and it was out before she knew it.

‘Deep?’ Oliver sounded amused. ‘Have you been thinking about me, Rosie?’

‘A bit,’ she confessed, keeping her face turned away.

‘I’m flattered that an old man can find a place in your thoughts, my dear,’ Oliver said in indulgent tones.

‘You’re not old,’ Rosie said vehemently, turning back. Her cheeks glowed hotly and her blue eyes looked into his with a new confidence.

‘I shall be forty-three on the eve of Christmas,’ he said, giving her a pleasant grin and a steady look. ‘That’s a few years older than the average working span of a miner and makes me old enough to be your father.’

‘You don’t look nowhere near that age and anyway forty-three’s not old. You’re the kind of man who will never grow old.’

‘I suppose I should thank you for that.’ Oliver moved closer. He put his strong dark features a bare inch from Rosie’s face. ‘Is that the kind of man you would like, Rosie? The kind of man you want?’

After the smallest pause, she murmured, ‘Yes… I think it is.’ She stared at him, but although he was very close she could not read his thoughts. Not even Kerensa could easily do that. What would he do? What did she want him to do? She was frightened of him, not afraid he would hurt her, but of something she didn’t understand about him, but she didn’t want him to move away and she didn’t want to leave.

His hand came up and delicately touched a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I prefer your hair to Ameline’s, it’s soft and natural.’

Rosie was totally mesmerised. She looked back into his dark eyes without blinking.