Adelaide looked at him in surprise. “Why are we stopping? I thought you were in haste to reach Trevadden Park.”

“I am,” he assured her. “But there is more than one way to get there.” He dropped the window and leaned out of the window slightly. “Hughes, take the coastal route home, please.”

“Sir,” the driver called back in the affirmative, snapping the reins.

The carriage jolted forward and a few moments later, turned toward the coast rather than taking the more direct route through the moors.

Harrison sat back against his seat, sighing to himself. “I prefer the coastal route anyway,” he mused to no one in particular. “The roads are infinitely better for driving, and the sea breeze is invigorating. We can leave the windows lowered, if you will not be chilled.”

“Why did you change the course, Basset?” Adelaide asked in a surprisingly serious tone. “Surely getting to your home is the most important thing to you now, especially after a long journey.”

“I should very much like to get to Trevadden, yes,” Harrison assured her, folding his hands over one knee. “But this is your first time to Cornwall, and it would not be fair to take you away from the wonders of the coast so soon after first glimpsing them. A few additional minutes to indulge in natural beauties will not upset my aims in returning home. The traditional route would have us away from the sight in a few minutes, and you’d be back to being mad at me. This way, we might both have peace and something beautiful to look at while we head for home.”

Unlikely as it might have been, Adelaide smiled at him without spite, without guile, and without any pretense at all, which was beautiful in the extreme and quite made his stomach curl.

Odd sensation, that.Not unpleasant, just odd.

“Thank you, Basset,” Adelaide murmured in the softest voice he had ever heard from her.

He did not know how to respond to such a sweet statement, nor what to make of it. He nodded once and resumed looking out of the window as though he had not seen the view a hundred times over.

He could only assume his wife did the same. Her faint gasps and unintelligible murmurings told him enough of the story and her feelings, which was enough to keep him smiling to himself. And, if he were to be truthful, there was something rather invigorating about returning to the coast and breathing in the air of Cornwall after being away for so many weeks.

There was nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

It was only a few hours until they had to pull away from the coastline down the drive to Trevadden, and by then, Adelaide seemed quite content with resigning herself to the other natural beauties of Cornwall.

The only remaining question, really, would be what she would make of Trevadden Park itself.