No. It was better to act as normal. To do precisely what she would have done if he hadn’t spied her in a state of undress.

She began to descend the cliff road but had gone no more than a few steps when a thunderous noise sounded behind her. Turning sharply, she was very nearly knocked over by two galloping mastiffs.

“Look out!” Mr. Cross shouted. The wind whipped away his voice.

She clutched Bertie tight as Paul and Jonesy ran by, disappearing over the side of the cliffs.

Mr. Cross came after them to stop at her side. He looked more concerned with her safety than he was with theirs. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Are they?”

He followed her startled gaze to the cliff’s edge. “It’s the path to the beach.”

“Is it? My goodness.” She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “I thought they’d leapt over the side.”

He looked back at her, his gaze holding hers.

She was reminded of how he’d stared up at her as she stood at her window. There was warmth in his eyes. Wariness, too. Her stomach performed a disconcerting somersault. “Are you going with them?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment. “I was bringing Bertie to the stables. I thought—”

“He can come.”

“Down there?”

“Why not?”

“Is it safe? The path, I mean. It doesn’t look as if it is.” She took an unconscious step backward. “And it’s very cold. Bertie won’t like it.”

“Let him down.”

“What? Here?”

“He’ll follow the other dogs.” Mr. Cross gave a low whistle. Seconds later, one of the mastiffs loped up over the side of the cliff, his tongue lolling. “See? There’s Paul.”

She bit her lip. “Very well.” Reluctantly, she set Bertie down on the mud and gravel road. At the sight of Paul, the little pug barked twice—a high, hoarse yip—and trotted off.

Paul ducked and weaved, bowing to Bertie once before turning and clambering back over the cliffs. Bertie followed without hesitation.

“Well.” A slow smile crept over Clara’s face. “It seems I’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Mr. Cross’s mouth curved up slightly. “He’s a dog.”

“I suppose he is, at heart. Though he hasn’t lived like one for most of his life.”

“He knows what he is.”

“It seems he does.” She gave a sudden laugh. It was tinged with rueful awareness. “Would that we all had the same self-knowledge.”

He stared down at her. His jaw was clean-shaven, his golden hair rumpled from the wind. He was ridiculously handsome by any measure. But it wasn’t his face that captivated her attention, nor even his tall, strapping frame, standing over her like some Arthurian hero come to life. It was his eyes. The look in them was strangely intent.

An image of him kissing the housemaid sprang into her mind.

She moistened her lips. “You may take Bertie—”

“You can come—” he began at the same time.

She bent her head, nearly laughing again at the sheer awkwardness of it. But when she raised her eyes back to his, she saw no humor in his gaze, only the same peculiar intensity. It made her heartbeat stutter. “Do you mean it? It wouldn’t be an imposition? Or a—”