“Fair enough.” He swallowed the last drops of his tea as he searched his mind for something to tell her. Something true and important, like she’d told him. Something that wouldn’t send her running for the hills or scare the devil out of her. “The only time I feel free is when I’m riding my horse. Not trotting around town or through the park but galloping across wide-open fields and jumping over rushing streams. When the wind licks at my face and billows my coat behind me. That’s when I can forget, briefly, who I am and what I’ve done.”

Jesus, he hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. But he didn’t regret it. Miss Kendall deserved to know that much. Deserved to know he was unworthy of spending time with someone like her.

But if his words gave her pause, she gave no indication of it. She merely continued to fawn over the plant as she said, “Then I’m glad you have your riding. We all need an escape now and again.”

He wondered what she needed to escape from. Fear, drudgery, fate? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but it seemed his brain and mouth weren’t working in tandem. So he sank back into his chair and allowed himself a rare moment of relaxation. His eyelids twitched, and though he strained to keep them open, they fell with the inevitability of a stage curtain at the end of act two.

He could still hear the whisper of Miss Kendall’s skirt as she moved around the room. Her scent—the same as a field after an April shower—tickled his nose. Her soft humming, unexpectedly sultry, seeped beneath his skin and calmed his soul.

As sleep grabbed his boots and inexorably pulled him under, he had two distinct thoughts.

The first was that Miss Kendall would soon be gone—a very good thing, given the ugliness that was sure to ensue.

The second was that he would never see her again. And that was a damned shame.

Chapter 3

“How was the meeting last night?” Fiona asked, glancing up from her sketchpad, where she’d outlined a couple standing beneath a garden trellis. Even in its unfinished state, Sophie could see that the drawing was destined to be one of her favorites. The way the gentleman held the woman’s hand was so tender—almost reverent. Flowering vines trailed all around them as they leaned toward each other, their lips only a breath apart.