The Gamekeeper's Lady

She tucked the messy pile of paper between two board covers and tied the string. ‘I caught it on a branch on my way here.’ She offered him a conciliatory smile.

He blinked, startled by the sudden change in her expression. She looked witchy, oddly alluring, almost beautiful in a vulnerable way. He pulled himself together. ‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded sullen, ungracious, when he’d meant to sound jocular. He half-expected her to take to her heels in terror.

This woman had him all at sea.

But she didn’t run, she merely tilted her head to one side as if thinking about what to say.

‘L-looking for squirrels.’ She tapped her portfolio.

And she’d picked this clearing when hundreds of other places would do. What was she up to? He gestured to the stump. ‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

‘N-no. I was finished. The light is fading. Too many shadows.’

A true artist would care about the quality of the light. And the drawings he’d seen were excellent. Most ladies liked to draw, but her pictures seemed different. The squirrels had life.

Perhaps her artistic bent was what made her seem different. Awkward, with her utterance of short, sharp and direct sentences, yet likeable. A reason not to encourage her to return.

‘May I help you mount your horse?’ He glanced around for the gelding.

She bit her lip. A faint, rosy hue tinted her pale, high cheekbones. ‘I w-walked.’

Robert frowned. Riding in the woods was risky enough, but a young female walking alone in the forest with the sun going down he could not like.

‘I’ll drop my dinner off inside and walk you back to Wynchwood.’

‘P-please, don’t trouble. I know the way.’

‘It’s no trouble, miss. It’s my duty to my employer to see you home safe.’

In his past life, he would have insisted on his honour and charmed the girl. His mouth twisted. As far as his new world knew, he had neither honour nor charm.

A protest formed on her lips, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. ‘I have to go up to the house before supper to collect an order from Mrs Doncaster.’

Her glance flicked to the pile of fur. A shudder shook her delicate frame. It reminded him of shudders of pleasure. Heated his blood. Stirred his body.

Unwanted responses.

Furious at himself, he glowered at her. ‘Do you not eat meat, Miss Wynchwood?’ Damn, that was hardly conciliatory. Hardly servile. He wanted to curse. Instead, he bent, picked up his haul and strode for his front door.

‘Y-yes,’ she said.

He swung around. ‘What?’

‘I eat m-m-m—’ she closed her eyes, a sweep of long brown lashes on fine cheekbones for a second ‘—eat meat—’ her serious gaze rested on his face ‘—but I prefer it cooked.’ She smiled. A curve of rosy lips and flash of small white teeth.

Devastatingly lovely.

What the deuce? Was he so pathetically lonely that a smile from a slip of a girl brought a ray of light to his dreary day? And she wasn’t as young as he’d thought the first time he saw her. She was one of those females who retained an aura of youth, like Caro Lamb. It was something in the way they observed the world with a child-like joy, he’d always thought, as if everything was new and wonderful.

It made them seem terribly young. And vulnerable.

Another reason for her to stay away from a man jaded by life.

He glanced up at the pink-streaked sky between the black branches overhead. ‘I’ll be but a moment and we’ll be on our way.’ Shielding her view of the carcasses with his body, he dived inside his hut. He hung the hares from a nail by the hearth and stowed his shotgun under his cot out of sight. Swiftly, he stripped off his boots and soiled clothing, grabbing for his cleanest shirt and trousers. He had the sense that if he lingered a moment too long she’d be off like a startled fawn. Then he’d be forced to follow her home. She might not take kindly to being stalked.

To his relief when he got outside, she was still standing where he left her, staring into the distance as if lost in some distant world, the battered portfolio still clutched to her chest.

He picked up the box of charcoal from the stump. ‘Are you ready?’

She jumped.

Damn it. What made her so nervous?

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘After you, miss.’

Then suddenly she turned and walked in front of him. The hem of her brown cloak rustled the dry brown leaves alongside the track. For the niece of a nobleman, her clothes were sadly lacking. Perhaps she chose them to blend with her surroundings when drawing from nature.

She spun around to face him, walking backwards with cheeks pink and eyes bright. ‘There was something I wanted to ask you.’

Of course there was. No female would arrive at his door without an ulterior motive. In the past it usually involved hot nights and cool sheets. But not this one. She was far too innocent for such games. He waited for her to speak.

‘Do you hunt a great d-d—’ Her colour deepened. ‘A lot?’ she finished.

She stumbled over a root. He reached out to catch her arm. She righted herself, flinching from his touch with a noise in her throat that sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh. Her eyes weren’t laughing. Unless he mistook her reaction, she looked thoroughly mortified.

He resisted the urge to offer comfort.

Damn it. Why did he even care? She was one of his employer’s family members. Even walking with her could be misconstrued. But he didn’t want her to trip again. He didn’t want her hurt.

God help him.

He caught her up, and she turned to walk forwards at his side.

‘Do you?’ She peered at him from beneath the brim of her plain brown bonnet with the expression of a mischievous elf. His hackles went up. Instincts honed by years of pleasing women. She definitely wanted something. He felt it in his gut. Curiosity rose in his breast. He forced himself to tamp it down. ‘It is all according to Mr Weatherby’s orders and what Cook requests for his lordship’s table. Most of my work relates to keeping down vermin.’

‘You hunt foxes?’

‘Gentlemen hunt foxes.’ He couldn’t prevent the bitter edge to his tone. ‘I trap them and keep track of their dens so the hunt can have a good day of sport.’ There, that last sounded more pragmatic.

‘Is there a den nearby?’

They left the woods and followed the river bank, the same path he’d walked earlier. ‘There are a couple. One up on Gallows Hill. Another in the five-acre field down yonder.’ He pointed toward the village of Swanlea.

Her eyes glistened with excitement. An overwhelming urge to ask why stuck in his throat. He had no right questioning his betters.

‘Badgers?’