Page 9 of Hearts of Briarwall

Spencer joined in his laughter.

“I imagine you’re hungry,” Andrew offered as they left the city behind.

“Starving, as a matter of fact.” He’d had coffee that morning and a packet of biscuits on the train.

“I have a basket Lydia insisted Cook put together for us, just there under the seat.”

Spencer looked beneath his seat to find a willow picnic basket. He pulled it up and opened the lid. Thick sandwiches, a thermos, and two large wedges of cake—carrot from the look of it—with creamy frosting. His stomach rumbled. “Ah, yes, your sister. Bless her. How is she? Still hiding behind curtains?” He reached for a sandwich and offered it to Andrew.

Andrew shook his head, taking the sandwich. “How I wish that were true,” he muttered.

Spencer paused in unwrapping a sandwich for himself. The last time he’d seen Lydia Wooding, she’d been generously sprinkled with freshly mown grass and fallen apple blossoms, a smear of mud on her clothes. It had been a brief spectacle, as she was being chased upstairs by her scolding governess. “I remember her as excessively shy and always escaping out of doors.”

“That’s the one.”

“She was your only thought when you learned—” He paused, uncertain how welcome the memory was of that time immediately following his parents’ death.

“Yes. She’s still one of my top priorities.” Andrew gracefully diffused Spencer’s concern. “Just above the running of Briarwall. She’s nervous, you know? About playing hostess.”

“I’ll be sure to be the model guest. We’ll slide down the bannister for dinner, correct?”

Andrew grinned. “Knowing Lydia, she’d most likely lead the way.” He chuckled. “She’d murder me if she knew I’d told you that.”

“I promise to act surprised.”

Both men laughed.

After several miles of pleasant quiet between the two men, and polishing off the last of the hearty lunch, Spencer’s nerves had uncoiled a great deal. The haze and crowds of the city had given way to rolling green pastures, grand estates, rustic villages, and country houses. It had recently rained, but that only brightened the newly greened trees and verges, the turned earth ready for planting. The hills of Surrey rose around them, clumped with woods.

“This is a sight,” Spencer murmured. Birmingham was a center of engineering and industry. The city had overcome much of its workhouse-slum reputation and overcrowded terraced housing problems, but it was still a large, factory-powered engine, far from the serenity on display before him.

“That it is,” Andrew said. “No matter how often I leave, no matter how pleasant a trip I’ve had, it’s still a relief to return to Surrey.”

“How is your humble estate, then?”

Andrew’s features tightened. “’Tis a rambling old farm with an ancient manor and a fair wood,” he growled, sounding more like a tenant than a landlord. He shrugged and faced Spencer, his expression clearing. “The work is extensive and never-ending. Gads, I hate it.” He sighed. “And I love it.”

“Depending on the day?” Spencer asked.

“Depending on the hour.”

Spencer tsked. “Poor old man.” He hesitated but decided he should know the answer to his next question. “Is there aMrs.Wooding, or somebody thereabouts I should know of before we arrive?”

Andrew was already shaking his head. “No. And I ask you not to bring it up in front of Lydia. The girl hounds me to no end. When she thinks I would have time to court a woman, I cannot fathom. I’ll marry when I’m good and ready. Some time when I don’t have my head stuck in ledgers or soil that needs amending, or attending to animal stalls and woods that need managing.”

“You stick your head in the soil? Perhaps you’re right in putting off any marriage business. You’ve some strange work habits, friend.”

Andrew socked him in the arm.

Spencer grimaced, suppressing laughter. “That wasn’t very genteel of you.”

“I slip in and out of gentility these days. For my next demonstration, I’ll ask you outright. Do you have a girl?”

Spencer deserved that. The crushing hollow in his chest had faded, replaced by a numbness he now welcomed. “No, and no thank you. I’ve climbed that hill.” And been tossed off it. “I’ve more important things to focus on.”

One thing, actually: securing the future his father had destroyed in one terrible gamble.

Spencer Hayes was no fool for love. Not anymore.

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