Page 10 of Blame It on the Earl (The Duke's Estates 3)

“Oh, good.”

They walked down three steps, across a narrow swath of flowers, and down three more to a wider terrace with a small gazebo at one end.

Miss Moran looked out over the vista. “Obviously I will not hold you to your offer,” she said, her voice trembling a bit. “The circumstances were unfortunate, with people crowding around. I could not force you into marriage over something that was not your fault.”

“But it was,” Kenver replied. “I grabbed for your hand and pulled you down. If I’d been more careful, you wouldn’t have fallen. You could have run for help.”

“And none of it would have happened at all,” she replied.

He felt a pang of regret at the idea. “We would never even have spoken, I suppose. We’d have remained strangers all our lives.”

She looked up at him, and Kenver felt that she too was remembering how they’d huddled together under his coat and nestled close to sleep. Their talk in the darkness had felt so sweetly intimate, more so than any other connection he could recall, even though there had been no caresses.

“But we’re still strangers, aren’t we?” she asked.

“No,” he answered without thought.

She gazed up at him.

“Don’t you feel we formed a connection?”

She flushed and looked away.

“I meant nothing improper…” Kenver began and broke off. The things his parents had been saying about Miss Moran told him what kind of gossip must be spreading. Vulgar people would be even worse than his family. He’d heard that sort of talk where men gathered to drink and gamble. They not only assumed a man and woman caught alone would behave shamefully but enjoyed imagining each licentious detail. And somehow, inevitably, it was all the female’s fault.

Sarah Moran must know something of this. Yet she didn’t moan or weep or complain. She never had through all their trials. She was…intrepid. That was the word for her.

A spatter of rain hit the flagstones. Kenver took her hand and drew them into the shelter of the little gazebo. A rush of wind drove the rain after them. It was the kind of squall that could capsize small sailboats on the sea. They backed into the driest corner, close together in the tiny space. “Do you think we have offended Poseidon somehow?” asked Miss Moran.

Kenver looked down at her, once again startled and delighted. “No one but you would think of Greek gods at this moment. Poseidon rules the oceans, doesn’t he? I believe Zeus is responsible for rain.”

“And thunder and lightning. Oh dear.” She leaned over to peer at the sky.

This pressed her against his uninjured side, her body warm and soft and lithe. A wave of physical attraction shivered through Kenver even as she quickly pulled back.

“And Zeus is so…unseemly,” she added.

Kenver laughed. “A bit of a blackguard, in fact.”

She nodded self-consciously.

“But perhaps our adventure was a gift from some kinder gods,” he said.

She turned to stare up at him, lovely blue eyes wide. “A gift?”

“Why not?”

“They say one should beware of the Greeks bearing gifts.”

“I assure you I am not a Trojan horse,” he answered. She laughed, and Kenver felt a surge of triumph. “And we needn’t think of Greeks. What about our own Celtic gods?”

“The spirits of Lyonnesse?”

“Why not?”

Miss Moran turned to gaze out over the river. “This summer, a fortune-teller promised me an adventure,” she said. “I didn’t know it would be…”

“Cold and uncomfortable and frightening?” he suggested.

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