“All right, then. In exchange for riding lessons, including the proper use of a sidesaddle, I will give you two days.”
“Two days? A week.”
Those lavender-blue eyes narrowed a bit. “Two days, until December twenty-third.”
He pretended to think it over, though he knew he had no choice. “Very well,” he agreed, and moved to sit opposite her, stretching out his legs beside her hip, and gestured to the basket. “So, are you going to allow me to sample these picnic viands of yours?”
“Of course.” She set aside her sketchbook and her pencil, then folded her legs beneath her, tucking her feet under her hips and out of his view, which was probably a good thing.
She placed the picnic basket between them and opened it. Anthony leaned back on his hands and watched as she laid out their meal of roast chicken, apples, cheese, bread and butter. “No wine?” he asked. “Miss Wade, a picnic should always have wine.”
“Not necessarily.” She pulled a bottle of cider and a glass out of the basket. She pushed up the metal clip of the bottle that held the stopper in place. “If our picnic were in Palestine,” she added, as she poured cider into the glass, “you would not have wine.”
“Nor cider.”
“True.” She held out the half-empty cider bottle to him.
He stared at the bottle in her hand, but he did not move to take it. “I wish we were in Palestine,” he said abruptly.
“Do you? Why?”
“I should like to see it, along with all the other places you have been. Egypt, Syria, Morocco.” Even saying the names stirred something inside him, a longing he had often felt but never acknowledged, and he surprised himself by confessing, “God, how I envy you.”
She stared at him, seeming just as surprised as he by his admission. “You envy me?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward and took the bottle from her hand. “You have ridden camels, you have lived in tents amid Roman ruins, and you have had the opportunity to be part of excavations throughout the Mediterranean crescent. What a romantic, adventurous life. Is it so hard to believe that I would envy you?”
“Well, yes,” she said with a half laugh, and gestured to the lush scenery all around them. “You are a duke. You have all that life can offer.”
“So it would seem.” He took a swallow of cider, then set the bottle on the short grass at the edge of the blanket. He leaned back again on his hands, staring up at the monument to idleness that stood behind her. “There is one thing you have that I lack, the one thing I long for more than anything else because it the one thing I can never have.”
“What is that?”
“Freedom.”
She shook her head, uncomprehending as she pulled the loaf of bread toward her and reached for a knife from the basket. “You have money and power. If one has those, one can do anything.”
“Perhaps it seems that way, but it is not true. I may have the means to do whatever I please, but I do not have the opportunity.”
“I do not understand.”
He met her gaze. “My father died when I was twelve, and I became the Duke of Tremore. My uncle served as my guardian and fulfilled my actual duties until I was sixteen, but from the day my father died, I established the power of my position. I made all the decisions, and it was I who told my uncle what was to be done, not the other way around.”
“At the age of twelve? But you were a boy.”
“I had known all my life that I would be the duke, and that someday I would be required to step into that position. Even at twelve I was old enough to appreciate power and what it means. I could, perhaps, have taken the easy road and done all manner of enjoyable things, such as travel, but I knew my estates were the core of my life, and I felt they deserved my full attention. I never took the Grand Tour. I have never been out of Britain in my life.” He gave her a slight smile. “So I am forced to be an armchair traveler. I will never see Rome or any of the many other fascinating places of the world.”
“But why do you not go now?” she asked as she began to slice bread. “You could afford to go anywhere on earth if you wished to do so, and surely a few months away would not go amiss.”
“I can never seem to find the time. Being a duke is an enormous job, Miss Wade. The tasks and duties are demanding and endless.”
“And you say I am too severe and sensible!”
He conceded the point with a nod. “Perhaps I was speaking as much to myself as to you, for my excavation is the only indulgence I allow myself.”
She stopped slicing bread. “I see now why the excavation is so important to you,” she said softly. “It is your Grand Tour.”
“Yes.”
