She stopped and looked over her shoulder.
Drew jogged toward her, his greatcoat open and swinging around his ankles. “May I join you?” He stepped into rhythm beside her.
“Mm. As you wish.” A sign? He’d been amicable all week. Perhaps now he’d be more so regarding questions he’d refused to answer previously.
She glanced at him. He’d lowered his head against the wind and stuffed his hands into his pockets. His strides, cut short a bit to mirror hers, seemed to want to break free.
“You are restless here,” she said.
He grimaced. “A bit. But I’ve made good use of the study. It is worth falling behind.”
Butwhatwas worth it? She had to know. She had to take a risk. What else was all this for? A lovely week was nothing if it went nowhere.
She slipped her arm through his and rested her other hand on his forearm, holding her breath. Surely he’d shake her loose.
He pulled her close. Heaven. Heaven had descended to the sandy beach, the waves, the autumn sun high in the afternoon sky. Heaven had become the points of contact secured between their bodies. What next? What other risks could she take?
“Drew, let us play a game.”
He glanced at her. “Which one? Do you have your list?”
“I do not need it. Let’s play Questions. I ask, you answer. You ask, I answer.”
His shoulders hunched higher around his ears, and tension thrummed through his stiff limbs like a discordant note. But he did not deny her.
“I’ll go first,” she said. “Did you consider a business other than your agency?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It was what I knew, what I could do. That was two, Amelia. My turn.” She nodded. “Have you ever considered marriage?”
“Yes.” The waves crashing beside them almost drowned out the single word. She spoke again before he could eclipse her turn to interrogate him. “Tell me about the moment you decided to start your agency.”
“Why?”
“We have spent most hours together over the last week, but few talking. We’ve raced and played and shot arrows and read books. But I still feel a stranger to you, and you to me.”
His hand grasped her elbow, stopping her so he could peer down at her with hard blue eyes. “We arenotstrangers.”
“Tell me, then.”
He licked his lips, looked away from her, dropped her arm, slipped his hand back into his pocket. “I returned home from Cambridge for Christmas. I was told I would not be returning. The family no longer had the funds to afford such an extravagance. Everyone was taking on work, attempting to pay off our father’s debts. You know we are not well off.”
Her own hands found the pockets of her pelisse as the sun fell behind a cloud. She shivered. “I’m aware.”
“I decided to become a tutor. I enjoyed learning. I had helped several of my classmates pass exams they never would have on their own. Tutoring did not seem such a poor exchange for Cambridge. And I’d be helping my family instead of being a burden on them. The first house I worked for was the family of a young fellow I’d been at university with.” A pause. “He thought it quite diverting to humiliate me. Invite me to eat with the family then order me about like a footman. My father was insulted before me regularly.”
“He sounds horrid.”
“A mean little devil. He ordered me one night to carouse with him in a nearby village. He did the carousing. I only pretendedto. And when he’d had enough liquor to sink a ship, he ordered me to take the barmaid in the corner of the pub.”
Her hands tightened on his arm. “You didn’t.”
“Of course not. I punched him, broke his nose, and left before they could fire me. His father refused to pay my wages. Time and pride lost.”
“So you established the agency so others like you do not have to suffer as you did.”
