“What?”
“You know. Doing sunshine, feeling the seashore … tell me how I might grasp this evening better, so that I might remember it always.”
He leaned forward and drew something into the sand, breathing a laugh, glancing up at her face. He stared for too long and too deep, until a startling sensation awoke.
“Come.” He slipped off the rock and leaned against it instead. He patted the ground. “Sit.”
She complied without argument. “What is next? Shall we take off our shoes?”
“Too cold for that. Now lie down.” Scooting himself forward, he flattened against the sand and placed his hands behind his head. “How is that?”
She wiggled deeper into the sand, every sense alive as the coldness shivered through her. “What next?”
“Look up.”
“I am.”
“Look harder. You see?”
She squinted into the dark blue sky, where the shadow of a seagull flew overhead and a sliver of a moon appeared from behind a cloud.
“The stars. You see them?”
“No.”
“There’s one.” He pointed to the heavens. “And there. And there. And there.”
She followed his finger, giggling at his enthusiasm, until she spotted the first twinkling dot in the inky sky. “La, but they are lovely.” And with every passing second, with every deepening of the heavens, they grew lovelier. Thousands blinked down at them, brighter than any she’d ever seen—or had she ever looked before?
She couldn’t remember.
She couldn’t remember anyone ever asking her to.
“What do you think of that, Miss Gresham?”
“I think it is perfection.” A moment she wanted to keep. A sight she never wanted to unsee. Much grander than any ball or new dress or trifling party or—
“Come.” He swung himself up, reached for her hands, and pulled her up with him. “You had better dust yourself before we return, lest you appear as if you have met with a tumble from the horse.”
She shook the evidence from her hair, wiped it from her dress, though she only wanted to burrow back into the sand a little longer. A weave of emotion tangled through her as she mounted again, each thread different and startling.
One of guilt for doing what Father would disapprove of. One of satisfaction for the end of her loneliness. One of ecstasy for each of the adventures unfolding before her.
And one of confusion. Terrible confusion.
Because the truth of it was she did not view William Kensley as a brother at all.
“Not goin’ to bed, then?” Pulling the cap off his head, the stable boy Isaac approached the workbench, both coat pockets bulging.
William scooted over. “Have a seat.” In the yellow glow of the lantern hanging from a square wooden post, he handed a second bridle and rag to the boy. Strange that doing simple things, these menial tasks like polishing the red-tinted leather, could feel so good. As if he were accomplishing something. As if working with his hands, here with Isaac, had purpose.
William breathed in the strong, oily scent of his cleaning mixture then sighed. Was it possible he was content here? That without Rosenleigh, without his green countryside, without the labyrinth and the title of gentleman, he was still happy? Or was it only an illusion?
One Isabella had painted for him?
“I walked Browny-the-Beau today. Mr. Ribton said I could, if I finished the rest of me chores.”
William focused on the freckle-faced lad. “A fine horse.”
