The Summer of You (9 page)

Except . . . she’d still worn that tension about her mouth, her shoulders. In fact, it seemed exacerbated. The only thing that seemed to melt it—beyond the shock of seeing him in the water—was when he brought down that tin of tea.

That, more than anything, was the reason he sent it to her.

Is it? It wasn’t because you were hoping she would call again?

Byrne put that little voice—the one that felt the need to point out how quiet he found his life—correction, how quiet he had designed his life—to rest. No—if he had wanted her to call, he would have kept the tin, he told himself. She would have been more likely to visit with the prospect of her favorite tea in stock.

Still . . . he thought, his hand on the knob of his porch door, maybe he ought to return the empty basket to her.

It would be a neighborly gesture.

Byrne rolled his eyes at that thought, and—leaving the basket where it was—strolled out into the sunshine.

Not three seconds later, he turned back and grabbed it.

He decided to stroll a bit on his way to the Cottage. There were a dozen paths to explore. The fashion for walking was born and bred in this part of the country: wild untamed lands, nestling the rugged earth under the vastest of skies. Climb high enough in the peaks, and you feel like you could shake God’s hand—or so Dobbs had told him. Byrne had not yet ventured to the highest height, his cane still forcing him within limits. Before his leg, before the war, he would have run up and down, twice a day, to be the first to see the sun in the morning and the last to bid it farewell at night.

He missed who he used to be.

But, he thought, pushing himself out of a fugue—he was having a good day. He had gotten to swim, to push his blood and body. He could not let mourning the loss of his younger, stupider self interfere with that.

He may not have his former mobility, but he was getting a great deal better, he had to admit, as he hobbled his way over a rocky bit of path toward a moss-covered cove of trees, where a stream trickled over well-worn stones in the afternoon sunlight. He lowered himself to sit on a smoothly flattened stone, a bench for resting, provided by Mother Nature. A moment of reverie, allowed and taken.

Of course, he heard her footsteps before she spoke.

“I wonder if you would have been able to navigate this path before you began taking morning swims?” The pert question came from behind him.

Her voice wasn’t really lyrical—there was too much alto, too much rasp and rumble to its tones—but it was unmistakably Lady Jane’s.

She hadn’t meant to head toward Mr. Worth’s house—truly she hadn’t. In fact, she studiously avoided the lakeside path that took her directly to his home. But, in need of a little breathing room for reflection, she had not even entered the Cottage, instead informing her brother—whose presence had sucked up all room for thought in the carriage—that she was going to take the air, in an attempt to work up an appetite for supper. She was very pleased that Jason had simply grunted his assent and gone into the house.

Jane instead chose the path that took her through the woods—the rocky pine forests that fractured the afternoon sun into stage spotlights—falling gracefully on that tree trunk, that large stone, that babbling brook. No, she had no intention of seeing Mr. Byrne Worth today.

Even though he took up the better part of her thoughts.

Fate found him sitting at one of her favorite spots, on the large, smooth stone by the small creek. And yet, fate could not stop her from asking impertinent questions.

“I wonder if you would have been able to navigate this path before you began taking morning swims?” she called out, a small smile coming unbidden to her face.

He didn’t even turn around to respond. “Do you now?” he called out, which Jane took as leave to approach.

“Yes,” she replied, as she reached the sitting stone after nimbly traversing the cobbled ground. She caught his eye, and he nodded for her to sit. “I also wonder what someone who had apparently rejected Dr. Lawford’s advice to use swimming to strengthen his wounded limb would be doing in the waters of Merrymere.”

Jane saw the corner of his mouth twitch. “Did you have a nice day in the village, Lady Jane?”

It was exhausting. “It was lovely,” she said brightly. “Do you ever go into the village, Mr. Worth?”

“Not often.”

“Then how did you know I was there today?”

“Because it’s been raining the past two days—and you’re suddenly full of gossip.” Before she could open her mouth to retort, he continued, “And this is gossip you would have mentioned when we last saw each other, had you known it then.”

Jane smiled, tipping her head back to catch a few slices of sunlight across her face. “Well done, Mr. Worth. No wonder you were so valuable to King and Country.”

She wondered if he would deny it. She wondered if he would ask her how she knew. No one had told her, of course. That would be a breach of the nation’s secrets. But having been thrown into the company of Mr. Worth and his brother Marcus under extraordinary circumstances, she managed to discern it.

It didn’t help that Phillippa—Marcus’s now-wife—was one of the worst secret keepers in the country, as Jane knew from experience.

“Am I meant to wonder what you speak of?” Byrne asked, his voice flat and foreboding.

“That you are the Blue Raven, of course?” Jane replied.

The Blue Raven. The infamous English spy, whose exploits made the front pages of the Times during the war, and whose identity had been held secret since then.

But the events of a month ago—the exposure and destruction of the Blue Raven’s archenemy by Byrne and his brother Marcus—had incited speculation anew. Marcus had refused to acknowledge the rumors. Up here . . . Jane doubted anyone had even heard them. Including Byrne.

“I really am going to murder Marcus one day for thinking up that ridiculous name,” Byrne grumbled, keeping his eyes on the stream. Then he asked, “Are you enjoying the tea?”

“Very much,” she breathed, her demeanor melting just a bit at the thought of his present. She lowered her eyes demurely. “Indeed, one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve received.”

He blushed at that—something Jane didn’t think the man who had climbed naked out of the lake in front of her was capable of. She nudged the basket at her feet with her boot.

“Are you having a picnic?”

“What? Oh—no,” he replied once he saw what she indicated. “I was, er, going to return it to you. Without the contents, of course.”

“Unnecessary—especially considering I purchased a dozen woven baskets in the village today.”

“And likely paid too much for them,” he countered. “They see your carriage, and they mark up the prices, I’d wager.”

Jane’s eyebrow went up. “I hadn’t thought of that. And here I thought I was spurring the local economy.”

Silence descended for a moment as they both stared out over the trickling water.

“In any case—here’s your basket.” He turned his cane over and used its silver handle to hook the article in question and dropped it neatly in her lap.

“You are rather adept with that thing,” Jane remarked.

Byrne regarded his cane, began rolling it between the palms of his hands, its spinning handle catching the light with every quarter turn, like the brightest flickering candle. “It’s been my constant companion for . . . well over a year now. One would expect me to be adept at it.”

“I only wonder as you seem eager to give it up,” she replied, earning a surprised glance from her companion. Finally. She managed to pull a little bit of emotion out of his quietly even state.

“Now, who told you that?” he replied.

“You did. By going swimming in the first place. Especially after you—how did he put it? Told the doctor to ‘do something extremely impolite’ with his advice.” She smiled. “It speaks to your intentions. Poor cane. It shall have to go friendless.”

Byrne Worth, however, did not have the grace to look chagrined. He merely took a politician’s posture, saying, “Perhaps I simply like to swim. And awaited a more temperate time of year to do it.”

“Indeed. You waited just until the eels were at full size.”

“I have been swimming for weeks now; I have yet to run into any eels,” he answered.

“More good you.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I remember very clearly seeing their long slithering bodies when Jason taught me to swim as a child.”

“Have you not gone swimming in the lake since you were a child?” he asked, and when she shook her head in the negative, he commented, “What a waste of a perfectly good lake.”

“I’m also wondering,” Jane continued, as she bit down a smile, “why someone who was so rude as to growl at the rector’s wife this past Christmas was kind enough to take care of my inebriated brother.”

At that he shrugged. “I cannot countenance my momentary lapse in judgment.”

“Growling at the rector’s wife?”

He shook his head. “Helping your brother. Terribly unlike me.”

She laughed aloud at that. “Misguided charity aside, I find it odd that someone who is belatedly taking the town doctor’s advice and being kind to strangers is held in such distaste that the whole village of Reston thinks him to be the highwayman that’s robbing travelers blind.”

And with that, Byrne was silenced. Well, more silenced than his normally reticent self, but this time, Jane was sure, it was out of pure shock.

“Is that what they think of me?” he asked once he regained his voice. She nodded solemnly. “Well, it explains a great deal.”

“Such as . . .” she prodded.

“Such as,” he hemmed, “how no one will look me in the eye in town. Or at the Oddsfellow Arms.”

“I doubt growling at the rector’s wife helps.”

“She was attempting to physically pull me into the church,” Byrne replied. “She stole my cane, certain a little religion would save me.”

“What about being rude to Lady Wilton when she brought you a basket, much like this one?” Jane countered.

Byrne simply shot her a look so cynical and beleaguered, it explained the entire occurrence in a glance.

“It occurs to me that you are suffering from a rather extreme case of first impressions,” Jane replied.

“And what would you know of it?”

“Oh, I know that Reston is particularly enamored of them. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been reminded this past week that I ran through the town square naked when I was five years old.” She paused, idly traced an indentation in the rock between them. “It seems that I’ll always be that little girl in this town. Or else, I’m expected to be my mother,” she finished a little sadly.

She waited for him to say something. Some banal phrase that meant nothing beyond politeness and the invitation to feed his morbid curiosity. It never came. Instead, he kept still but leaned infinitesimally closer to her, his large, warm frame a comfortable presence. She leaned into it, allowing herself to be soothed by his gruff silence, his commiseration, and not tutting sympathy.

She leaned close enough that her arm grazed his, the sensation of touch shocking her out of the reverie with electric contact.

“But,” she said too brightly, covering her reaction to his touch, “I take comfort in the fact that your case is worse than mine.”

“Oh?” he asked, leaning his body back to its original position.

Then, taking a breath, she ventured forth on the idea that had just occurred to her—one that by even the most lenient judges would be considered rash, impulsive, but one that could not be denied. “Yes, while I can easily endure my lot in life as a naked child or lady of quality, you have been effectively shunned from all society. If you want to get back into their graces and make them forget you are a growling hermit, we are going to have to do something drastic.”

“I am not going to tell them who I was during the war,” he said, his whole body stiffening.

“I wasn’t about to suggest it,” Jane replied without hesitation. “Granted, it would turn their opinions around immediately, but then I doubt you would ever have any privacy whatsoever. Tourists would drive by your little house. All the men wanting to claim you as friend, and all the women . . .” She trailed off, turning slightly pink.

“. . . And all the women . . . ?” he prompted.

“Well . . . the Blue Raven does have a, er, reputation with women.”

Byrne looked Jane up and down as she squirmed in her seat. Oh Lord, what made her mention such a thing?

“It is also possible,” he slowly drawled, no doubt enjoying her discomfort, “that the information would further convince the townsfolk that I am adept at thievery.”

She looked up, surprised. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That’s because you still consider what I did during the war honorable,” he said darkly.

Byrne shifted in his seat then, turning his whole body to look at her, forcing her to meet his eye. She tried to remain unruffled, but . . .

Byrne Worth had very blue eyes. Ice blue eyes.

“Three questions, Lady Jane.”

“Hmm?” she asked, then snapping her back to the present conversation, she flushed slightly, and nodded for him to continue.