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How odd, that walking beside him should feel so natural, as if they’d walked this path together hundreds of times, and would do so again, another hundred times hereafter.
It was a foolish fancy of hers, but it felt as if she’d known him forever.
“Here we are, Miss Harley. The famous Hawthorne Castle Glastonbury thorn.”
She kept her eyes closed for an instant after he spoke. If she could only linger in this moment for a little longer, stop time while the winter sun was warm on her face and his deep, rich voice was in her ears, she’d have this memory right at her fingertips whenever she needed it.
“Miss Harley?”
“Yes?”
He leaned close, his warm breath stirring the hair at her temple. “If you want to see it, you’ll have to open your eyes.”
“Yes, of course. How clever you are, Mr. Ambrose.”
She opened her eyes, and not ten feet in front of her was an enormous tree with a constellation of tiny white flowers in such riotous bloom it looked as if the branches were dusted with a layer of snow. “Oh, how pretty! I didn’t expect it would be in bloom.”
“This type of hawthorn blooms at Christmastime. It’s a magnificent old tree, isn’t it?”
“It is, indeed.” The trunk was a bit gnarled, and the entire tree leaned toward the castle as if seeking protection from the thick stone walls, but it was a grand old tree with its stately trunk and spreading branches and the dainty little flowers like a spinster’s white lace cap atop its head.
“I’ve yet to find another Glastonbury thorn as tall as this one.” He nodded at the tree. “It reaches past the windows on the uppermost floor.”
“It’s quite …” She paused, her gaze catching on one of the windows as the first light snowflakes fell from the sky, wetting her cheeks. The branches rested directly against the glass, as if the tree were attempting to reach whoever was on the other side. “I believe you said this is the western wing of the castle?”
“Yes. This tree loves the light, and it gets as much uninterrupted sun here as a tree can reasonably expect in Scotland. I daresay that’s one of the reasons it grew so tall.”
“That’s my bedchamber! The last window on the left, just there. How marvelous!” There was no reason she should be so delighted, but it was a barren, lonely room, and somehow the tree being just beneath her window cheered her.
“That can’t be your bedchamber.” Mr. Ambrose was staring up at the window, a dark frown marring his brow. “I think you must be mistaken. Those are the attic windows.”
“Yes, I know. My bedchamber is in the attic.”
There was a long silence, then, “Lady Featherstone requires you to sleep in the attic?”
Oh, no. He looked utterly thunderstruck. She’d said too much. “Well, yes. It’s not as if I expect silken sheets and thick Aubusson carpets. I’m a servant, Mr. Ambrose. I’m not anyone special.”
“Yes, you are. You are special, Miss Harley.”
He gazed down at her with fierce green eyes, but the large hands that closed over her shoulders were heartbreakingly gentle. “You’re clever and amusing and one of the kindest ladies I’ve ever known.”
She unfurled like a flower starved for sunlight at his praise, but after suffering Phillippa’s endless barbs and merciless castigations she couldn’t quite make herself believe his words. “I-I am?”
Could it be that after two years of aching loneliness and deprivations, some part of the girl she’d once been still lingered? Under the shabby clothing and raw hands, was a tiny part of her heart still beating?
“You are.” He closed this distance between them, cupping her chin in his palm. “You’re beautiful, Stella.”
A thousand words rushed to her lips, but she never got the chance to say them.
He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, his touch lingering, and gazed down at her as if transfixed by the sight of his darker skin against her pale pink lips.
Then slowly, slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER 7
The kiss was shy at first, a tentative caress as light as the brush of a feather, but the spark of desire between them instantly caught alight, and he couldn’t stop himself from taking her lips in a deep, hungry kiss.
“Let me taste you, Stella,” he murmured against her mouth. “Will you open for me?”
