Chapter Four The Gamekeeper #3
“A widow took a lover,” he said. “No husband was deceived. No wife was betrayed. No promise was broken. I can understand why a drawing room might find that catastrophic. I can’t.”
Mary Beth felt the room change.
It was not his approval that unsettled her.
Approval would have placed him above her, dispensing permission for a life she had already lived.
He had done something far more unsettling.
He had declined the right to judge it at all.
“What if the other stories are true?” she asked.
Ambrose’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Are they?”
“Some.”
“Which ones?”
“Ah.” Mary Beth smiled. “Now you sound interested.”
“I am interested.”
The honesty of it moved between them like heat.
Mary Beth’s fingers rested against the back of a chair.
“There was no gardener.”
“That will disappoint the county.”
“There was a gentleman from York.”
Ambrose’s jaw shifted, almost too slightly to notice, but Mary Beth saw it anyway.
“Only once,” she added, unable to resist.
“You don’t owe me an accounting.”
“You seem relieved.”
“Do I?”
“A little.”
He pushed away from the table.
“Then I shall work on my face.”
Mary Beth’s pulse quickened.
“You are jealous.”
“No.”
“That answer was too fast.”
“It was accurate.”
“How disappointing.”
Ambrose came around the end of the table.
He stopped with several feet still between them.
The distance felt deliberate.
“You enjoy provoking men,” he said.
“Only men who insist they cannot be provoked.”
“I did not insist.”
“You implied.”
“Then I was careless.”
“Very.”
Neither smiled now.
Mary Beth could feel yesterday’s moment on the slope returning between them: his hand almost rising to her cheek, his voice rough when he said she was his client, the unfinished thing neither had touched.
Ambrose broke the silence first.
“The north line should be open within three days.”
Mary Beth blinked.
“That is an offensive change of subject.”
“It is a necessary one.”
“Why?”
“Because I am still working for you.”
“Increasingly difficult, was it?”
His eyes held hers.
“Yes.”
The single word carried no humor at all.
Mary Beth’s breath shortened.
Ambrose turned back to the ledger before either of them did something unwise.
He traced one line of faded figures with his finger.
“This payment here,” he said. “Stone carted from the lower quarry. Does Blackthorn still own it?”
For several seconds Mary Beth could not remember what a quarry was.
Then she recovered.
“The land, yes. The workings have been closed since before my husband died.”
“I want to inspect the stone tomorrow. If it matches the original wall, we may be able to reuse local material instead of bringing everything from Leeds.”
Mary Beth moved beside him until their shoulders nearly touched.
“I know the road.”
“Of course you do.”
“Was that resignation?”
“Experience.”
“I shall come with you.”
Ambrose closed his eyes for half a second.
Mary Beth smiled.
“There. That was resignation.”
He opened them again.
“Wear boots.”
“I wore boots yesterday.”
“Wear better ones.”
“Anything else?”
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth.
The movement was so quick she might have imagined it.
She had not.
“Yes,” he said.
“What?”
Ambrose stepped away.
“Stay behind the flags.”
Mary Beth watched him gather the ledgers he needed.
She ought to have been annoyed.
Instead she was thinking about the fact that Ambrose Tavener had heard one of the worst stories told about her, discovered it was substantially true, and somehow made her feel less exposed afterward than she had before he knew.
What disturbed her was how little this resembled the desires she already understood.
Ordinary desire had always made sense to Mary Beth.
Desire had rules, even when society pretended otherwise. It could be entered, enjoyed, ended. It could be hidden behind a garden door and remembered without regret.
But this was not behaving like desire alone.
Ambrose reached the office door.
“Tomorrow at eight,” he said.
“Seven thirty.”
He glanced back. “Why?”
“Because you said eight.”
For a moment he simply stared at her.
Then he laughed.
He laughed then—low, surprised, and entirely unguarded. It made him look younger and made Mary Beth’s entire strategy seem suddenly foolish.
He opened the door.
“Seven thirty, then.”
“Mr. Tavener.”
He paused.
Mary Beth had not meant to say anything more.
But the question came anyway.
“You truly don’t care?”
Ambrose’s attention sharpened; he understood what she meant.
“About the gamekeeper?”
She nodded once.
“I care that people use him as a weapon against you.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
He rested one hand on the doorframe.
“What you did before I met you belongs to you, Mary Beth.”
Her name in his voice was quieter than it had been on the slope.
“If there comes a day when what you do concerns me,” he continued, “I expect I will tell you.”
Mary Beth forgot how to answer.
Ambrose left before she found a way.
The office door closed softly behind him.
Mary Beth stood among three decades of dead men’s accounts and listened to his footsteps fade along the corridor.
Mary Beth remained in the office after his footsteps faded, one hand resting on the open ledger.
Breathing felt unexpectedly easier.
The relief unsettled her more than any condemnation would have done.