Chapter Five
Dom awoke to birdsong and in a far softer bed than his one above Princes.
Ah, Norfolk. Part of him missed the clatter of horses in their traces and the smoky waft of coffee from the coffeehouse next
door to his family’s shop. Yet something savory was baking, the linen was soft and clean, and the beds at this inn were ridiculously
spacious and comfortable. He sat up and scrubbed a hand across his face.
The same hand that held Tess Hawthorne’s last night.
He’d enjoyed that simple contact far too much.
A knock sounded at the door, and he quickly dressed in trousers and a rumpled shirt. He’d almost forgotten this part from
his previous stay when he and Eve organized an exploratory dig nearby. The innkeeper’s wife seemed to have impeccable timing,
delivering breakfast the moment her inn’s occupants stirred.
“Mrs. Randall, you—” His greeting died on his tongue, and for a moment his brain couldn’t muster any other words.
“Good morning, Mr. Prince.” Tess Hawthorne stood in the inn’s narrow hallway, looking fresh and lovely and smiling warmly
at him as if she’d stepped right out of that not-so-proper dream he’d had of her during the night.
“Is that for me?” he finally managed, though his mind still felt sluggish and his eyes kept straying to her smile. Still there.
Not a figment of his imagination.
“Indeed.” She offered him the cup of steaming coffee on a little tray with a scone, a crumpet, and some sort of biscuits. “Mrs. Randall said you prefer this to tea, and the rest is freshly baked.”
Dom took the tray, and his stomach rumbled.
“I know it may seem early . . .” She swept her gaze around his room and the bed he’d just rolled out of. “But Lord Fenbridge
is extraordinary among aristocrats in that he prefers early calls. He might be less prickly if we seek him out this morning.”
“Then I’ll wash and dress quickly and we can set off.”
At the word dress, she flicked her eyes down to the spot where his bare chest was exposed by his half-buttoned shirt.
Dom tried not to grin. Maybe he hadn’t misread her reaction to him yesterday entirely.
“I’ll . . . wait downstairs.”
“I won’t be long.”
Dom rushed through washing, shaving, and dressing in one of the finer day suits he’d brought along with him, all while stealing
bites of Mrs. Randall’s buttery baked goods. As Fenbridge’s agreement was crucial to the success of the whole endeavor, he
decided the nobleman was worth the effort of donning his best. Yet Dom was also intensely aware that Miss Hawthorne waited
for him.
Twenty minutes later, he descended the stairs to find her assisting Mrs. Randall to set out small vases of fresh flowers on
each table in the taproom.
“There you are,” Tess said as soon as she spotted him. “And well-polished too.” She took in his suit, cravat, and waistcoat,
and seemed to find him wanting.
She approached with a little pinch between her brows. When she was close enough for her floral scent to surround him, she
fixed her gaze on his neckcloth.
“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the silk cloth.
“Yes,” Dom replied a little too quickly.
He had no doubt he’d made a muck of tying his tie. He hated the bloody things and wore them as infrequently as possible.
After only a moment’s hesitation, she took the cloth in her hands and pulled it loose.
Dom studied her face—the soft peach flush in her cheeks, the plump fullness of her lips, the quiet focus in her eyes, the
scatter of copper freckles across her nose.
When the back of her hand brushed his chin, she glanced up. “Stop staring, Mr. Prince, and tip your head back.”
He bit his lip against a teasing retort and obeyed. But with his gaze off her face, he became acutely aware of her nearness,
the warmth of it, her simple floral scent. Lavender, perhaps. It shouldn’t have been so enticing.
“There.” She stepped back, tilting her head to survey her work. “Much better.”
“Thank you.” He offered her a smile to match the one she’d offered upon greeting him, but she didn’t return it.
“Shall we head off?”
Dom nodded, and Tess waved a goodbye to Mrs. Randall.
“Thank you for the help, Tess dear. Bless you.”
They walked in silence for a mile, and Dom wondered what he’d done to burst the momentary amity between them.
“So he’s not an amiable sort?” Dom tried, keeping his tone light and his gaze from lingering on her.
She looked ridiculously lovely in a pale peach day dress. No gloves. No hat. She’d forgone the starched shirtwaist and ink-black
skirt he’d seen her in the day before and seemed lighter, more at ease. Or at least she had been until she’d tied his tie.
Perhaps she was simply pleased to be back home. The whole of Wiggenstow seemed to adore her. They’d been greeted warmly by half a dozen villagers as they made their way down the lane and past a few cottages before heading toward Fenbridge Hall.
In reply to his question, she slid him a sly smile and let out a knowing little chuckle. “Van Arsdale didn’t forewarn you
at all? You’ll soon see.”
Dom knew she was worried about their meeting with the curmudgeonly nobleman whose estate he could glimpse in the distance,
but he was so pleased that her smile had returned that he couldn’t worry about Fenbridge.
Miss Hawthorne’s smiles set something in him alight. Warm and sweet, and every bit as provoking as the scowl she’d given him
in Lady Goddard’s library. He didn’t want to examine the why of it too closely, didn’t dare snuff it out. But she affected
him in a way no woman ever had.
“When did this row between Fenbridge and your father start?” Dom asked, recalling her insistence that the nobleman maintained
a grudge against the Hawthorne clan.
“Oh, there wasn’t a single disagreement. They rowed constantly, and then they’d make amends, and then something would set
them off again.” She shrugged. “They were sometimes friends, sometimes enemies.”
“And now Fenbridge has transferred his ire toward your father to you and your brother?”
She shook her head and a tendril of honeyed-blond hair slipped across her cheek. “I think he misses my father, but Tristan
and I asked him about digging on his land, and that set him off.”
“Your father never pressed him on the matter?”
“I don’t know. Papa preferred books and historical documents to digging up antiquities. It all interested him, of course. He read of Schliemann’s excavation of Troy, Petrie’s digs in Egypt, and he knew what might be in those mounds . . .”
“A hoard,” Dom finished for her when her voice trailed off as her eyes fixed on the broad, long mounds dotting Fenbridge land.
One was more pronounced. As if some giant had tucked his largest loaf of bread under the green field.
“So your American has mostly persuaded Fenbridge?”
“Van Arsdale offered him a fortune, but he’s yet to sign for his permission.” Dom tipped his head toward her. “Your assistance,
well, your father’s, was meant to be a final enticement.”
Miss Hawthorne reached out a hand and pressed back against his chest. Dom stopped and was a bit disappointed when she immediately
ceased touching him.
“My assistance might displease him,” she insisted. A flash of worry put a crimp in her brow. “Do you have an alternative plan
if he doesn’t sign?”
Dom shook his head.
“Isn’t that a wee bit presumptuous of the American? And you?”
Dom couldn’t help but smile.
“Why do you look so pleased, Mr. Prince?”
She was why, but he could hardly tell her that. Whether they were sparring or chatting amicably, he was enjoying himself.
And it was a feeling he hadn’t felt in . . . if he was honest, a good long while.
“We’ll convince him. A bit of that spirit of yours and my undeniable charm—”
She scoffed, but it immediately turned to a chuckle. “You do not lack for confidence.” Her hand came up and tucked that stray lock of hair behind her ear. “The difficulty is that Fenbridge is not fond of my spirit.”
Without explaining further, she turned and began walking again, her stride long and determined.
Dom’s longer stride brought him to her side in a few steps.
“He once told me I should cease my meddling and marry. That I needed taming.”
“Old fool,” Dom said, though a more colorful condemnation danced on the tip of his tongue.
“You don’t go in for the taming of ladies?” she asked teasingly.
“No, I bloody well don’t.” Dom felt his own temper rising and took a deep breath to tamp it down. His father had been given
to angry outbursts, and it was one aspect of the man he never wanted to emulate.
But the idea of breaking ladies’ spirits struck something deep inside him that railed at the notion that anyone must diminish
themselves to fit into society’s strictures.
“Ridiculous,” he added with a glance her way.
A tiny smile flickered on her lips. “Well then,” she finally said.
Dom wasn’t certain if it meant he’d grown in her estimation, but he hoped it did.
Not long after, they crossed from grassy field to gravel drive and started toward the enormous country house that sat on a
small rise, higher than all the mounds nearby. It had been designed to impress, but the years had taken their toll. Though
the worn stone and swaths of ivy covering the hall’s face only added to its character.
“Lady Fenbridge has been gone for over a decade and his lordship never remarried.” As their footsteps crunched on gravel on their approach to the front door, she added, “I suspect he must be very lonely. Perhaps that’s why he’s so cross with everyone and everything.”
When they’d almost reached the polished wooden front door, Miss Hawthorne stopped and turned to him.
“Do I look presentable?” She swiped a hand at the loose hair at her ear again, tucking it into neatly pinned hair that had
been pulled back into a knot at her nape.
The ruffled fabric at her neckline had become untidy during their walk, particularly near her shoulder.
He approached, lifting a hand. “May I?”
She shot him a wary look, studied his expression a moment, and nodded.