FIVE
Fiesole, Italy
There ye be, Miss Rutherford.”
Chrissi looked up as Mr. Maclagan’s shadow fell across the sketchbook she had spread atop her skirts, pencil gliding as she practiced her drawing skills.
Her heart frolicked in her chest, happy as a week-old lamb at the sight of him.
Over the past fortnight, she and Mr. Maclagan had shared stolen glances, speaking to one another whenever possible.
But this was the first time he had deliberately sought her out.
“Mr. Maclagan.” She shielded her eyes to gaze up at him. “Well met.”
Grinning, he sat down on the grass beside her.
“’Tis a bonnie spot ye have here, lass.” He wrapped his arms around his knees, taking in the view.
It was indeed bonnie, as he had said. Set upon the hill rising to Fiesole, the grassy knoll—dotted with wildflowers and roses in bloom—provided a stunning vista of Florence.
In the distance, a sea of terracotta roof tiles undulated beneath towers and domes—the medieval spire of Santa Croce, Brunelleschi’s dome, the crenelated defenses of the Palazzo Vecchio.
Of course, Chrissi only wanted to look at him. To ponder the smooth skin of his neck and watch the wind ruffle his hair.
“I come here when I wish to think. And sketch, obviously.” She tilted her sketchbook toward him.
He smiled politely, but Chrissi knew her drawing skills were average at best. Nothing like the drawings she had seen him produce—plants and stone and bits of history. The world came alive under his pencil.
Thankfully, he nodded approvingly at her sketch before lifting his warm brown eyes to her face. Chrissi willed herself not to blush.
“And what thoughts grace your lovely head, Miss Rutherford?”
Lovely.
Her cheeks burned.
Later, Chrissi would wonder if perhaps it was the compliment that loosened her tongue. Or maybe just the thrill of having Alistair Maclagan’s attention focused on her, gaze earnest and listening.
Regardless, she confessed, “I wish to write. To see my ideas about archeology published in journals like my father.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Ye can do that as a woman?”
“No.” The word emerged half sigh, half defeat. “That is the rub, obviously. My femaleness.”
The fire in his brown eyes stated, rather clearly, that he considered her femaleness to be rather delightful.
“In order to publish,” she continued, “I would need to have a man’s name alongside my own.”
His head tilted. “What about your father?”
Chrissi’s mouth twisted to one side. “My father feels that tying my name to his in a publication would only cheapen both our work.”
“As others would assume ye had only been published out of charity.”
Chrissi nodded.
“Ir seems a shame,” he said, “for your brilliance to remain tucked inside your head, no matter how pretty a package it is.”
Her blush deepened.
“My assumed brilliance, you mean,” she had to say. “Perhaps my ideas are drivel.”
His gaze raked her from head to toe, setting gooseflesh skittering down the back of her arms.
“Ah, lass. After two weeks of working beside ye, watching how ye study and document things . . . Well, I ken brilliant is the only thing ye could ever be.”
Chrissi rather forgot to breathe.
They stared and stared, her lungs struggling to take in enough air. Finally, she had to look away . . . anything to alleviate the giddy infatuation banding her rib cage.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“What if . . .” he began, hesitantly. “What if another gentleman offered himself as tribute? A male scaffolding holding aloft those brilliant”—here he shot her a telling look—“ideas of yours. I am utterly unknown in the field, as of now, so no one could say I offered ye charity. If anything, ’twould be the other way round.
Others would see me for the supporting buttress that I am. ”
Chrissi’s jaw sagged as her mind scrambled to assimilate the reality of what he was offering.
“You would . . .” She blinked. “You would do that? Foster a joint publication between us?”
“Aye. I would. Ye write, and I will illustrate.”
“Even making it clear to a publisher that I am a woman?”
“Ye should have more faith in your ideas. They are worthy of any man.” He grinned. “I could be Alis to your Chris if a gendered name exchange helps.”
Alis and Chris.
Oh! She very much liked the sound of that.
“Do you let all the ladies call you Alis?” she had to ask.
“Only the bonniest ones,” he chuckled.
Chrissi feared her blush matched the red of the poppies ringing the field.
“Well . . . Alis . . . I should be honored to be your Chris.”
She extended her hand.
He stared at it before slowly, almost reverently, pressing his palm to hers.
The contact sent fireworks bursting beneath her skin. Chrissi briefly worried the heat licking up her arm would set the grass afire.
“Chris,” he smiled. “I can’t wait to see all the splendid things ye write for us.”