Chapter 12 #2
“Lord Westmore.” Nell folded her hands in front of her. She pressed her nails hard into her palms to keep herself from reaching up to touch her heated cheeks.
They settled around the tea table, which was laden with more food than Nell’s family ate in a week.
Scones piled high with clotted cream and jam, tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off, seed cakes, ginger biscuits, and a towering arrangement of fruit that looked too beautiful to eat.
Lily devoured three scones in rapid succession, cream smearing the corner of her mouth.
Oliver picked at his food with studied disinterest, even as a pile of sandwiches accumulated on his plate.
Martha sat quietly beside Philippa, her seamstress’s eyes cataloguing every stitch of the older woman’s gown while she nibbled a ginger biscuit with the careful restraint of someone unaccustomed to being waited on.
Daphne kept shooting Nell significant looks across the table, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline whenever Dominic spoke. Nell ignored every single one of them.
Dominic answered Lily’s endless questions about the library with a patience that made Nell’s chest ache.
He explained which shelves held which genres and described the reading alcove with the best light.
“I shall show you the section devoted to gothic novels before you leave,” he promised, reaching for the teapot.
“The east wing is haunted,” he said, his face perfectly serious and his chilling eyes solemn as a judge’s. “A lady in grey. She walks the halls at midnight, weeping for her lost love.”
Lily leaned forward over her half-eaten scone, her spectacles sliding down her nose, utterly captivated. “Have you seen her?” She whispered.
“Once.” Dominic held her stare without blinking. “When I was your age. The sound of her crying woke me from a dead sleep.”
“He’s lying.” Philippa set down her teacup with a delicate clink, her eyes twinkling with suppressed laughter. “He made up that story to scare his cousins when they came to visit. He made poor Margaret cry for an hour.”
Dominic shrugged, reaching for another sandwich with complete unconcern. “They deserved it. Margaret put a toad in my bed.”
Lily giggled, the sound bright and unexpected. She clapped a hand over her mouth the way the laugh had escaped against her will. “I would have put two toads.”
“I like you.” Dominic’s mouth twitched at the corner. It was the closest thing to a smile Nell had seen from him, and something in his face softened in a way that made her heart clench.
An hour passed. The afternoon sun was warm on the terrace.
The children relaxed in his presence with a speed that surprised Nell, and Lily chattered about books and ghosts and castles while Dominic listened with apparent interest. He asked questions that showed he was actually paying attention rather than merely tolerating her.
Oliver gradually thawed enough to ask about the pike in the lake.
He wanted to know how big they grew, how to catch them, and whether Dominic had ever been bitten.
Nell kept her eyes on her tea, on the gardens, or on her children, looking anywhere but at him.
Even so, she felt him watching her like heat from a fire, tracking her movements and lingering on the bare skin of her shoulders.
Every time he shifted in his chair, she grew painfully aware of the movement, for every time he spoke, his rough voice seemed to vibrate through her very bones.
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. If she looked, everyone would see what she was feeling, and she was not yet ready to name those emotions, even to herself.
“The grounds.” Dominic pushed back from the table and rose to his full height, his frame towering over the party and momentarily blocking out the sun. “I shall show them to you.”
The children scrambled up from their chairs before Nell could speak. Lily grabbed Oliver’s hand and dragged him toward the terrace steps, already chattering about the lake and whether there might be toads hiding in the garden.
“Everyone come.” Philippa accepted Martha’s offered arm and rose more slowly, her joints creaking audibly in the quiet afternoon. “These old bones stiffen if I sit too long.”
They set off across the lawn, the grass soft and springy beneath their feet.
Dominic led the way with the children flanking him like eager lieutenants.
The women followed at a more sedate pace, Philippa leaning on Martha’s arm while Daphne walked beside Nell, her eyes fixed suspiciously on the viscount’s broad back.
Philippa’s voice dropped to a murmur meant only for Nell’s ears. “He is not usually like this, you know.”
Nell kept her gaze fixed on her children’s retreating backs, her pace steady. “Like what?”
“Social.” Philippa watched her nephew crouch to show Lily something in the grass, perhaps a flower or an interesting beetle.
“Since the war, he barely speaks to anyone outside the household staff. He rarely leaves the house except to ride alone across the moors. I have been quite worried about him.”
Nell said nothing. She simply pressed her lips together, not trusting herself to speak.
At the lake, Dominic crouched at the water’s edge with Oliver beside him.
He pointed toward a dark, languid shape moving through the depths beneath the overhanging willows.
“See that shadow?” The question drifted across the still air, carrying a low, patient quality.
“That’s a big one. Three feet at least.”
Oliver picked up a flat stone from the shore and flung it at the water with all the force his thin arm could muster. It sank immediately, vanished by the depths without a single bounce, though the boy’s face fell.
“Flatter.” Dominic scanned the stones at his feet, selected one that was thin and smooth, and held it out on his open palm. “Sideways. Like this.” He demonstrated the motion with a sharp, controlled flick of his wrist, catching the air at just the right angle without releasing the stone.
Oliver took the stone and tried again, his brow furrowed in a knot of concentration. The stone took two bounces before it sank, while his whole face lit up with a rare, brilliant smile. He turned to Dominic, his eyes wide with wonder. “Two!”
“Not bad.” Dominic gave a single, approving nod, his expression remaining neutral even as a subtle warmth flickered in his eyes. “Not bad for a first try.”
Nell watched from a distance, her ribs feeling too tight for her lungs. She knew it in her soul: her dead husband would never have crouched in the dirt to teach a boy anything. He had never looked at another person as worth knowing—only worth using.
This was dangerous. It was dangerous for him to be kind, to be human, and to treat her children like they mattered. It had been easier when he was cruel; easier to hate him and easier to resist.
Lily had wandered toward a patch of wildflowers blooming in the shade of an ancient oak.
Martha crouched beside her, helping the girl gather a small bouquet of purple asters and goldenrod.
Daphne stood nearby with her arms crossed, watching Dominic with narrowed eyes that promised violence if he stepped wrong.
The maze loomed ahead of them, its dark green walls rising like a fortress against the pale autumn sky.
“What is in there?” Oliver nodded toward the entrance, the question intended to sound casual even as his eyes danced with curiosity.
“Paths.” Dominic straightened, brushing the lakeside dirt from his trousers with a brisk swipe of his hands. “It’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the way.”
“Do you know the way?” Oliver stepped closer to the towering hedges.
“Every inch.” Dominic’s piercing eyes moved to Nell and held her gaze, a dark, knowing weight behind the words. “I spent half my childhood in there. Hiding from tutors, from my mother, and from anyone who wanted to make me do something I didn’t wish to do.”
They stood near the entrance where the hedges were thick enough to block out the sky. A breeze stirred the leaves, a dry whispering sound that felt like secrets Nell couldn’t understand.
Philippa lowered herself onto a nearby bench with a grateful sigh, fanning herself with one hand. “I think I’ll stay here for a while. You young people go on. Explore and enjoy yourselves.”
“Let’s play hide and seek.” Dominic threw the suggestion out to the group, his posture relaxed while his eyes remained locked on Nell’s face.
Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. “The grounds are perfect for it.” His mouth curved just slightly at the corner. “There are plenty of places to hide.”
Philippa raised a silver eyebrow at her nephew. “Everyone?”
“Not you, Aunt.” That ghost of a smile deepened as he glanced toward her. “You can sit here and judge who hid the best.”
“How generous of you.” Philippa settled deeper into the bench, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“Martha seeks.” Dominic turned to the seamstress, who was startled at being singled out by the master of the house. “She has sharp eyes. A one hundred count, if you please. The gardens and the maze are fair ground.”
Martha blinked her dark eyes in confusion. “Me, my lord?”
“You will find everyone fastest.” Dominic stepped toward the edge of the lawn, signaling the start of the game.
Lily squealed with excitement, bouncing on her toes while her bouquet of wildflowers was clutched and forgotten in her hand. Oliver tried desperately to look bored, but he failed miserably as a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Martha crossed to the ancient oak tree and pressed her palms over her eyes, her tone carrying clear across the garden. “One… Two… Three...”
Everyone scattered.
The children sprinted toward the rose garden, Lily’s laughter trailing behind her like ribbons in the wind.
Daphne ducked behind a nearby hedge, her russet dress disappearing into the greenery.
Philippa waved cheerfully from her bench, calling out that she would pretend to be invisible as she settled her skirts.
Dominic vanished. One moment he was standing near the maze entrance, and the next he was simply gone, swallowed by the landscape as if he’d never been there at all.
Nell stood frozen on the lawn, her heart hammering against her ribs. The maze loomed before her. Its entrance was dark and inviting, promising secrets. Before she could think, and before she could talk herself out of it, she was running toward it.
Inside the maze, the hedges swallowed sound.
The walls rose twelve feet above her head, blocking out the sky and turning the world into a tunnel of green shadows and dappled golden light.
The air was cooler here, damp with the scent of earth and growing things.
Her footsteps on the gravel path seemed to echo strangely, coming back to her from directions that didn’t make sense.
She turned left. Then right. Then left again.
Every path looked the same, with green walls pressing close on either side and gravel crunching underfoot.
Glimpses of sky were visible only directly overhead.
Every turn led to another identical passage, another choice, and another opportunity to lose herself completely.
She was lost already, yet she’d known she would be.
“…forty-five… forty-six...” Martha’s voice drifted faintly through the hedges, muffled and directionless.
Nell kept walking, her pulse quick in her throat, as she searched for somewhere to hide. She looked for a corner, a nook, or a hollow in the hedge; and she needed anywhere Martha wouldn’t think to look.
Dead end. She spun on her heel and doubled back, her yellow skirts swishing sharply against the hedge.
Another dead end. A stone bench was tucked into an alcove, but it was too obvious and too easy to find.
“…sixty-two… sixty-three...” She counted under her breath, fingers pressing into the counter.
Martha’s voice was fainter now, the numbers blurring together, and panic began to rise in Nell’s chest. She should have stayed in the garden, but she should have hidden behind a hedge like Daphne. She should never have run toward this green labyrinth that seemed designed to swallow her whole.
Footsteps sounded behind her. They were quick, purposeful, and closing fast—and she spun around, her heart slamming against her ribs.