Chapter 4
The back field, Mya discovered, was a stretch of land at the foot of the hills that sloped up beyond the house.
It was not landscaped the way the rest of the grounds were, only crossed by the tracks deer had worn through the vegetation.
Lord McGregor, she was told, often walked there.
Though it was Lottie's property, his land adjoined their own, and she did not mind him wandering through.
On a morning three days after their trip to Inverness, and her first encounter with the lord, Mya decided to take a walk there herself.
Eleanora and Lottie were each in their studios, working on projects that she had no part in.
Both had invited her to sit with them if she liked, but Mya found she was restless after the days of rain that had kept them all inside.
It was curiosity that led her back beyond the garden. Perhaps a rather morbid curiosity, actually. She wanted to see where she had been found before she had woken up in Lottie and Ella's guest room.
Finding the place, however, proved to be nearly impossible.
There were no distinctive landmarks in the field beyond the occasional rock sticking up from the grass, and no one had told her any specifics.
Some part of her had half expected to find a sign of some sort.
Blood, maybe. Or grass trampled in odd patterns.
But there was nothing. She had given up and was turning to make her way back to the house when a figure came over the rise ahead of her.
It had to be Lord McGregor, she realized almost instantly.
Who else would be walking through Lottie and Eleanor’s back field?
Or someone as tall and roguishly handsome—even from far away.
Mya briefly considered pretending as though she hadn’t seen him and going on her way, but he had appeared so close to her that she was fairly certain he wouldn’t be fooled.
Before she could make a decision either way, he’d raised an arm and called a hello.
Mya wondered if he thought she was one of the ladies of the house.
It was highly doubtful that he had any interest in apologizing for his behavior at the market. Sighing, she waved back at him.
“Good morning, Miss Mya,” he said as soon as he was close enough that he didn’t have to shout.
“Lord McGregor,” Mya said, only just verging on polite.
“I think, perhaps, we began wrong,” he said.
“I wonder why that is,” Mya retorted.
He laughed, a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “You are not like any woman I have ever met.”
“And yet, you’re exactly like every man I have ever met.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Mya had met a grand total of two men since waking up with no memory, and one of those men was Doctor MacAslan, who had been nothing but gentlemanly.
But the sentiment felt real. Mya was sure she had known other men in her previous life, and the chances that at least a few of them had annoyed her as much as Lord McGregor did were high enough to gamble on.
The reply prompted another chuckle, and the sound of it settled low in Mya’s belly, warming her from the inside out. Mya ignored the feeling.
“Laughing at me isn’t going to convince me otherwise,” she pointed out.
His eyebrows lifted. “If you are going to continue to look for things to be displeased with, I’m sure that you will find them, but might I suggest you stop and consider actually hearing what I am saying instead of immediately jumping at my throat?”
The reprimand stung. Mya lifted her chin, arms crossed over her chest, and stared him down. “I’ve heard what you are saying,” she said.
“Yet you continue to behave in such a fashion. I thought I was doing you a favor, giving you an excuse, but I see now that you have none.”
“Think what you like.”
If he was going to lecture her, she was hardly going to remain and allow him to go on. She spun on her heel and started toward the house.
“Mya!”
She paused. Turned. He was standing closer than she had expected, near enough that she almost imagined she could feel the heat of his body against her own. Her throat felt suddenly tight. Her heart beat faster in her chest. “What?” she asked, forcing the word to come out flat.
“Are you truly going to walk away without so much as a word? I did save your life, you know.”
Mya’s fingers curled against her palms. “And just what does that have to do with this? Do you feel as though I owe you something for saving me?” she demanded.
“Of course not.”
He sounded offended enough that Mya believed him. Still, she wondered what he’d meant by it. “Then why bring it up at all?”
“It is something a normal person might consider a good quality in another,” he said, tone dry.
There was something about his voice, just then, the angle of the light on his face…
Then it was gone. Mya shook her head. If they had known each other before her accident, he would have mentioned, surely.
Unless there was something to be gained by keeping her in the dark.
Maybe it wasn’t luck that he had found her in the field.
But Mya dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. Whatever she thought of him, he didn’t seem like the sort of man who would be responsible for harming a woman.
“You can take a step back, now,” she said.
One corner of his mouth curled upward. “Is that so?”
“It is so.”
“And yet,” he said, “here I am.”
So close, he smelled faintly like ink and old paper, and beneath that of something warm and living.
That too seemed strangely familiar, and Mya wondered if she was doomed to always be having flashes of familiarity that never resolved themselves into genuine memory, like a picture not properly developed.
She found herself swaying forward, drawn toward him as though he exerted some physical pull.
His head tipped down. For the barest second, they almost touched, breath mingling warm between them.
Mya took a quick step back. Lord McGregor reached out, then stopped.
His hand fell back to his side before it had even touched her.
They stood for a moment, stock still, staring at each other, and then Mya turned and hurried back toward the house, feeling his eyes on her until the trees cut her off from his view.