Page 18 of Charlotte

“I am not a gossip.”

“No.”

“We are in a churchyard.”

“That does not improve the question.”

“It makes lying ill-advised.”

His gaze lifted to hers with reluctant attention. “You think I would lie to you?”

“No. I think you would answer another question and hope I did not notice.”

That time, the corner of his mouth moved and stayed for one dangerous second before vanishing.

“You learned that from your sister?”

“I have a natural gift.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Warmth spread through Lottie’s chest before she could stop it. His compliments, if they were compliments, arrived so dryly they might have passed as ordinary remarks. That made them worse. Better. Both.

He looked away first.

“I wrote to the sisters before winter,” he said. “Before matters changed.”

His right hand shifted inside his coat again. Lottie kept her eyes on his face. It took effort. She hoped he would notice.

“Do you wish you had not written?” she asked.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then, quietly, “I wish a great many things were different.”

Lottie drew a careful breath. “Were the letters lies?”

His head came up. “No.”

“Not any of them?”

“No. So you read them?”

“Nearly every day. When you wrote a home ought to have a woman’s laughter in it, was it true?”

Color rose beneath his beard. Lottie had not known a man could blush through a beard. She found the discovery very moving.

“That was foolish,” he said.

“It was my favorite line.”

“It should not have been.”

“Then you should have written a worse one.”

The almost-smile appeared again, unwilling and brief. Then it faded.

“Miss Bellamy, you seem a kind girl.”