Page 6 of Winterset

“Even if he does sell the house,” she told him with the sympathetic understanding that had made her a favorite among all the people who worked for the Holcombs, “I would think that a new owner would keep you on as head gardener—and would probably even hire men to help you. Then you would be able to keep the grounds in the manner that you would like to.”

He looked up at her, and a kind of odd, shy smile touched his lips. “Aye, miss, that he would—if he be the kind ye and yer brother be.”

“If he is not, rest assured that there will always be a place for you on the Winterset lands,” Anna replied.

“Thankee, miss. Good day, miss.” Again he gave her the little head bob and began to move away, melting back into the shrubbery.

Anna glanced back at the house. She would have to tell Kit about Reed’s return. It would seem highly odd if she did not. Kit did not know what had transpired between her and Reed. He had been abroad when their father had sold Reed the house, and she had never told him what happened. He might have heard rumors from others, she supposed, but he had never brought up the subject. He would have to call on Reed when he arrived. It would be impolite to do anything else, and it would cause talk. But surely Reed would not return the call, given what had passed between them, so if she avoided any parties that he might attend…

But she knew that idea was ridiculous. She could not pretend to be ill for however many days or weeks Reed decided to stay here. She was filled with a cowardly impulse to flee. If only there were some relative to whom she could make a sudden visit, but she was sorely lacking in relations on both sides of her family. Her uncle was childless, and the great-aunt who had raised her mother after her parents’ tragic deaths had died a few years ago. The only other possibility was a cousin of her father’s, but she was a busy woman with five adolescent girls whom she was continually in the process of trying to marry off, and she had made it quite clear to Anna years ago, when Anna should have made her debut, that she had little desire to have another girl in the house, especially one who would outshine her own plain daughters.

There was her good friend Miranda, of course, who had married a minister near Exeter. Anna had visited her many times, and Miranda would welcome her, but she was the mother of two children and was even now in her lying-in for her third baby. Her husband’s mother had come to visit, in order to help with the new baby, and what with the nursemaid, the children and the mother-in-law, the small parsonage would be bursting at the seams.

Besides, such a sudden flight just when Reed returned would cause much talk and speculation, and that was the last thing Anna wanted. She knew that she would simply have to stay here and do everything she could to avoid seeing Reed. And if they met by chance, then she would simply have to get through it. She would smile politely and say some little formality, and that would be it.

After all, it had been three years. She no longer even thought about him—well, scarcely at all—and doubtless he had similarly gotten over her. He had been in London these three years, and there had been numerous girls there doing their best to lift his spirits, Anna was sure. Why, for all she knew, he had gotten married.

Anna’s heart twisted in her chest at this thought, but she told herself sternly that that was both foolish and selfish. A man as eligible, as handsome, as charming as Reed would have had no difficulty finding someone else to love, and surely that was what she wanted for him. Of course it was. And she was over him; she had put away her girlish dreams. Whatever pain and embarrassment she might feel about meeting him again, it certainly was not because she still loved him.

With an irritated shake of her head, Anna clicked her tongue, turning her horse around and heading back down the driveway. Whatever lay before her, she told herself sternly, she was not going to act like a lovesick girl. She had done what she had to do three years ago, and she did not regret it. She would not regret it. That aspect of her life was over. She refused to let Reed Moreland’s return send her into a turmoil.

She slapped the reins, urging the horse on, and firmly quelled the notion, deep inside her, that it felt as though she was running away.

* * *

Anna kept herself busy for the next few days, doing her best not to think about Reed or his impending arrival. She did all the mending that had piled up in her sewing basket and finished the little embroidered baby gown she had made for her friend Miranda’s newest baby, as well as embroidering a white linen fichu she had bought a few months ago for the neckline of one of her dresses. She caught up on all her correspondence and visited one of their aging tenants. She also took a long walk every day, something she had found helped to ease her mind, whatever the situation.

Three days after she had called at the vicarage, she left her house for another long tramp. She took the path that ran from their garden to the east. The path forked, one choice leading back into the woods that nestled at the base of Craydon Tor, one of her favorite places to walk, but today she continued on the walk that curved around the outer base of the tor. It then straightened out and ran in a more-or-less straight line until one reached the edge of Winterset lands. Anna had walked this path hundreds of times in her life, but in the last three years she had never walked as far as Winterset. She did not plan to today, either, intending to turn off at the meadow halfway along and climb over the stile and cut across the meadow to the tree-lined stream that lay beyond. She often went there to think, for it was a calming place, shaded by leafy green trees and dappled with the sunlight that stole through their gently moving leaves, with the burble of the brook as a soothing background.

Rounding the tor, her head down and deep in thought, she did not look at the long stretch of path before her until gradually she became aware of the soft plip-plop of horses’ hooves. She sighed inwardly. She did not wish to have to speak to anyone right now, and she cast about in her mind for some way to avoid it, but, of course, there was none, for the rider was sure to have seen her, and a retreat now would be rude. Bracing herself to smile and say a few polite words, she lifted her head.

The horse, a big, sleek black stallion, was trotting toward her, his rider moving with an effortless grace on his back. The man riding was tall and broad-shouldered, and his dark hair glinted with highlights of red in the sun. He was still too far away for her to make out the exact shape of his features or the color of his eyes, but Anna knew them well enough to supply the strong jaw and wide mouth, the straight slash of dark eyebrows above dark-lashed gray eyes.

It was Reed Moreland riding toward her.

Anna stood rooted to the spot, her mind a chaotic jumble. He had been in her thoughts often the last few days, but still, it was a shock to actually see him. Fate, she thought, had a firm sense of irony, to send him riding toward her as he had been the first time they met.

Reed stopped a few feet away from her and dismounted. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Anna’s heart was pounding in her chest until she felt as though it might explode. No matter how hard she had tried, she realized, nothing could have prepared her for seeing him again.

“Miss Holcomb.” He came a step or two closer, holding the reins of his horse.

“My lord.” Anna was a little surprised at how calmly her voice came out. It should, she thought, have shaken as she was shaking inside.

Her eyes searched his face, looking for each tiny difference. Was his skin more tanned? Were there a few more little lines radiating out from the corner of his eyes? It was a little something of a shock, seeing his eyes again; memory could not render exactly the silver-gray color of them, shadowed by lashes so thick and long they seemed almost ridiculous on a man.

She was aware of a strong desire to reach out and brush back his hair with her fingertips. Warmth started deep in her abdomen. She remembered the touch of his lips on hers, the way heat had flared along his skin, the hard iron of his arms around her. Anna swallowed and looked away from him, praying that her face showed none of what she was feeling.

Silence stretched between them awkwardly, until finally Anna rushed in with the first thing she could think of. “I was…surprised to learn that you had decided to return to Winterset.”

“It seemed foolish to keep the house,” he replied. “I thought I should look at it…put it up for sale.”

“That will be good,” Anna said, irritated by how stiffly her voice came out. She felt embarrassed and foolish, and she could not help but think about the fact that she was wearing her everyday bonnet and her sturdy walking boots and a quite ordinary dress. She must look like the veritable country mouse. Reed would probably wonder what he had ever seen in her. Why had she had the misfortune to run into him this way? And why the devil had he returned so early? She had thought she would have several more days to ready herself.

“Yes, I am sure you must feel so,” he retorted in a clipped voice.

He still hated her, she thought. It was what she had expected. A person did not forget slights—the son of a duke probably even less so than others. But she had not been able to explain it to him. She could not have borne the way he would have looked at her after that, the way he would have thought about her. Better that he think her callous and careless, an inveterate flirt.

She cast about in her mind for something to say to alleviate the awkward silence. “I hope that they were able to get the house ready for you in time.”