“I think I’ll go for a walk,” she told Will and his mother while she reached for the thick coat Sarah had loaned her hanging on a peg by the back door.
“A walk to where?” Will asked, coming to stand near her while she slipped into the boots his mother gave her.
“I need to find a door.”
“A door in the forest?” He looked on the verge of laughter, but he held back.
“Yes, something like that. The way I came.”
His smile faded. “You are trying to find your way home.”
“Yes. My family needs me.”
He nodded, likely understanding since he lived with his family and helped pay their debts. He walked her to the tree line and to the guarded perimeter, but there was no door.
“I do not think you are going to find a door in the middle of the woods,” Will insisted. “But Dartmouth Castle has seventy-two rooms. They all have doors.”
“Seven-two doors?” Aria echoed in astonishment. “How will I…?”
“The ball. I will escort you and we will find your door.”
Yes, the castle. Was it the same castle Mrs. B. was returning to England to sell? Of course, the door would be there. All of this somehow had to do with Mrs. B. Aria would have to wait three days for the ball before she could get home.
“Did the marquess really station his men around your house?” she asked Will as they walked back to the Gable’s residence.
“He did.”
“Your brother made it sound as if he did it for me.”
“It seems that way, but before you extend your mercies to the marquess, I would have you understand that it is more likely that he did it to keep you from leaving than to stop others from getting in.”
“Why would he want to keep me from leaving?”
Will shrugged a shoulder. “He seems very curious about how you came here.”
He saw her appearout of thin air, and now he wasn’t going to let her leave. No wonder he hadn’t bothered returning to the house as he’d threatened. Even if there was a door somewhere beyond the perimeter of the house, she wouldn’t be able to get to it.
“Who does he think he is anyway?” she murmured more to herself than to Will.
“He is the duke’s son,” Will answered anyway.
“He’s not my duke,” Aria reminded him with a huff.
Will slowed and stared at her. “You are very bold.” Instead of smiling at her though, he scowled. “I do not know from where or when you came—”
She had already told him. She guessed she didn’t blame him for not believing her, but it still stung.
—“but if you do not want to be punished, then you will obey the duke.”
“And his son,” she added through tight lips, then without waiting for Will’s response, she spun on her heel and headed for the perimeter.
Chapter Four
Gray sat aloneon a cushioned bench high above the Dart Estuary and, having taken in the stunning beauty around him, closed his eyes, letting the sounds of nature fill the rest of his senses. The rolling waves blended with the waves slapping against the rocks below, creating a melody more profound than any man had ever written. Every so often flocks of birds took off from the bare branches around him and on the other side of the estuary, adding to the percussion with their flapping wings. The wind on its journey here or there moved over his ears and through the trees like woodwinds.
Ever since he was a little boy he heard music in almost everything. Even in the thunderous sounds of horse’s hooves shaking the earth or musket balls firing from guns—
He rose to his feet to escape the sounds of war.