“How do you decide which trees you’ll use?”
“Come. I’ll show you.” Still moving with purpose, the duke slapped his free hand on the trunk of a massive tree.
“Oak,” he said. “Hard as stone. It takes its time—slow seasons—but once it’s cut and set, it’ll stand for centuries. Beams. Floors. Ships, even.”
They walked on, leaves crunching softly beneath their boots.
“Ash,” he went on, nodding toward a slimmer tree. “Tough, but it bends before it breaks. That’s why it’s used for carriage wheels, tool handles.” A pause, as he indicated the pack slung over his shoulder. “This mallet is made with ash. It’s outlasted every other.”
There was no poetry in his tone. He spoke plainly, as though these things were just… obvious.
Rosamund listened, committing it all to memory. Not just the names, but the way he moved through the forest as though it were a ledger.
Trees marked. Chores planned.
And she realized, to him, this was what mattered.
Not rumors or legends or opinions.
Lines stirred in her mind, unbidden.
Hard wood. Slow seasons.
What is cut
Is chosen.
What remains
Endures.
Her fingers curled around the pencil in her pocket.
Yes, she thought.
This must be a part of the story. The heart of it.
He was not simply Bexley, the duke. He was a fixer—someone who mended what others overlooked, who measured his worth not by London’s regard but by whether his people were better for his presence.
The thought absorbed her so completely that she failed to notice a root cutting across the path. Her boot caught, her balance tipping forward?—
—and she would have fallen, had the duke’s arms not caught her from behind.
For a breathless second, she was pressed to his chest, the heat of him unmistakable even through the layers of her cloak and gown.
And… dear heavens.It burned.
Almost as if…
Rosamund jerked up, searching for both her footing and her composure at the same time.
“Careful,” he murmured, his fingers lingering before he released her.
“Yes… of course.”
She shook herself. She’d always known he was special–to her. But this… allowing herself to imagine…
This was not why she had come.