The Beautiful One by Emily Greenwood Page A

were small but mighty, and she’d always admired their pluck.
    Long minutes of contentment passed, restoring something in her, so that when she became aware of the sound of footsteps announcing someone coming out to the terrace, she was disappointed. But she could see nothing in the dark beyond a smudgy shadow moving closer.
    â€œWho’s there?” she said.
    â€œGrandville.” He drew near. The whites of his eyes showed faintly, as did the flash of his teeth when he spoke, but she couldn’t see his expression.
    â€œWhat are you doing out here?” she said.
    A brief silence met her ridiculous words.
    â€œI meant,” she corrected herself, “that I didn’t expect anyone else would be about. It’s quite early after all.”
    â€œI might say the same. What are you doing out here at this hour?”
    She weighed her thoughts, a reflex developed over the last month, but didn’t see any reason to hide her purpose. “I like to listen to the birds.”
    â€œYou got out of a comfortable bed to listen to birds ?”
    â€œYes. They’re quite glorious this morning, the wrens especially. And I think I may have heard a tawny owl.”
    â€œOh, well, if you’ve heard a tawny owl,” he said dryly, and she smiled, glad they couldn’t see each other. “But can’t you hear tawny owls from your room with the window open?”
    â€œIt’s not the same. There’s something about being outside at a time when you know you will be alone.”
    A brief, rusty chuckle met her words, the first sound of mirth she’d heard from him. “And here I’ve spoiled your solitude. Do forgive me.”
    Was he teasing her? She couldn’t tell from his tone. “Well, obviously it’s your estate. I might ask your pardon for spoiling the solitude of your morning.”
    Another silence. He must have expected and wanted solitude at this early hour, with no one to want anything from a man responsible for so much. He was the viscount, thus the eldest living male in his family, and however much he might want to isolate himself, he would always have demands on his time.
    â€œPerhaps I will allow it this once.”
    Was he teasing her again? The impossibility of either of them seeing the other’s expression gave their meeting an unusual, outside-of-time quality.
    â€œHow did you come by this powerful love of birds?” he asked.
    Her father had published those two books on birds, and he’d treated the viscount’s family. But there was no reason he should connect Anna Black with Dr. Matthew Bristol, physician and naturalist.
    â€œI had a…friend who was something of a naturalist. He loved to study birds.”
    â€œA suitor?”
    She almost laughed, not just at the idea of her father being her suitor, but at the idea of her having a suitor at all. Suitors had simply never pursued Dr. Bristol’s unfashionable daughter, with her too-sharp wits and her skin that was often tan from chasing after birds. As she’d grown up, Anna had decided, despite the occasional pangs of loneliness, that she didn’t care.
    Why should she want a man, she’d reminded herself, who might tell her what to do and what to wear, and who would have power over her? She’d grown up as free and unchecked as the birds she loved, and if that meant she’d also grown up without having cultivated all the graces that attracted gentlemen, so be it. She’d had her students and her own art to pursue, and her dream of the drawing school to sustain her.
    â€œNo. An older gentleman, just an acquaintance.” It wasn’t even hard to say such a thing about her father—he’d so tenaciously kept to himself. And yet, she’d loved him, and she disliked speaking of him this way. She needed to change the subject.
    â€œWhat do you do at those cottages all day?”
    â€œThey are unfinished and I prefer to be involved in the