The Beautiful One by Emily Greenwood Page B

work.”
    â€œPerhaps Lizzie might come with you? I’m certain she would be very happy for you to show them to her, and delighted if she might be allowed to help in any way.”
    â€œI don’t need any help.” Any warmth had fled from his voice. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve things to see to. And I wouldn’t wish to keep you from your morning’s pleasure.”
    He wanted to go off by himself. She’d often been happy alone, but the solitude this man was seeking wasn’t bringing him pleasure. It was a retreat from life.
    â€œWait. Please.”
    She could feel that he hadn’t moved away yet. She’d had an idea, prompted by the way she’d felt when he’d fixed her ribbons the first night, how the kindness in his gesture had loosened something in her that had felt so bound up.
    Even his begrudging hospitality had kindness in it; it hadn’t been the sort of cold, unwelcoming accommodations and sour treatment she would have expected from the unhappy servants of a hard, angry master. No, she’d been given a nice guest chamber with a good fire and delicious food.
    And that painting in her room—there was a playfulness in it that hinted at some past mood of joy. Stillwell might have a spartan, underfurnished look, but it was cheerfully tidy, and the grounds appeared well kept. His staff had been nothing but kind toward her and Lizzie, and that told her something: they were well treated and they liked their master.
    As the viscount, he was doubtless accustomed to being the one to see to others’ needs. He was clearly getting no pleasure, however, from other people. She guessed that his wife’s death had made him want to retreat inwardly.
    But Lizzie needed him. Anna told herself that was the only reason behind the offer she was about to make.
    â€œCan I…offer you an embrace?”
    She could feel him absorbing her words. He moved closer, and she caught the sound of his breathing.
    * * *
    Will thought he must have misheard her. She couldn’t possibly have said what he thought she had, but already his pulse had quickened. He stepped closer still, close enough to catch a whiff of interesting, pleasing scents. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œI know it’s an odd thing to say,” she said in that straightforward voice. There was nothing flirtatious about Miss Anna Black, though neither was she sharp. She was calm and smart and persistent, and she also clearly thought nothing of doing unusual things like climbing trees to achieve her purposes.
    â€œBut it’s just that, after my father’s funeral,” she continued, “our vicar embraced me, and in that moment I knew, truly, a small release of sorrow from his kindness. And I’ve lately come to think there must be something healing in the touch of our fellow creatures.”
    She sounded like a doctor suggesting a prescription. Take the waters for your health. Clear broth after a fever. An embrace when despairing .
    He couldn’t imagine any other woman he knew making such an offer and not appearing as though it were some sort of seduction. But she seemed to operate without any concern for being either beguiling or deferential, as sufficient unto herself as the birds she liked so much. In fact, she reminded him of a bird on the wing, soaring in the sky for purposes no mortal could guess.
    He couldn’t understand why she was offering him an embrace, but he didn’t think she had any motive other than what she’d stated. Here was the woman who’d returned an owlet to its nest; perhaps she simply saw him as another living creature in need of the appropriate attention.
    He should say no. But he didn’t want to listen to his better nature just then.
    â€œYes,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.
    She did not feel like a vicar.
    Her frame was slender within the circle of his arms, her ribs and shoulders and everything about her on a smaller