{ Prologue }
Gruggin Manor, 1813
Yorkshire, England
Squawk.
Laney jumped from the stone bench, her book flying from her lap, the spine of it wedging like an arrow into the wet dirt at the base of the rosebushes that had been watered this morning.
He’d snuck up on her from behind. Stealthy even.
Not very gentlemanly at all. Not like the men she’d been reading about in the books her father didn’t know she had. Gallant, honorable. Never sinking so low as to sneak up from behind upon a lady in the gardens.
And then to squawk. Squawk at her.
As if he had any right to scare her like that.
Except he had every right.
She’d just learned it this morning, and in her twelve years on this earth she’d never imagined a fate quite like this.
He was short.
Wes was a year older—Morty’s age—and shorter than her, not that achieving that detriment was hard to do. Her brother had just barely kept an inch on her this last year and Morty never let her forget it. Though she knew her brother was just taking pity on her—reminding her that she wasn’t the overgrown ostrich that she was sure she was. He’d never cared for how she slumped, trying to make herself shorter, and he’d been attempting for years to convince her that her height was normal.
But Wes of all people—Wes had never even come near to her eyeballs—even when she was five she’d towered over him.
Laney spun, her hands on her hips, her head tilting down to look at him. Not just short, a good head shorter than her. “What do you think to be doing?”
Weston Jacobson, the future Baron Platford, bit into the half-eaten apple he had in his hand, looking her up and down. “You weren’t moving, not a twitch. I wasn’t exactly quiet walking over here.”
“So you squawked?”
“It was better than nudging your shoulder and having you slump over dead.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “No, thank you.”
She looked down at his white shirt and breeches. Mud was splattered about him from toe to shoulder. “You’ve been out with Morty?”
Wes shrugged. “The fox hunt is later today.”
Her right eyebrow lifted. “And?”
“And he wanted to drive the foxes out of the fields where the huntsman blocked the burrows. We chased them off of Gruggin land.”
“The huntsman is going to have his head. The last time Morty did this he threatened to set the hounds after him instead.”
Wes took another bite of his apple, looking at her as he chewed. “You know how Morty feels about foxes.”
Her eyes rolled to the sky. “They are his favorite animal—he’s sure he was reincarnated from one.” A slight chuckle and her gaze dropped to him. “So you helped him?”
Wes’s head tilted to the side and he nodded. “Sure. The foxes never did anything to me.” He held out his half-eaten apple to her. “Bite?”
She shook her head. Manners were still not his strength. Gallant, in his own way, she supposed.
“I’m glad.”
“Glad for what?”
“Glad you helped him—glad you saved the foxes.” Her eyes slightly cringed. “I hate to think of them, scared, desperate, frantic to escape the hounds.”
He stared at her for a long moment, a look in his dark hazel eyes she’d never seen before.
Just as she was about to squirm, the look disappeared from his eyes and the edges of his mouth curled in a slight smile.
“Did your father tell you this morning?” He took a bite of the apple, the juice of it dripping down his chin that he wiped away with the back of his hand.
Her lips pulled back into a line that she hoped looked like a smile. Wes had nothing to do with this decision and she didn’t want to offend him. As short and uncouth as he was, there was something about him she couldn’t quite describe that she had always liked. “The betrothal? He did. But you will not like me. I am gangly, uncoordinated.”
He took a bite, his hazel eyes that had recently started to darken travelling down her long bare arms. She should have been out with a parasol but wasn’t and the sun was already tingeing the color of her skin. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her middle, to cover them from his gaze.
His look lifted to her face. “What if I like gangly and uncoordinated?”
“And I’m far taller than you.”
He shrugged. “You won’t be.”
“Because you will somehow grow? I’ve been taller than you since we first met.”
“Yes, but that will be in the past soon enough.