She sensed the presence of the man before she heard him climb the rocks.
The boy’s father, if the lad’s scream of “Papa” had been anything to go by.
“You’re Timothy?” She smiled at him as she reached into the folds of her skirts for a salve.
He nodded at her, his big, toffee-coloured eyes glistening with tears.
“That’s a nice name,” she said.
“What’s yours?” Timothy whispered.
“I’m Selina,” she answered, hoping to put him at his ease. “And you are being a very brave boy.”
His father came closer, and Selina braced herself for outrage or demands that she unhand his son.
To her surprise, however, he stayed silent as she saw to the child’s injury.
Sparing him the briefest of glances, she turned her attention back to Timothy, not yet ready to examine the fluttering in her stomach at the man’s appearance.
“How does that feel?” she asked after a moment.
Her heart was racing, and she felt inexplicably nervous with the tall man standing over her. Brooding.
“It’s better.” Timothy smiled, and Selina smiled right back, feeling an affinity with the boy.
But as she looked into his eyes, they suddenly changed. In a flash, he was someone older, someone tormented.
Selina heard a wail, mournful as the bean-sí, rip through her, screeching in her head.
Her whole body froze. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Even the sunlight seemed to darken.
Within seconds however, the boy blinked, and it was gone. His eyes were filled with nothing more than innocence and impishness. Just as they should be.
But Selina knew better than to think she’d imagined what she saw.
There was someone tormenting the boy. Someone not of this world.
And Selina was determined to help him.
Timothy turned his head to the side, and his eyes widened.
He jumped to his feet and ran to the man who bent down to lift him high in the air, laughing at the boy’s squeal.
Placing Timothy back on his feet, he fussed over the cut before ruffling the lad’s hair and finally looking over at Selina.
Slowly, under his unwavering scrutiny, she got to her feet.
Selina had never been self-conscious.
Having spent her whole life as an oddity, something to be stared at but kept away from, she’d learned not to rely on the opinions of others for self-worth.
Yet standing here as his bright, icy-blue eyes bored into her own, she felt inexplicably nervous.
“Thank you.”
His voice was gravelly and deep.
Selina found that she couldn’t speak and merely shook her head to indicate that it was no problem.
“Miss Selina said I’m brave, Papa.”
Timothy’s voice shattered the tension weaving its way around them, and Selina took the opportunity to break the eye contact that left her feeling jittery and not at all herself, by smiling down at the boy.
“And so you are, son,” the man answered indulgently before turning his gaze back to her.
“Miss Selina?” he asked softly.
Once again, her tongue felt tied up in her mouth and so she nodded.
“I am Philip Everwood, Earl of Breton.”
“You are an Everwood?” She found her voice at last. “From Everwood Manor?”
“Just so.”
“The place has been empty as long as I’ve been alive,” she answered softly.
“I thought it was time to come back.”
The sadness in his voice, the grief in his eyes could not be mistaken.
“It will be good for the lad. He’s a troubled boy, Philip,” she answered truthfully before giving much thought to whether her answer would be well received or not.
His eyes widened at her words, and she wondered at his obvious shock.
“Most people address me as ‘my lord’,” he said, a little piously for Selina’s liking. And she found that his haughtiness annoyed her.
That was the source of his surprise then. Her apparent insubordination. Not the fact that even a stranger could tell his son was unsettled.
Selina had never paid much attention to the rules and restrictions of a society that had shunned her. She found them foolish and unnecessarily restrictive. Why should she not call him by his name? What was the purpose of a name, if not to be used?
The idea that it lent any sort of air of familiarity or intimacy to their conversation was preposterous, and for some reason, made her feel on edge.
“Well, I am not most people,” she answered, her tone biting in the face of the curious feelings he had aroused in her, in only a few minutes. “And you are not my lord.”
Chapter 3
“Mrs. Leary, a word if you please,” Philip called out to the tall, reedy housekeeper as she