Some Dukes Have All the Luck by Christina Britton

Author:Christina Britton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2022-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

Ash didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until he opened his eyes to find that the sun had passed its zenith and was now beginning its leisurely descent toward the horizon. The air around the Elven Pools was still pleasantly warm, the chirp of birds and the lazy call of insects humming in the air, mingling with the melodic sound of splashing water to create a kind of lullaby. He yawned, his body deliciously sated, more relaxed than he could ever recall being. It was no wonder he had drifted off.

He lurched upright, a kind of panic taking over him. Bronwyn. Where the devil was she? Yet was there any reason to panic? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t do as she pleased. And he could certainly find his own way back to Caulnedy. She had not abandoned him, for goodness’ sake.

Yet when he scanned the landscape and spied her not far away, sitting cross-legged beside the pool, bent industriously over a notebook, the relief that rushed through him was strong enough to make him light-headed.

She must have heard him stir, for she suddenly looked up. “Oh, hello. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Shaken by his peculiar reaction, he pointedly ignored it and shifted so he could peer over her shoulder at her notebook. “What is that you’re doing?”

She smiled shyly, holding the book up for his inspection. “I thought of a way to revise my scientific paper on that new subspecies of tansy beetle and wanted to get it down before I forgot.”

He peered at the open notebook, his eyes scanning over the jumble of words, most of which he could not decipher or understand until they came to rest on a small, incredibly detailed sketch in the corner.

“Bronwyn,” he murmured, more than a bit awed, “that is beautiful.”

Her cheeks burned red and she snapped the book closed. “Nonsense,” she mumbled, reaching over to tuck the book into the bag she had brought with her.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm, then gently took the book from her and began to flip through the pages. Illustration after illustration leapt up at him, each one more detailed and lifelike than the last, and each accompanied by carefully listed instructions on color, movement, habitat. He had known she was passionate about entomology. But he had not fully understood it until now.

“You are brilliant,” he said in awe.

“Nonsense,” she replied again, though this time the word was barely a whisper.

He recalled then what she had said the day before, when he had come upon her with the tansy beetles in the meadow. Her parents had destroyed her work? They’d had the gall to look upon such talent and strip her of every means she had to put her work out in the world? What monsters were they to do such a thing?

Well, he would not allow her to squander her talents. He glanced at her. “When will you send in your paper to the Royal Society?”

She shrugged, quickly busying herself in packing up their things.

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