In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster: A Cynster Novel by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9780062116758
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2011-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning they started out bright and early to walk through and out of the hills. According to the map, they had most of the Moorfoots still to conquer, at the very least a good morning’s walk before they reached Stow.

Although the sun shone, the air was bracing. The lighter saddlebag over her shoulder, Eliza tramped in Jeremy’s wake. The Moorfoots seemed to be a series of knobbly folds; they climbed up and down constantly, tacking first to follow the flank of one largely barren, moorlike hill, before turning to skirt the next.

The walking wasn’t so much hard as demanding. They had to negotiate fern fields and leap countless little burns. They passed a small shooting lodge tucked into a narrow valley between two hills; at one point they walked through a stretch of forest where the shadows were so dense she shivered.

There was more than enough to see and do, to keep her mind occupied simply with getting on, to avoid thinking about the events of the evening, yet time and again her mind slid away to do just that. To consider, circle, poke, and prod at whatever this was that was happening between them.

This — being with a gentleman like this, entirely cut off from their normal world, only to discover a connection neither she nor he had thought likely — was beyond any situation she’d expected, anticipated, or even dreamed of.

In this, she had very little in the way of experience, her own or any of her mentors’, to guide her.

Eyes on the ground, she followed in Jeremy’s tracks. That morning, when they’d woken, availed themselves of the nearby stream to wash, then, working side by side, had quickly cleaned, straightened, and neatened the cottage, she’d kept expecting some moment of awkwardness, some sudden attack of self-consciousness on her or his part.

It hadn’t happened. Instead, she’d been aware that he’d been watching her with the same expectation. Again and again their eyes had met, and they’d waited … the entire morning had passed off without one hint of real awkwardness between them.

Before they’d left, Jeremy had laid a gold sovereign on the deal table. He’d looked at her in query. She’d nodded her approbation, then had led him from the cottage and they’d set off.

She couldn’t quite understand why, with him, she could behave as she was, and he could behave as he was, and somehow it seemed right. They were working together in a manner she would never have imagined might be between a tonnish gentleman — and no matter his scholarly reticence, Jeremy Carling was definitely that — and a distinctly tonnish lady.

They’d reached a difficult-to-negotiate rocky rise. She grimaced. Without any discussion, she halted, waited while Jeremy scrambled up, then held up her hands. He grasped them and pulled her up.

In perfect harmony without needing any words, they fell back into line and continued on.

She was starting to think that she and her family ought to thank the mysterious laird. If he hadn’t

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