Page 47 of Forget Me Not

“Help?”

“I don’t exclusively spy on mathematical endeavors, you realize.” Kes stuck the end of his long walking stick against a nearby rock, steadying himself as he took a broad step up a steep section of the trail. “I also discovered a few other things about your elusive lady.”

“What other things?” Lucas could use some helpful information. The headway he’d made with Julia during the picnic had dissipated. He didn’t know how to get it back, let alone build on it.

“Nowyou value my input? In Italy, you called me a dunderhead.”

Lucas remembered that moment all too well. “You kept asking everyone for directions to the Ural Mountains.”

Kes lifted a single eyebrow. “I was eventually pointed in the right direction.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Yes, in the general direction of Russia.”

Their Grand Tour had been a year-long lark, really. Kes’s humor was often overshadowed when he was with the other Gents. Spending time with him alone had been a delight.

Lucas grabbed hold of an obliging tree, using it to keep his balance as he scrambled up a section of loose rock. “What did you discover about Julia?”

“We’re back to that, are we?”

“We neverleftthat.”

Kes caught up with him. He wasn’t the mountaineer Lucas was, but he wasn’t terrible at it either. “She appears to have a good grasp on differentiation but is struggling with antiderivations.”

Lucas eyed his friend, surprised. “How long did the two of you spend discussing mathematics?” Lucas couldn’t quite imagine a long, detailed discussion of calculus occurring casually over tea.

“We didn’t,” he said. “I could see her work from across the book room table yesterday.”

“Did you read anything over her shoulder that might help me scale the wall she has erected between us?” Lucas didn’t see anything particularly promising on that score in mathematics.

“She was intrigued by your vast network of correspondents.”

Did she wish to receive letters? He could write to her when the Gents made their jaunt to Digby’s estate and, later, during their trip to Portugal. But that hardly helped now.

“She spoke at length about your vast number of friends, your cachet in Society, and the comparative isolation of her own past few years.”

That didn’t make sense. “She said in Collingham that she prefersisolation.”

“She told me she prefers the peace and stability of home. That is not quite the same thing.”

Lucas hadn’t the first idea what to make of that. She hid from company, panicked at the mere suggestion of a social gathering or ball, had even told him in no uncertain terms that she wished to retain her hermit-like tendencies. “She doesn’t seem to feel much peace in this home.”

“She seemed at ease when I spoke to her.”

Lucas followed the bend in the footpath and stopped at the overlook they’d been aiming for. Usually, this vista inspired him, soothed and centered him. It didn’t manage to do so this time. “She couldn’t be happy and unhappy at the same time.”

“Couldn’t she?” Kes answered, an edge of mystery in his tone that pulled Lucas’s eyes off the view and to him. “Your Julia strikes me as one who tries very hard to be honest. I suspect, Lucas, if you make it safe for her to do so, you will learn directly from her all you need to know about the mysterious stranger you married.”

Lud, he hoped that proved true. “How did you become so wise?”

Kes shrugged. “Wisdom is easy for those with little to lose.”

They crossed the few more yards needed to reach the one-time shepherd’s hut that Lucas had renovated and turned into a rustic retreat. They were nearly two-thirds of the way up the mountain nearest Brier Hill. It was a smaller peak than almost any he’d climbed in Europe. He certainly didn’t need to rest partway up, but the hut had proven a welcome haven time and again. He’d taken shelter there during sudden changes in the weather, had spent a day or two in the quiet tranquility of the mountain when he’d needed time away.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside, Kes directly on his heels. They pulled their bundles off their backs. Lucas crossed to a window and pulled open the curtains to let in some light to work by.

“You’re truly going to make this trek a second time today?” Kes asked as he opened his pack and removed rolled blankets, dry stockings, work clothes, flint and steel, various supplies for treating injuries... any number of useful things.

“We’ll be taking a different path up the mountain, an even easier one,” Lucas said. “I’ve been known to walk it simply as a morning pastime.”

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