Page 2 of The Heir's Fortune
“You weren’t searching for treasure?” she asked with a sly smile over the dog’s head.
“Would it matter if I was?” he asked defensively. “I have every right to do so.”
“Steady there, I was just asking,” she said with what seemed to be a roll of her eyes. “Do you take everything so seriously?”
“Everything that matters,” he said, watching her black cloak swirl in the wind. “We should be getting back. The sun is lowering.”
“What about the dog?” she asked, lifting the bundle in her arms, and he crooked his fingers toward her.
“I’ll take him.”
She stepped backward so that they were both out of reach, fixing him with a hard stare. “Where are you going to take him?”
“To the stables,” he said, becoming annoyed now. “Where would you think I would take him?”
She bit her lip, her normally stoic façade loosening its grip, allowing him to see a different side of her.
“He’s so small and has been out here all alone,” she said. “Do you not think he should come to the house?”
Gideon took a breath, lifting a hand in the air. “He chose to come to you, so I suppose you can do with him what you’d like.”
She was already shaking her head. “I cannot have a dog.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I am not one to make much commitment to anything. I cannot keep a dog when I do not know where I might be living in a short time.”
Gideon cocked his head to the side as he stared at the two of them. “He doesn’t seem to understand that.”
Nor did Gideon, but he wasn’t about to ask questions. Madeline looked down at the dog, a moment of vulnerabilitycrossing over her face before she shoved the dog toward him. “Here,” she said. “Take him. He’s yours.”
Gideon softened, seeing how much this had affected her.
“I’ll take him to the stables, but only to be cleaned up, and then he can come inside,” he said. “We shall see what my mother thinks of him.”
“Of course,” Lady Madeline said, giving a curt nod. “I should be going.”
“I will walk you back,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“I shouldn’t,” she said. “But I am anyway.”
And with that, she strode off, fast enough to make him aware that she would prefer he did not follow.
She was a mystery that one. But one mystery that wasn’t up to him to solve.
Tryas he might to concentrate on anything other than Lady Madeline, she was still on Gideon’s mind when Cassandra found him in his study a few hours later, the dog at his feet, curled up on a pillow that had previously been perched upon one of the parlor sofas. He hoped his mother wouldn’t note its absence, or, if she did, she would forgive him. She was currently upstairs visiting with his father and had yet to notice the dog.
“Oh, there he is!”
Gideon looked up at his sister’s voice, surprised that she was so excited to see him, but when she ran in to crouch beside the dog, he realized that she wasn’t talking to him at all. She reached down to let the puppy lick her face.
“Where is your baby?” Gideon asked, more curious than perturbed. Since the young lad had been born, Cassandra hadspent far more time with her son than most other women of her station would with their offspring. Gideon actually admired her for it.
“He’s with Madeline,” she said, and Gideon found himself rather piqued at her friend’s name, but before he could ask any more, Devon – Lord Covington, Cassandra’s husband, and Gideon’s closest friend – followed his wife in the door.
“I heard there was a pup in here,” he said, looking around the room. “Has he made a mess all over the floor yet?”
“Not yet,” Gideon said. “A footman has seen to his requirements.”
