Page 20 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
“Oh, stop your prattling, and let’s get walking.” Diana did not turn back as she strode out of the room, but she could feel Colin laugh and amble after her.
* * *
“Lovely to see Christopher’s got the weeds under control for a change,” said Colin, gesturing to a spray of purple flowers that flanked the winding garden path. Diana breathed in deeply, her senses awash in the sweet fullness of the blossoms that surrounded them at the edge of the little woodland towards the back of the grounds. “The lavender looks quite pretty this year … or, no, that’s columbine, not lavender.”
Diana smiled as she recalled her uncomfortable walk with Gerard Dunn a few days earlier. “Granny’s bonnet, isn’t it called? Beautiful flowers … and quite delicious, I’m told.”
“I see Missus Fessler has been sharing her knowledge of herbalism with you.” Colin chuckled, a wry smile on his face. “Unfortunately, even if I were hungry enough to take my lunch from Sir James’ flower garden, I’ve heard the same story. She is a crafty one, our Missus Fessler.”
“I gather you have to be to survive in this house.”
Diana sucked in another hearty breath, revelling in the feeling of life and lightness that permeated her limbs as her lungs savoured the fresh air. It felt to Diana that she and Colin had only just come outside a moment before, but by the elevation of the sun in the sky, it seemed they had passed an hour or more chatting and meandering around the spacious Leeson grounds.
She had clung doggedly to her suspicion of the man, keeping at least a yard between them and never missing an opportunity to fling another conversational barb in his direction … but she could not deny that it was growing ever more difficult to hang onto this distrust. He really was a personable companion for a walk such as this and was full of knowledge—or at least clever witticisms—about all the flora and fauna they passed on their perambulations.
“This is what I wanted to show you.”
Diana looked up, roused from her thoughts, and glanced around in search of what Colin was referring to. They were not more than one hundred yards from the house, in a woody grove much like any other on the grounds. Eventually, her gaze fell onto an old, stunted walnut tree squatting at the top of a small grassy knoll. It was not especially large, but with bare branches that were twisted and warped by time, it did stand out from the prettier surroundings in a stark, chilling kind of way.
“When Mother and I first came to live here with Sir James, I was profoundly curious about this old beast. I tried to climb it and ended up taking a rather nasty fall.” Colin rubbed his shoulder ruefully, his strong arms half-visible through his thin white shirt. “Still gets stiff in the cold from time to time, but I don’t bear the tree any grudge. How could I?”
“It’s … lovely,” Diana said, unsure just how sincerely she believed this judgement. There was a long-healed old slash across the trunk, stretching nearly all the way around the tree. She put a hand up to the black, gnarled trunk but pulled herself back before making contact. Something about the wood felt cold and wet before she even brought her skin against it. It was frightening, somehow, but the sublime beauty of the thing was palpable. “At the very least, I can’t say I’ve seen anything like … Colin?”
She looked around, suddenly discovering that she was apparently alone by the old walnut tree. Diana shaded her eyes and looked back in the direction in which they’d come, then recoiled as a fast-moving shadow passed in front of her face.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you! Not really, anyway.” Colin’s laughter rained down upon her from his position sitting on a long, stout branch of the walnut tree. This was yet another variety of laughter, different from any she had heard from Colin previously—mirthful, slightly abashed, without any touch of malice. It occurred to Diana just then how many shades of laughter the man might contain in depths she had yet to encounter.
“Come on,” Colin said brightly, bracing himself against the tree and reaching an arm down to her.
Diana folded her arms. “You cannot sincerely mean it. Climb a tree like a monkey?”
“Of course not!” His eye twinkled with merriment. “There’s no chance you would have half the proficiency of a monkey.”
She rolled her eyes, her good sense already vociferous with its objections to this proposition.Diana, you cannot seriously mean to continue allowing this miscreant to badger you into doing his bidding?
Unfortunately, Diana’s curiosity was considerably faster than her good sense, and by the time she had decided it would be a mistake to be cajoled into climbing a tree, she had already taken his hand and wedged her foot into the narrow crotch of the tree. She let loose a most unladylike yelp, skirts flying erratically with the motion, and with a pull from his ironlike arms, she was hefted through the air and thumped down on the thick bough beside Colin.
“I cannot believe I let you talk me into this!”
“I’m a bit surprised myself, to be honest. I thought at least it would take a fair amount more talking than that.”
The two shared a laugh, their voices echoing down the hillock into the thick green foliage of the little Leeson woods. Diana’s breath was coming fast and hard from the exertion, her heart pumping in her chest. She felt a growing sense of excitement wriggle somewhere deep within herself, her limbs feeling pleasantly warm even as her head spun gently.
It must be the thrill of doing what’s not allowed,Diana thought, looking out into the treetops.I haven’t been permitted to climb a tree since I was a small girl, and I have not been alone in the presence of a man since before I can remember … even if he is just my guardian’s stepson, and certainly not anyone with whom being seen would cause a scandal.
Then she moved her hand to the branch to shift her position against the hard, wrinkled wood and pulled away, feeling not wood but flesh. She looked over and saw she had brushed her fingers against Colin’s, and an embarrassed look flitted between them. As Diana looked away, back off into the distance, she realised just how close his body was to hers.
Not only close, but how much larger he was than her. And from the ease with which he had hefted her into the tree, there was clearly far greater strength in his masculine arms than she had thought. These reflections prompted something inside beyond thought, beyond word, and the spinning sensation buried inside her frame grew still more intense.
“I’m sure this tree has seen quite a lot from its position here, hasn’t it?” she asked, hoping the inoffensive topic would thwart these unwanted thoughts.
“Oh, yes, this old man has been here longer than any of us.” He smiled and shook his head. “If you look closely, you can see some old wounds on one side of the trunk—my stepfather tried to have it cut down three or four times, but each time the workmen began their labour something would happen. Sir James ordered them to try again, but they would have nothing to do with it. Eventually, he gave it up as a bad job and decided to just try to ignore it.” Colin patted the rough black bark beneath him affectionately. “Tough old thing. It’s weathered God knows how many winters and shrugged off James Leeson like just another summer storm.”
Diana laughed at the thought of the servants ignoring Uncle James’ raging, and the two fell into a companionable silence. Its dangerous history aside, Colin had found a splendid vista from which to view the countryside in this gnarled tree.
“What were the stories you had heard? About the tree, I mean?” Diana asked, her fingers idly scratching against the thick bark of the walnut’s trunk.
Neither of them looked at the other, but she could feel Colin’s position shift, sense his gaze move a hundred miles off into the distance. Some large black birds wheeled and called to one another over the horizon, filling their silence with something mournful and dark.
