Belmary House Book One by Cassidy Cayman

watched her surreptitiously as she struggled to keep her hair under her bonnet as the wind picked up. She bit her lower lip and studied the sky with concern in her bright blue eyes.
    “If the weather turns, you know you always have a room here,” he cajoled.
    She blushed and turned away, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. It was hard for him to accept that so many things had changed in such a short amount of time, and that Serena’s spending the night at the house might be improper now. He shook his head and silently berated himself.
    What he never should have believed was that he could have been allowed to be happy in the first place. The life he thought he could live here on the estate had turned out to be a cruel intermission in the sick play of his existence. He knew it was time to leave, but he didn’t want to. Not yet.
    “Mrs. Dunbar and her husband could join us for cards,” he added.
    Serena loved to gamble, and his housekeeper Mrs. Dunbar would be glad to join them, even though it was probably scandalous since he was still in mourning. But he was sick of it. As he’d told Serena earlier, Lucy would have hated to see them moping around, and Camilla would have split her sides with laughter at the hypocrisy of it.
    “That does sound tempting,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Father is away in Edinburgh again, so I don’t relish sitting out a storm all alone.”
    A far off crack of thunder punctuated her words and she jumped, nearly tripping.
    Kostya reached for her to keep her from falling, only making it worse and knocking her further off balance. She laughed while stumbling over his feet, and grabbed his waistcoat. Straightening up, she was quite close to him, and he could see the tiny, merry laugh lines close to her eyes. She ducked away, straightening his clothes where she’d wrinkled them in her grip.
    He offered his arm so they could move at a faster pace, certain the sky was about to open up and dump on them at any moment. He knew she felt awkward staying any length of time without her maid and he found himself missing her doddering old aunt. The woman hadn’t had a clue what was going on most of the time, but when she’d been alive, she made things more seemly, something that was important to Serena.
    He reminded himself that she was right to care what the villagers thought of her. It had been so long since they’d had a good opinion of him, that he’d given up caring, and they came to a sort of uneasy truce when Camilla left, most of them ending up pitying him. He didn’t muck about with them, and they left him alone to run the estate, happy enough to take what it offered.
    No, he couldn’t drag Serena down into the mire with him, no matter how much he enjoyed her company. But he did enjoy her company, her sharp wit and sharper tongue, and that sweetness she tried so hard to hide— the vulnerability that had allowed Camilla to make her miserable since they were children.
    His servants were discreet, she could safely spend a cozy evening playing cards without ruining her reputation, and perhaps he could talk her into spending the night in the room she always stayed in, back when they were all children and she’d thought she would one day be the mistress of this place.
    An odd ripple of some strange and sour emotion passed through him at the thought of her long and unrequited love for Ashford. Well, Ashford was on his way, but he wasn’t here now, and Serena was more herself when he wasn’t around.
    Kostya like that Serena, the real one, the one who let her smile falter and her perpetually straight shoulders slump a little sometimes. He knew what it was like to carry a weight, knew how tiring and lonely it could be, and he was pleased to think he might ease her burden, even if only superficially, and only for a short time. And he suspected she felt the same about him, or why would she continue to regularly visit, long after Camilla was gone? Ashford was a true friend to him, as