Like No Other Lover by Julie Anne Long Page A

hands of animals and natives, delicately skirting, she guessed, the more prurient and more frightening, and she sensed there was a good deal of that to be heard as well.
    And she felt shyer, suddenly: he’d gone and discovered with no compunctions, he’d seen things no one else here would ever see, he’d been ill near to death and survived, and this, she suspected, was what gave his eyes and voice that depth and resonance, his bearing that confidence. He contained worlds. The more he knew, the more he wanted to know.
    For a moment she thought she could happily listen to him forever. A moment later she blamed the wayward thought on the heat.

    After lunch had been devoured, a boat race involving twigs for boats was contrived for the stream. Cynthia was about to happily head for it when Miles came around the other side of a crack willow and intercepted her. The man was bloody quiet and subtle.
    She didn’t for a moment think the meeting was accidental. He had a motive, and she was certain she was about to learn it.
    Everyone else collected at the stream, and she gazed after them with a certain longing.
    “So a spaniel will be the dog for you, Miss Brightly?” he said lightly.
    “Lord Milthorpe says spaniels call me to mind,” she said neutrally.
    “Because your stern is covered with silky liver-colored hair?”
    She bit the inside of her lip to stop her smile, tempted to tell Mr. Redmond he would never get a look at her stern.
    Be good.
    “And will you name it Lord Milthorpe?”
    “Ah, Mr. Redmond. I see you were listening my conversation yesterday. Which leads me to believe your own conversation was less than riveting, because you otherwise would not have been so very rude as to eavesdrop .”
    “Quite to the contrary. Lady Georgina shares my interests.”
    “Ah. Does she? The way I share Lord Milthorpe’s interests?” she said innocently.
    This gave Miles pause. “Do you even like dogs?”
    She considered this. “Probably,” she admitted.
    “Probably?”
    She looked sideways at him but said nothing.
    “You would like a wild boar for a pet if it meant twenty-thousand pounds a year, wouldn’t you, Miss Brightly?”
    The look she turned upon him surprised and confused him: it contained pity and the minutest measure of contempt. He was disconcerted into momentary silence.
    “I’ve never had a pet,” she said.
    “Of any kind?”
    She flinched. He hadn’t meant to sound incredulous. It was just that animals—all creatures, really, furred, hooved, carapaced—had been so integral to the way he lived his life.
    She shrugged, and sent an eloquent look toward the stream. Perhaps if she said nothing at all he would go away. Then again, she conceded that Miles had never once been boring.
    Nor, one might argue, were brushfires or earthquakes or tornadoes.
    “I like him,” he said suddenly. It sounded like a quiet warning. “Milthorpe.”
    Her head jerked up instantly, wary. “I like him, too.”
    Another silence. She looked away from him toward the rushing trickle of the Ouse. She would have liked to race a twig boat, too.
    “Do you?” Very ironic, his tone.
    She turned her head slowly. “What is this, Mr. Redmond?” She took pains to sound bored. “You think me unkind? That I’m a siren, and intend to dash him on the rocks of my charms? You’ve placed enormous faith in my powers, then, if so. He’s a grown man. A widower. Perhaps he’s simply enjoying my company. How do you know what will make him happy?”
    Miles didn’t answer this for a long while. He simply leaned up against the willow. It might have been his cousin, that tree: they both had the same dark stolidity.
    “Milthorpe doesn’t offer to give his dogs to just anyone,” he said finally.
    “Then I shall account it a great honor should I receive a dog,” she said evenly. “Any kind of dog.”
    More quiet from the quiet man. “He is what he appears to be, you know.”
    And now she was angry. “Meaning I am not ?”
    “He’s