Myles put one booted foot on the bottom step, but got no further before the door to his father’s study opened and the last man he expected to see appeared in the doorway.
“Good God, it is you,” Myles gasped, his stunned gaze raking his seemingly fit and well father from head to toe.
“Of course it is me,” Barnabas retorted, his shocked gaze locked on Estelle. “Who in the blazes were you expecting?”
Myles stared at his sire in disbelief. “I don’t understand,” he murmured.
“What?” Barnabas demanded.
“You are alright,” Myles mumbled with a frown. He was so lost in a world of his own emotion that he wasn’t aware of his father walking steadily toward him.
“Of course I am alright,” Barnabas blustered. “What the blazes are you doing?” He nodded to the woman Myles had temporarily forgotten about.
Myles jerked and look down at the Estelle. Their eyes met. He realised then just how odd he looked, but was still struggling to absorb the import of his father standing before him.
“Just what in the devil is going on here?” he thundered.
Barnabas scratched the back of his head as he came to stand beside his son and what appeared to be a wild banshee in his arms. “I was hoping you might tell me.”
Myles studied his father closely but could see nothing wrong with him at all, not even a scratch.
“I thought you were dead,” he murmured weakly.
“What?”
“I had a letter telling me that you are on death’s door,” Myles snapped. “The sender told me to get home quickly because you didn’t have long.” To his disbelief, Barnabas looked thunderous but unsurprised.
“You as well, eh?” he murmured, then nodded to Estelle. “Who is this?”
Myles looked at Estelle and stared. Then stared some more. This was the first time he had taken a good look at her in proper light. What he saw made his world tilt on its axis.
“Good Lord,” he whispered for want of anything better to say.
Her position in his arms caused her head to tip backward a little, and allowed her heavy curtain of wild, tightly curled raven hair to cascade toward the floor. In doing so, it revealed her features in startling clarity to his ravenous gaze that searched every dip and each gentle sweep of soft, peachy skin.
How beautiful, he thought.
He was only faintly aware of her slight weight of her gentle curves in his arms but made no attempt to put her down or even move to shift the slight ache in his arms. Time was held suspended as he studied the delicate curve of her brows above a thick fan of lashes that were impossibly alluring. He was aware that he was being scrutinised just as closely by those wonderful blue-green eyes that seemed to change colour each time she moved, but he didn’t meet them. Instead, he studied the delicate oval of her fashionably pale features, accentuated only by the gentle sweep of cheeks tinged faintly with a peachy glow above the generous curve of her full lips which were so damned alluring he struggled not to kiss her.
“Good Lord above, where did you get her?” his father murmured as he crept closer to get a better look.
Estelle turned to look at the older
version of Myles. She knew immediately who the man was, but was a bit stymied that both men continued to talk about her as though she was completely nonsensical.
“I found her,” Myles replied blankly.
Estelle looked at Myles. She had no idea if she should prompt him for an introduction, but it seemed an odd thing to do when held so high off the ground in such an intimate hold.
For a few minutes, Myles couldn’t get his mind to work well enough to give his father a more detailed explanation of the evening’s events. His journey home had been fraught with worry the likes of which he had never experienced in his life before, or ever wanted to experience again. To then run over this delightful creature, and then be chased across the moors by an unidentified hands, brought forth a confusing mix of questions and emotions he wasn’t quite sure he could speak about just yet.
His father was nothing short of persistent, though, and scowled at him.
“Where?” he demanded.
Myles looked his father square in the eye. “I ran her over.”
“What?” Barnabas looked stunned.