The Waylaid Heart by Holly Newman

hand in his and allowed him to draw her from the carriage. She looked at him in the glowing lamplight, really seeing him for the first time.
    His hair, the color of a rich West Indies coffee, was cropped short and curled around the edges of a high, intelligent brow. His eyes were wide set, heavily hooded and thickly lashed. Somnambulant eyes, as Jessamine suggested, yet possessing tiny fan lines at the outside corners attesting to heartily felt emotions—though Cecilia dared not put a name to them. His nose was straight, his chin firm and forceful, narrowly missing pointed status. He was not much above average height, though that still made him tall in comparison to herself. The top of her head scarcely brushed his chin. Of all, however, it was his eyes that caught her attention. They were tortoise in color, a rich variegated gold and brown.
    He raised an amused eyebrow at her infinitesimal pause, and she realized something else. Those beautiful, seemingly sleepy eyes, held a rapier sharp understanding that whispered, En garde .

Pen scratching and the droning tick tock of the mantel clock were the only sounds in the library. Even the outside traffic seemed to have abated for there were no sounds of carriages, horses, or street vendors to disturb the silence. Pale, straw-yellow spring sunlight streamed in matched Doric Venetian windows throwing a bright shaft of light across Sir James Branstoke's desk and the cream bond paper beneath his hand.
    His lips compressed into a thin line; a thoughtful, considering expression lifting one dark eyebrow as he wrote. He paused, absently groping for his coffee cup. He finished the cold dregs in a swallow as he reread his letter. Satisfied, he set down the cup and signed his name with a flourish, then he leaned back in his chair and grabbed the bell pull.
    When his butler entered Branstoke gave instructions for Romley, his groom, to be sent up along with another pot of coffee. While he waited he propped his booted feet up on the desk, crossed his arms, lowered his chin into his neat daytime cravat, and thought about Mrs. Cecilia Haukstrom Waddley.
    Her face haunted him. Or was it just those large waif-like royal blue eyes rimmed with purple and framed with pale, downy lashes that stayed in his mind? Her eyes and her reed-slender body made her appear more fragile than the finest porcelain. Was it only her striking looks that drew his attention? No, for London every year was littered with marriage-minded beautiful women. There was something else he saw reflected in those eyes that drew him to her like a lodestone. For all her outward appearance of fragility, both real and affected, he sensed a shining inner core of strength. It was a strength that he'd wager she'd hardly begun to tap, because as yet, he doubted she was cognizant of its existence.
    He suddenly threw back his head and laughed. It was ludicrous. She was a forged Damascus steel blade sheathed in naiveté. How rich.
    And desperately needing protection. He didn't know what dragons she was chasing or evading; but he intended to find out. And he vowed he would save her from disaster, for he’d wager it was toward disaster she was heading.
    A soft knock on the library door brought him out of his reverie. He swung his feet to the floor as the door opened to usher in Charwood bearing a silver urn of fresh coffee. The butler was followed by George Romley.
    Romley stood deferentially with cap in hand while Charwood served Sir Branstoke. But Romley had been with Branstoke since his Peninsular days, and while he observed the conventions around others, when the butler left the room, a lopsided grin pulled at his thick cheeks. He gave his cap a spinning toss into a nearby chair.
    "You sent for me, sir? What's the lay?"
    Sir Branstoke's lips quirked into a brief, crooked smile. "For a man who claims to work an honest day for an honest day's pay, your language is progressively deteriorating into thieves' cant. I positively shudder to imagine