Free The Summer of You by Kate Noble

allow you to move more freely. Especially considering your kindness to my brother last night.”
    If she expected him to acknowledge having taken care of her inebriated brother the previous evening—to acknowledge having even met Jason, Jane was to be disappointed. Instead, Byrne moved his gaze from her eyes, down her body, to her hand.
    “Is that for me?” he asked.
    Oh goodness! The basket she’d had made—she had forgotten she was even holding it. “Yes!” she replied and quickly held it out to him. “A small token of thanks, for my brother, even though he was too pained in the head this morning to think of it.” He just kept looking at her, and so she continued talking. “And also a way of saying welcome to the neighborhood, since even though I have just arrived, I’ve been here far longer, really. We used to spend every summer here. My mother loved it, but she died recently—however, she would have insisted on a basket . . .” Jane stopped there—just shy, she was sure, of fully rambling.
    “I’ve received welcome baskets like that, Lady Jane,” Byrne replied, finally turning from her and crossing the threshold into his house. “They usually contain more probing questions than they do jams and jellies.”
    Jane had to acknowledge his astute assessment of the village’s curiosity. But neither did she want him thinking that such curiosity would be applied to her. No matter how curious she actually was.
    “Yes—I myself have just recently arrived and endured such a welcoming. At least you receive a stock of jams and jellies in the bargain,” she said into the house, careful to keep herself just this side of the threshold. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t peek in.
    She remembered the widow Lowe’s house as being fascinating when she was young. She would run over here, the knees of her dress muddy, her hands sticky from tree sap, and come up to widow Lowe and beg for sweets. Widow Lowe would let her only onto the porch until she had wiped her hands of the sap—everything in the house was to be maintained pristinely. Oh, widow Lowe would act put out by her visits—such a dirty child! How could she be the Duchess’s daughter?—but Jane knew she secretly enjoyed her presence. The older woman had a suspicious supply of lemon cakes with tea, which was Jane’s favorite.
    Only when she passed widow Lowe’s standard of cleanliness was she admitted to the house proper. It was filled with bric-a-brac, tiny figurines, enamel flower candlesticks . . . all silly, cheap, beloved. And nothing like what was found in any of the Duke of Rayne’s homes. Jane had been young here, and fascinated.
    But some of those things—the limestone carved fish that sat on the end table, the lace runners across the end tables—were strangely missing.
    “Would have thought you’d relish the attention,” Byrne grumbled, breaking into her thoughts.
    Her eyes narrowed. What an unearned presumption! He thought he knew her? Jane shot him an icy look, suddenly letting go of any politeness, since apparently, he had done the same. “Tell me,” she said in her coolest tones, “if I were as recalcitrant as you, do you think I could avoid the onslaught of human curiosity?”
    Byrne paused in his movements. “I suppose not,” he said, contrition in his voice. Jane continued to watch him, a slightly disapproving frown on her face, as he took a cloth from a nearby chair and began rubbing the excess lake water from his hair. It was longer than the fashion, she noted. It curled about his ears in a way that suggested his valet was remiss in keeping it trim. When he was done, he threw the towel about his neck and over his shoulders. Catching her eyes on him, Byrne gave a quick lift of a brow.
    “Should we try again?” he asked. At her nod, continuing, “Lady Jane, what a marvelous surprise. Lovely to see you.”
    “And you as well,” she played along with a curtsy. Jane shook her head to suppress a laugh. This was certainly one