Adam would have very much liked to linger in the grove all day, being distracted from his troubles by pleasant daydreams about Miss Miller’s sweet countenance.

However, there was much to attend to. Given that his father was indisposed, there were a great many matters of the estate that still needed to be attended to.

The Duke might have been intending to disinherit Adam from the Dukedom, but that did not change the fact that Adam was his only son and his only living kin. As such, Adam had legal duties toward his father that could not be discharged.

Therefore, Adam was forced to take a few breaths to steel himself from what he knew would be a taxing few hours, before sitting down with his father’s solicitor in the library to go over a large number of ledgers, contracts, and legal documents.

Mr. Barrow, the Duke’s solicitor, was a tall and thin man, who had always reminded Adam of a dead tree, with wooden-looking features and face that seemed organic and yet devoid of all life.

They talked for over an hour about small matters to do with the estate. Adam was disturbed to realize that his father had let a large number of matters fall into inattention and disrepair in the year that he had been gone.

He did not know whether the lapse was the result of grief, loneliness, or simply the fact of his father’s advancing age. Whatever it was, it distressed him to see that a previously vigorous man had grown so feeble so quickly.

The sun was beginning to set over Lawley Park, and Adam was hoping that the interview with Mr. Barrow might be over at long last when the attorney said something that caused Adam to jolt into full attention.

“And what would you have me do about the lease on the cottage, sir?” the attorney asked, in the same lugubrious tone in which he said everything.

“The lease on the cottage?” Adam repeated, frowning. “To which cottage are you referring?”

“The cottage on Farmer Roberts’ land, sir,” the attorney said, pointing at a figure in one of the columns in the book as if that explained everything. “The cottage has been standing empty for a year, sir, and if it is to be profitable, then it really ought to be let out again. I am certain that a suitable tenant could be found.”

“Why is it empty?” Adam asked. Though he was not a natural businessman, he had always been dutiful in ensuring that he was up to date with the matters of the estate, and he knew enough about his father’s way of doing things to know that this was an anomaly.

“I do not know, sir,” the lawyer said, his face a mask of impassiveness.

Adam frowned to himself. Though his father had never been the shrewdest of landowners, he had always employed the very best men to take care of his affairs. If a perfectly good cottage was standing empty and had been so for the last year, then there must have been something amiss.

He made a mental note to investigate the matter further and decided that he would ride out to the cottage by himself later in the week. Perhaps there would be something there that would explain why there was currently no tenant without having to trouble his father on the matter.

“Thank you, Barrow,” he said, knowing that he would not be able to concentrate any further. “I believe that we have done enough for today.”

“Indeed, sir.” Barrow nodded vigorously. “Perhaps we can return to these affairs tomorrow.”

The suggestion did not thrill Adam, but nonetheless, he nodded.

After leaving Barrow, he set out for another walk.

He seemed to find himself walking these days endlessly. It was the only way that he felt able to let out his energy; he could not sit still long enough to read without being plagued with thoughts of his father and the rift between them. Nor could he play the piano without being struck by the memory of Mary Warwick sitting at the instrument and showing him where to place his hands on the keys.

Setting off across the park, he briefly entertained the idea of calling at the vicarage, but quickly thought better of it. The Reverend Miller had met with him briefly as a favor, but he knew that his reputation was far too disgraced to be seen often calling at the home of respectable people.

Besides, he could not imagine that sitting with Miss Miller in her father’s parlor, nodding at one another politely over cups of tea, would have anything near the same heady effect as their morning meeting in the grove.

He knew, and yet he longed to see her face, just to catch a glimpse of her, just for an instant.

He did not trust himself to stay away from the vicarage if he walked in the direction of the village, and so he changed course and set off toward the lake.

The lake of Lawley Hall had been one of his favorite spots while he grew up. It was a large, serene lake, surrounded by trees and had always created the sense of total solitude. Adam had always found that solitude comforting, until now.

As the lake grew nearer, Adam was reminded of that dreadful day. The sight of the two bodies laid out on the side of the water — one adult-sized and the other very small.

He stood for a while, staring at the spot where the corpses of Mary Warwick and her child had lain. Before his eyes, their forms seemed to reappear, their eyes opening and their faces turning toward Adam in supplication.

What happened to us? Why is it that we are dead?

“I do not know,” Adam said aloud, but those two marble-white, innocent faces would not disappear from his mind’s eye. Distressed as Adam was by the false accusations against him, it seemed almost worse that he did not know who was really responsible for the deaths of Mary Warwick and her little boy.

Adam sighed aloud and tore his eyes away from the spot where the bodies had lain to look across the lake.

There, standing on the other side, was a young woman.

For a moment, he thought for some irrational reason that it might have been Miss Miller, or perhaps he had been thinking about Miss Miller so much that he had actually started to hallucinate her presence. But a second glance told him that this was not the case.

He could not make out the woman’s features except to discern that he did not know the girl. She was fair-haired and short of stature, whereas Miss Miller was tall and dark.

An apparition? Adam wondered. Was it Mary Warwick herself, returned from the grave to reprimand him for all that she had suffered? Perhaps even Mary had believed in his guilt, even from beyond the grave.

But Adam’s wiser and more rational side dismissed this foolishness at once. He was not a man given to fear of any kind, and it would take much more than the sight of a young woman standing by a lake in the light of dusk to frighten him.

He lifted a hand as if to hail the lady. He could not see the expression on her face. Noticing he had seen her, she seemed to start and disappear back into the woods behind her.

Adam stood there for a long time, staring at the place where the figure of the woman had disappeared.

It was not so strange, he told himself. People walked in Lawley Park all the time. His father had always encouraged it, saying that the grounds were far too beautiful to be reserved for his admiration alone.

It was perfectly reasonable to assume that the figure was some young girl from the village, who had taken a walk up to the lake, then taken fright at the sight of one of the owners of the house and fled in embarrassment.

Adam believed that the most straighforward explanations were always the most likely.

And yet...

Adam stood there for a long time, staring at the spot as if he expected her to reemerge and reveal her secrets to him. The future seemed so clouded to him now, so impossible to penetrate, and to add yet another matter of uncertainty, even though it was only the identity of a young woman on an evening walk, felt like a heavy burden indeed.

Nor could he deny how fiercely his heart had leapt when he had thought, momentarily, that the figure was Miss Miller. Adam had met a great many beautiful young women in his life, and he was far from naive. Perhaps it was that very experience of knowing what a mere infatuation was which was helping him to realize that what he felt for Miss Miller was a great deal more.