Dark trousers cloaked his long legs, making him appear even taller. The aristocratic planes of his face somehow appeared harder, cleaner, more sharply delineated.

He looked at her, then at the table. Then his gaze rose to her face. Arching a brow, he entered and shut the door.

Before he could speak, she gestured to the platters. “We thought you might be hungry.”

He was. Ravenous, now food was set before him. Inclining his head in acknowledgment, Ro walked around the table to hold her chair.

Although he steeled himself, it didn’t help; awareness rippled through him, just because she was near.

Within arm’s reach.

She sat and he stepped away, forced his feet to the other end of the small table. He sat, helped himself to a slice of game pie, then looked across the table and fixed her with a steady stare. “So-what are you doing here?”

She’d thought about spinning him some yarn, but had-wisely-decided against it; he read as much in her serene expression, in the clarity of her fine blue eyes.

Hands folded before her, she met his gaze steadily. “I’m here to retrieve a letter of Tabitha’s that unintentionally went astray.”

He chewed a piece of pie, remarkably succulent, and studied her. She was going to make him wring the story from her, cryptic utterance by veiled truth. Tabitha was her sister, a year or so younger, a firebrand even when he’d last met her at fifteen. Now twenty-five, Tab was, so he’d heard, a bluestocking of quite amazing degree, one who controversially preached that women, ladies in particular, had little need for men-gentlemen in particular-in their lives, and should think very hard before surrendering their freedom and fortunes into said gentlemen’s hands.