When she’d asked the taxi to stop on the other side of the woods, she’d given no thought to her clothing. Instead she’d wanted to make her way to her grandmother’s cottage on the path that felt achingly familiar and yet strange and unknowable at this time in the morning. But the hems of the cloak and dress had dragged along the floor, soaking up the damp earth, making them impossibly heavy. As the material caught on twigs and thorns, Ella felt as if she were battling something physical, not just emotional, on her journey back to her grandmother’s.
She pulled up short, wanting to wrench the damn thing from her shoulders, wanting to wail and shout and cry all at once. She forced herself to breathe in a long, slow breath, in and out. She had almost recovered when she heard the snap of a twig. The hairs on the skin of her arms rose in the early morning air, sending tingles and shivers down her back. Casting a glance around her, Ella’s gaze snagged on something in the dense foliage and she took half a step towards the bush before she saw the gleam of yellow eyes staring at her. Before she could run, the beast crashed out of the tree cover and loped towards her in an alarmingly lazy gait that covered the distance between them in seconds and, just as it was about to pounce, she closed her eyes and—
‘Dorcas, sit!’
Prising her eyes open, she watched as the massive beast careened to a halt barely a foot from Ella and sat on its hind legs, tongue lolling out of its mouth and a look of almost indescribable happiness at having found something for its master spread across its wolfish features.
An almost hysterical laugh of relief bubbled in her chest, until it caught there the moment she saw the beast’s owner making his way towards her.
He was over six feet fall, more lean and lithe than broad, his every step almost graceful as he wove his way through the trees. Ella’s heart thudded in her chest the moment he locked eyes with her, trapping her gaze as easily as the breath in her lungs. Longish dark hair swept carelessly around his head and hung down towards a low brow that appeared almost forbidding. Assessing eyes, squinting slightly against the pale morning sun, were a shocking shade of light blue, almost yellow, as if he shared some kinship with the animal which sat at her feet. Lips that were neither thick nor too thin made her wonder whether they would feel as perfect as they appeared to her… The fanciful thought momentarily startled her before she hungrily ate up what else she could see of him. The sharp edges of his cheekbones and jawline were strong and proud, and Ella’s eyes tripped down to where the collar of his grey linen shirt peeked above a deep rich blue pullover, revealing a glimpse of the hollow that she inexplicably wanted to press her thumb to.
Ella’s heart pounded in her chest. Never had a man had such an effect on her before. And never had her mind betrayed her with the errant thought that rang through her entire being.
This man is going to break my heart.
The shock and sheer ridiculousness of the thought made her shake her head, causing the figure to stop in his tracks. Ella used the brief respite to breathe. Despite his imposing stature, she couldn’t sense any form of threat coming from him.
‘I’m sorry about Dorcas—she gets excited when we meet other people.’
At this, the beast—Dorcas—decided its master’s command had been lifted and she unfolded her giant frame and came close enough to nudge Ella’s hand with her nose. As Ella absentmindedly stroked the huge hound, it took a moment for her tired mind to understand the source of her confusion because, although she understood him completely, she couldn’t quite understand why he’d spoken in Russian.
Interpreting her confusion, the man pressed on. ‘Je suis désolé, vous m’avez surpris.’
He smiled apologetically, as if this strange encounter were his fault and not hers for walking through the woods at some awful hour of the morning dressed in…dressed in… Oh, God! Ella almost groaned, but turned it into a rueful laugh.
‘Perhaps we could continue in English, if you speak it. It’s been a…long day.’
‘It is only six o’clock in the morning, so I must assume a very long day.’ He looked her over and she suddenly realised that he could quite easily misinterpret the reason for her appearance, which made her think of all the reasons she was in the woods in a ball gown and red velvet cape after spending twelve hours by her grandmother’s bedside.
The forest’s dew had soaked into the cloak and, more than its heaviness, she now felt cold. Cold and hungry and tired. But as she began to shiver she realised that it was not from the damp or the temperature, but the effect of being this man’s sole focus.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked gently, as if not wanting to scare her further.
‘My grandmother’s house. It’s just up the path and not far.’
She braced herself as Dorcas leaned into her, almost at waist height.
‘Dorcas!’ the man almost growled at his dog in warning, yet the dog only answered with a playful yip before collapsing in a heap at Ella’s feet and showing her belly as if to say, Here. Rub here.
‘Stop flirting, Dorcas,’ came her
