Excerpt of The Best Is Yet To Be by Kathryn Le Veque

“Lady Hage,” Paris greeted.

Jemma found herself tongue-tied for a moment. “Paris,” she said. “Ye… ye cut yer hair.”

He grinned. “You noticed?”

“Aye.”

The conversation died and Jemma quickly lowered her head, looking at her sewing and realizing that her hands were trembling, just a little.

Idiot!

“May I sit with you?” Paris asked.

Jemma nodded, scooting over so he could share her bench. She felt like such a fool, having never been so nervous in her entire life. She’d never even been this nervous with Kieran. But with Paris… this was uncharted territory. There were decades of being irritated by a man she was now trying to act differently with.

If she even could.

From the corners of her eyes, she could see that Paris was fidgeting with his hands, which led her to believe that, perhaps, he was nervous as well. That gave her a little more courage in a situation that was as strange as it was uncomfortable.

“How… how are things at Northwood?” she asked.

“Slow, thankfully,” he said. “Adonis has a new stallion.”

“Oh?”

“A very expensive beast. He plans to breed it to fine mares and make a fortune on the offspring.”

Jemma flipped the little garment in her hands over, struggling to focus on it. “Adonis is very savvy when it comes tae money,” she said. “If he says he’s going tae make a fortune, he probably will.”

“Aye, he will, and keep it all for himself,” he said. “Even when he was a child, he would hoard his pence. He had a hiding place and, as I recall, your son, Christian, found it and took the money. Do you remember that?”

That brought a smile from Jemma. “Christian thought he’d found a treasure,” she said. “In his defense, he dinna know it was Adonis’. Remember that he went tae town with Kieran and bought sweets with the money?”

Paris snorted softly. “He was very generous,” he said. “He shared the treats with all of the children. But when Adonis found out that they had been bought with his secret horde, I thought he was going to kill Christian.”

They both chuckled at the memory of two young children fighting over money. It was a moment of levity that alleviated some of the tension between them.

For the moment, anyway.

“Kieran gave Adonis his money back,” Jemma said. “I dunna think things were the same between Christian and Adonis after that. For the rest of Christian’s life, Adonis would hide everything from him – money, food, possessions – everything.”

“I remember,” Paris said, watching Jemma’s profile as she began stitching on the little tunic again. “But I also remember that when Christian left for the Holy Land, it upset Adonis a great deal. I think that in spite of everything, he always looked up to Christian. He was someone to be admired.”

Jemma nodded, pausing in her stitching to look at the children playing in the labyrinth. “I often wonder what would have become of my Christian had he lived,” she said softly. “Ye know we named him after Kieran’s younger brother who died in battle.”

Paris sobered. “I knew Kieran’s brother Christian very well,” he said. “He served at Northwood and I was at the battle where he lost his life. He was so different from Kieran – loud, lively, rash. He had a wicked streak of humor in him. Losing him hurt Kieran badly.”

For the first time since entering the garden, Jemma turned to look at him. Jordan had asked her to think back to the time before Kieran had entered her life to explore if she might have been able to feel something for Paris, and she was trying very hard. It was difficult not to feel something for a man she had so much shared history with.