Excerpt of The Beautiful One by Emily Greenwood

Rounding the edge of the wood at the back of Stillwell, he
was startled to see his ward standing
about. She was looking up at a tree in which, from the
movement of its leaves and branches, some
large creature seemed to be thrashing. A crow?

As he drew nearer to the oblivious Lizzie, he was almost
certain he heard a woman’s voice coming
from among the leaves. Lizzie stepped closer to the tree and
lifted her hands upward, and he saw
that on a thick branch perhaps six feet off the ground were
perched two feet in past-their-prime
dark ankle boots, and above them he was treated to a view of
trim calves he could not regret. The
surrounding leaves and branches mostly obscured the rest of
his recently hired governess. In the
instant before Lizzie became aware of Will, he saw that she
held in her cupped hands a fluffy
white ball.

Lizzie turned and saw him, her mouth forming into an “O” as
a voice called from above, “Lizzie?
I’m ready for the owlet.”

“Er,” said Lizzie, looking at him. In the clear afternoon
light he noticed that her eyes were a
different color blue than Ginger’s had been. But the shape
was Ginger’s, as were the eyebrows. Not
her fault, but he couldn’t go the route of compassion. It
would only muddy what had to be. He
looked past her and lifted a hand to rub his eyes.

“Miss Black,” he said, knowing he could not avoid asking,
“what on earth are you doing?”

There was a pause as she absorbed his arrival and a shifting
of the feet on the branch near his
forehead as they drew together, perhaps in an attempt at
modesty.

“Ah, my lord,” she said from above him. “Good afternoon.
Lizzie and I are engaged in returning a
fallen owlet to its nest. It was her idea. She is very
caring toward animals.”

He could feel Lizzie’s big blue eyes on him though his own
were still covered by his hand. He had
no doubt as to whose idea it had been to climb the tree. He
hadn’t truly expected Anna Black to be
a typical sort of governess, had he?

“Come down at once.”

“If you will wait just a moment, my lord,” she said
breezily, “I shall be down directly. Lizzie,
the owlet.”

Lizzie cleared her throat. “Here.”

He tapped her on the shoulder before she could lift her arms
farther. “Give me that creature,
please.”

She looked uncertain, but she clearly didn’t want to
displease him, and she handed over the
motionless owl. He took it carefully from her and did not
return her tentative smile. He could
feel her eagerness for him to acknowledge her, but he let it
flow past him.

The leaves and branches above them shook as Anna Black
crouched down and extended her hand for the
animal. Her bonnet, the same horrible blue one, had fallen
on its strings around her neck again,
and her hair, apparently loosened by her climb, curled
crazily about her face as if she were some
unkempt urchin, accentuating her pert nose and reminding him
of her jack-in-the-box appearance
from the coach.

Her pink lips pressed outward at the sight of him; doubtless
she was annoyed by his arrival, but
her expression didn’t draw an answering wave of annoyance
from him. Instead, her lips were making
him wonder, unaccountably, what it might feel like to be
kissed all over by pink butterflies.
“The owlet, please,” she fairly ordered him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Get down this instant before you fall.
I will return the owlet.”

“I am already positioned to do so. If you will just give it
to me, I can put it back and then
receive your displeasure properly on the ground.”

He grunted. Why did he keep finding himself in
out-of-his-control conversations with this
maddening woman?

In his palm the owlet’s heart beat with a rapid, stressed
flutter. He reached up his hand, and she
gently took the animal and disappeared into the foliage.

From above came a few rustling noises, then the angry
screech of what had to be an adult owl and a
yelp. Fearing Miss Black would fall, he stepped forward to
catch her, but at that same moment she
jumped neatly down, so that she landed right in front of him.

He grabbed her arms, a reflex to steady her. She didn’t need
his help, but their eyes locked, and
for a moment he read vulnerability there before it was
replaced with the hard glint of
independence. She smelled like sunshine and crushed leaves,
and he felt the slim softness of her
arms and his body’s yearning to hug her close.

She stepped away from him. It had all happened in the space
of a few moments.

But as he watched her brush some leaves from her skirts with
her head down, that vulnerability
he’d glimpsed tugged at him. Who was this woman? Where had
she come from? She was clearly educated
and intelligent, and though she was too forthright and she
dressed terribly, she was not rough,
merely unusual.

That life-on-the-edge-of-propriety quality he’d observed in
her the night before had suggested
that she’d known some hardship, or that she had some burden
she might trade for money. And yet
today, in the company of his ward, she looked at ease, even
if her eyes seemed to be hiding
something.