Page 54 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

“Why, thank you, I—”

But Thomas had already yanked her from the room.

“He’s very sweet,” Amelia said as she skipped along beside him, trying to keep up with his lengthier stride.

“Sweet,” Thomas repeated, shaking his head. “He’d like that.” He steered her around a puddle, although not so deftly that she didn’t have to take a little hop to save her boots.

The coachman was already holding the door open when they approached. Amelia let Thomas help her up, but she’d not even taken her seat before she heard him say, “To Burges Park.”

“No!” she exclaimed, popping her head back out. “We can’t.”

Good heavens, that would be a disaster.

Chapter 10

Thomas stared at her for longer than was strictly necessary, then motioned to the coachman to leave them to their privacy. As Amelia was already half hanging outside the carriage, he was not required to lean forward in order to ask, “Why not?”

“To preserve your dignity,” she said, as if that made perfect sense. “I told Milly—”

“Milly?”

“My sister.” Her eyes widened in that way women affected when they were frustrated that their companion (usually male) could not immediately discern the nature of their thoughts. “You do recall that I have one.”

“I recall that you have several,” he said dryly.

Her expression turned positively peevish. “Not that it could have been helped, but Milly was with me this morning when I saw you—”

Thomas swore under his breath. “Your sister saw me.”

“Just one of them,” she assured him. “And luckily for you, it was the one who can actually keep a secret.”

There should have been something amusing in that, but he wasn’t seeing it. “Go on,” he ordered.

She did. With great animation. “I had to give my mother some reason for abandoning Milly on the Stamford high street, so I told Milly to tell her that I’d come across Grace, who was running errands for your grandmother. Then she was to say that Grace invited me back to Belgrave, but that if I wished to go, I had to depart immediately, because the dowager had ordered Grace to return right away.”

Thomas blinked, trying to follow.

“Because I had to have a reason why I did not have time enough to go into the dress shop and inform Mama of the change of plans myself.”

She stared at him as if he ought to have a response. He did not.

“Because,” she added, noticeably impatient now, “if I spoke to my mother directly, she would have insisted upon coming outside, and pretty though you are, I must confess to being at a loss as to how I might disguise you as Grace Eversleigh.”

He waited until he was certain she was finished, then murmured, “Sarcasm, Amelia?”

“When the conversation calls for it,” she returned, after a beat of highly irritated silence. She looked at him, her brows arched almost defiantly.

He looked at her, hiding his amusement. If arrogance was the game, she would never win.

And indeed, after but five seconds of their staring competition, she took a breath, and it was as if she’d never halted her recounting. “So you see why I cannot return to Burges just yet. There is no way I could have gone to Belgrave, visited with whomever it was I’m supposed to have been visiting with, and then gone home again.”

“Me,” he said.

She looked at him dumbly. Or rather, as if she thought he were dumb. “I beg your pardon.”

“You shall have to have been visiting with me,” he further clarified.

Now her expression turned incredulous. “Mother will be beyond delighted, but no one else will believe it.”

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