Page 6 of To Tempt a Scandalous Lord
She dipped her head, all regal acknowledgement, but Niall did not miss the tinge of pink that touched her cheeks.
“I am impressed, Lady Lindsay,” Firthwell said, his brows high. “Care to share anything else you learned?”
“Oh, I’m sure your lovely wife has more news to share than I do,” she said, with a flick of her fan.
“I do?” The viscountess blinked. “I am still quite new to this political game, so perhaps you would be kind enough to explain what I missed.”
Lady Lindsay chuckled, the husky sound threatening to tease a smile onto Niall’s face. “I assure you that you did not miss much. But if I can help you learn the sort of details and notions to listen for, please let me know.”
Lady Firthwell’s lips quirked up. “That is a kind offer, your ladyship, and I accept. I have fretted over whether I was doing enough to aid Finlay.”
The countess angled to face the other woman. “Then let us help each other. I have only been in London since my mourning period ended, so I have not yet made many friends. Perhaps by assisting you I can gain my first.”
Niall watched as the women continued their conversation, planning future dates, and he was struck that despite the countess’s amiable, polite manner, her pulse raced at the base of her throat. Was she nervous? Feeling unsure of herself? Lady Lindsay was new in town, and as a young widow without children, he wondered if she was lonely and looking for purpose.
His gaze traced over the sharpness of her cheekbones and the tilt to her chin that he wanted to call stubborn, but instead deemed confident. Despite any discomfiture she might feel, the countess seemed to size up the room and its occupants, taking their measure in a mere glance. She was formidable…and he was charmed.
Clenching his jaw, Niall looked away.
He didn’t have the time or inclination to be enchanted by the widowed Lady Lindsay. And if he were practical, and he always tried to be, she lacked the connections or funds that would make a deeper relationship between them beneficial. He had an election to win and reforms to champion, and he would do neither by dallying with a woman who could not aid his future.
With that reminder of his duty, he executed a swift bow to both women. “Ladies, it was a pleasure, but I’m afraid I see Lord Matthews waving me over. Until next time.”
Niall swept away, determined to reclaim his focus and see to the task at hand.
Chapter Two
At the table in the breakfast room the following morning, Alicia idly stirred her tea while she read the morning’s paper, and her heart cheered when her eyes traced over the headline, “Slavery Abolished Across the Empire.”
Out of habit, she glanced up to the chair across the table from her. Lindsay’s chair. The seat that had sat empty for the last two years. The one she had been trained to look to when she wished to talk.
It felt like it was only yesterday when her maid had come rushing into her chambers to tell her the earl had not awoken from his sleep, yet to Alicia it was as if a thousand new days had dawned since she’d learned the news.
Their marriage had been born of desperate circumstances, and while she could never hate Lindsay for saving her from an awful fate, she had never loved him. But with a brevity born of time, Alicia could admit that the earl had inadvertently shaped the issues she now championed as a widow, and she had grown in confidence and poise during their marriage.
Despiteeverything, Alicia would be grateful.
“The post has arrived, your ladyship,” her butler, Jones, intoned quietly as he set a stack of letters at her elbow.
Alicia blinked back to the present. With a polite nod, she filtered through the stack absentmindedly, her eyes glazing over the various letters and sorting them with rote movements. Until she noticed a letter penned in elegant script.
Lady Firthwell had written her.
A smile curved Alicia’s mouth as she reflected on the quiet and serious viscountess with the warm laugh. Plucking the seal free with impatient fingers, she quickly read the letter. The young woman thanked Alicia for her kindness at the soiree the previous night and invited her to join her and Firthwell for dinner the night after next.
Alicia glanced up at Jones. “Please have my calendar brought down to me.”
The butler immediately slipped out the door to see to his task.
Alicia fiddled with Lady Firthwell’s letter as she watched traffic on the street outside. She had received several letters and invitations since her arrival to London, all from the wives of Lindsay’s old friends, but never had Alicia been this anxious to respond. She genuinely liked the viscountess, and saw so much of her younger self in the woman as she adjusted to her new role as a countess and political hostess.
Lindsay had never concerned himself with hosting political dinners whilst he was in Town, but he had expected her to play hostess for grand dinners at the family estate. Alicia had been forced to learn so many things on her own.
Alicia chewed her lip. Oh, she knew Firthwell’s sister was a duchess and no doubt would serve as a better tutor to the new viscountess than Alicia ever could, but a genial smile and friendly encouragement was never amiss. If that was all she could offer to help make Lady Firthwell’s transition smoother than her own, she’d do it happily.
And if the viscountess, as a patroness of Lord Inverray’s foundling home, could assist Alicia in her quest to learn about the marquess’s charitable activities, more the better.
Opening the nondescript notebook that sat at her elbow, Alicia spread the pages flat with the palms of her hands and studied the words she had written there the night before.
