Page 18 of His Lordship's True Lady
With only one brother married, the odds of a legitimate heir were halved.
“I must apologize for imposing on your person,” Hessian said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Had we been found conversing alone, gossip would have ensued.”
His capacity for mendacity was growing apace, for he was not in the least sorry to have held Lily Ferguson in his arms.
“Lady Humplewit needs a credible reason to be wandering the corridors of the house alone if she’s to spread gossip about you accosting me. I gather the ladies’ retiring room is not on the first floor?”
“The gentlemen’s retiring room is upstairs, suggesting the ladies’ would be on the ground floor. Lady Humplewit was plainly lying in wait to ambush me.”
She’d nearly succeeded. Hessian had asked if he could be of assistance, and she’d latched on to his arm like a rowan tree sinking roots into the face of a precipice. He’d shaken loose and trotted off ostensibly in search of a housemaid.
And his freedom, of course.
“Too bad you haven’t a sister here to guard your back,” Lily said. “You do have a brother in Town, though.”
“We were estranged for many years, but yes, I have a brother. Worth is disgustingly happy with his lady wife, besotted with his daughter, and I suspect more fond of his dog than he is of me. He’s directed me to find a countess so he might repair to his country estate posthaste. I’m whining.”
Also being honest, because Worth’s leap into the joys of holy matrimony had come just as Hessian had made the effort to repair a familial breach of many years’ standing. That breach was healed—or at least repaired—in part because Worth no longer clung to his status as an earl’s disenchanted younger brother.
Worth had become entirely the creature of his womenfolk, and made it appear like a damned happy fate too.
“You look so severe when you’re lost in thought,” Lily said as they approached the door to the garden. “And yet, I’ve seen you smile.”
“I will smile when I recall the moments spent with you and Apollo in that alcove. You are a good friend, Lily Ferguson. I again apologize for embroiling you in my troubles.”
“No apologies necessary. Prepare to weigh anchor and repel boarders tomorrow at two of the clock, my lord.”
She sailed off in the direction of the tent at the foot of the garden, a small craft of a female sturdy enough to navigate any storm, even as the wind whipped at her skirts and a fine mist began to fall from the sky.
* * *
“Why didn’t I kiss him?” Lily could pose that question because Emmaline was a reliable confidante, and Bronwyn had insisted on riding up on the box. With Rosecroft as her de facto papa, Bronwyn had probably charmed the reins away from John Coachman before the carriage had left the mews.
Emmaline drew the shade down on her side of the bench, even though the sun was on Lily’s side. “Maybe you didn’t kiss the earl because you are a lady?”
“Don’t be obtuse. I am the niece of the Honorable Walter Leggett, a woman of mature years. I am not prone to missishness or dithering.” To be held by Grampion had been so… sweet. Andfrustrating. “I have a normal complement of curiosity, though, and would prefer not to die without having even once kissed a man whom I esteem.”
And desire, of all the inconvenient realizations.
“You’re prone to common sense, Lily. You can’t go around kissing stray earls and have any sort of reputation left.”
Grampion wasn’t stray, or dashing, or flirtatious. He was the least sentimentally romantic man Lily had encountered in years, and yet, she regretted not sampling his charms.
“The right earls don’t kiss and gossip,” Lily said as the coach rattled around a corner. “I do believe Winnie’s at the ribbons.”
“Her hair will be a fright before we arrive.”
Though Emmaline would have brought a comb and spare hair ribbons. She was so unassuming, so unconcerned with impressing anybody but her husband, that her preparedness for any situation was easy to overlook. She would not have missed an opportunity to share a stolen kiss with a man she fancied though. The countess was as determined as she was quiet.
“Didn’t you ever long to have somebody muss your hair, Emmie? Long for somebody to tempt you from the path of propriety?”
“Yes. That’s why I married Rosecroft.”
The horses slowed to a walk.
“Yes? He mussed your hair, so you gave him your hand?”
“More or less, but if you’d asked me prior to my marriage, I’d have said the view when one strays is so often disappointing.”
