Page 36 of A Gentleman's Reckoning
“I am fine, I assure you.” She buttoned her cloak back in place. “I am to show my brother the changes we have made since he was last here.”
An eager light came into Mr. Dowling’s eye. “I shall gladly accompany you, then. After all, if I may speak immodestly for a moment, I have been at the root of many of these changes. WhyisLord Caldwell home from school?”
Now, it required more than civility; it needed all of Geny’s ingenuity to politely decline Mr. Dowling’s offer.
“There has been a measles outbreak in his school, and my father thought it better to bring him home rather than allow him to suffer the risk of becoming contaminated.”
“I should say so.” A look of alarm had come over his features. “And if he should already be contaminated? Why, my lady, you might be at risk. And those of us who work at the asylum might be at risk.”
“And the orphans too,” she added pointedly. She knew he did not value the lives of the orphans as much as he did of those more happily circumstanced. “However, I do not believe there is any danger of that. He had already been quarantined in school, and we think enough days have passed that he would have manifested symptoms.”
Mr. Dowling had inched back. It was hardly enough for her to notice, but she had. He cleared his throat. “I have forgotten that I have an urgent correspondence I must attend to?—”
“Lady Eugenia, if you are quite ready, then so am I,” John’s voice came from the doorway. When Mr. Dowling turned, John bowed politely—in appearance every inch the gentleman. Mr. Dowling did not return it and only frowned.
“I am. Shall we?” Geny walked past Mr. Dowling toward the stairs with John trailing behind her.
They exited into the courtyard, which was empty, and walked toward the stable. Geny’s mood had sobered further. This was different from the last time they had walked these steps, for that stroll had held promise. This time, he had nipped in the bud any possibilities for a courtship before it could bloom. There was something so depressing about that finality—and something so frustrating because she could do nothing to convince him otherwise. She dared not attempt it and so lose all dignity.
“I fear I upset you earlier.” John’s voice carried quietly to her ears.
She stopped in the middle of the courtyard, knowing that this was not a conversation for anyone else’s ears, nor would she like for their exchange to be noticed by others. But she had to respond.
“I am upset, but it is not at the liberties you claim to have taken. It is rather at having learned that you regret it.”
He looked stunned at her admission “I…I do not regret it—at least I cannot say I do. I regret only having done such a thing when I cannot see it through.”
She looked at him steadily. “Can you not?”
She held her breath, waiting for his answer. She could not lay her heart bare before him any more explicitly than that.
“We are of such different worlds,” he began. “Such different stations?—”
“And if that does not bother me, why should it bother you?” Geny was dancing dangerously close to proposing to the man herself. She knew it, but she did not want to lose potential happiness based on a misplaced sense of honor.
“It is more complicated than that,” he said.
She drew back. These words struck her even more harshly than the ones he had uttered in his office, for his reticence was clear. She had openly given him her heart, and he still did not want her. Blinking, she glanced away, and a movement in theupstairs window caught her eye. Mr. Dowling was watching them from the office she shared with Mrs. Hastings.
It was not for nothing that she had been strictly trained to move in society, for she could hide all vestige of pain at will. She lifted her chin.
“I see.”
“Geny,” he said softly as she turned away.
She resumed her walk to the stable with measured steps, carrying what shreds of dignity she had left.
Matthew came running out of the stable just as she neared the entrance. “Some stones from the wall have fallen—there is now a hole!”
“I warned you that it was in danger of falling. I hope you did not go back there.” Despite seeing that Matthew was unscathed, Geny had a sense of foreboding and hurried into the stable as John reached her side.
“No, not very close. I just wanted to look at it. But when I pointed it out to Gabriel and Timothy, Gabriel took a pole and poked at the loose stones before I could stop him.”
Geny drew in a sharp intake of breath and hurried past the stalls of horses toward the orphans. John ran ahead to where Gabriel and Timothy stood looking up and pointing. The long pole was still in Gabriel’s hand. Then there was a rumbling sound.
“Gabriel! Tim—!” John’s words were cut off by the sound of the entire wall crashing down on top of the boys.
Chapter Thirteen
