Page 41 of A Sense of Turmoil
‘Archie claims to despise Magda nowadays and is determined to have nothing more to do with her, but I’ll wager a fortune that he still sometimes thinks of the sport they had in her bed. Am I bitter? Good God yes, I’d be less than human if I wasn’t, but when Archie took that fall and we thought he was dead, it was as though a part of me died with him.’
Luke nodded. ‘I understand. We were all so close that I felt that way too.’
‘I forgave him then, albeit posthumously, or so I thought, and am nothing less than delighted to have him back again. And if one believes in fate, then my father washing his hands of me, devastating though it was at the time, worked out for the best. If I had not come here to work for you then Mary and I would likely never have spent enough time together to realise we were one another’s destiny, so perhaps everything happens for a reason.’
Luke inclined his head. ‘That’s indisputable.’
‘Of course Archie’s a changed man. How could he not be after all he’s endured? He’s matured as well and is now a marquess with responsibilities just as onerous as yours. But he’s still incorrigible, and if a pretty and willing chambermaid takes his fancy then we know that he won’t attempt to resist her charms.’ Paul fixed Luke with a hard look. ‘But he is a gentleman to his fingertips, much as we all are, and he will not overstep the bounds with Flora.’
‘I should damned well think not,’ Luke replied, too astonished by the manner in which Paul, an intensely private person, had chosen to state his views in such a forthright fashion to express his doubts. Besides, he had none, not really. He was simply insanely jealous of Archie’s close friendship with Flora.
‘But I will tell you this much. I have never seen Archie so smitten since his early days with Magda. He’s developed serious feelings for Flora, but he’s holding back out of deference to you. He appears to think that she prefers you, for reasons that escape me, and that you have first claim on her affections.’
‘Hardly.’ Luke flapped a hand, both hoping and fearing that Paul was speaking the truth. ‘She declined my offer to accompany her to Salisbury but accepted Archie’s.’
‘Did she? Perhaps Archie didn’t ask her. Maybe he sensed her need for support and took it upon himself to provide it. If you had her best interests at heart, that is what you would have done. You know how determined her father is to bully her into compliance, and I suspect she doesn’t tell us the half of it.’
‘Perhaps I should have, but I had to stay here.’ He glanced at his desk. ‘The accounts…’ Luke’s voice trailed off. He was making feeble excuses and Paul somehow resisted pointing that fact out to him.
‘All I’m saying, Luke, is that nothing stays the same forever. Your grandmother won’t live for much longer. That’s the unpalatable truth, and when she dies, Flora will leave Beranger Court and you will have lost her, unless you do something that gives her a justifiable reason to remain here. But if you invent a position for her, her pride will prevent her from taking it. Besides, she won’t want to stay and see you married to another.’
Luke threw himself back into his chair and dropped his head into his splayed hands. ‘I know,’ he said softly.
‘Let her continue to think that she has a gift of second sight. What harm can it do? And she did use it, real or imagined, to save you from Magda’s machinations. And to keep Miranda safe from her desperate relations. There are other examples too, all of which can be passed off as instinct, even if she privately believes otherwise. What does it matter?’
‘If you put it like that, I suppose…’
Paul nodded emphatically. ‘Precisely.’
‘I need some air and space to think. We’ve been cooped up in here all day.’
Paul waved a hand. ‘Don’t let me stop you. I’ll finish up here. Oh, and by the way, Fleming told me earlier that they’ve settled on Denby Lodge.’
Luke frowned. ‘That’s a bit small for them, isn’t it? It’s little more than a glorified cottage. I’d have thought they would have wanted something a little grander.’
‘George says it’s just a stop-gap until he can decide upon a purchase. But they can’t take occupation for another fortnight, so you’ll have Ottilie here for longer, which will give you time to make up your mind.’ Paul rolled his eyes. ‘Possibly.’
‘A sobering prospect.’
Paul chuckled. ‘I have seen more enthusiastic potential bridegrooms.’
Luke managed a hollow laugh, whistled to Romulus and left the room. He headed for the lake, one of Flora’s favourite walks, but he knew that he wouldn’t run into her since she was still in Salisbury, basking in the reflection of Archie’s smiles. He knew that was an unworthy thought, and he chased it away. Paul was right. Archie had done what he himself should have done and offered Flora support in the shape of his presence. She had said it would have made matters more complicated for her, and Luke had accepted that explanation. But the same could have been said for Archie. More so, since his title outranked Luke’s, yet he had gone anyway. Luke felt ashamed of himself.
‘I’m a damned fool,’ he told Romulus, who seemed more interested in diving into the reeds whenever anything caused them to sway, emerging with nothing more than muddy paws and a wet nose to show for his efforts.
He was grateful to Paul for giving him the kick up the backside he so richly deserved but wondered why he hadn’t taken him to task for denigrating his father’s memory. Perhaps because he too had heard the rumours about his womanising, but had dismissed them as the harmless pursuit of pleasure engaged in by the majority of gentlemen. His parents seemed to have got along well enough at home, even if they had little in common and largely pursued their own interests.
That was the type of future he anticipated when contemplating Ottilie as a bride, but it occurred to him now that it would be a very different matter if he had Flora at his side. He felt himself stirring at the prospect, a situation that thoughts of the delectable Ottilie in his bed failed to engender. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t have to look elsewhere to satisfy his baser instincts if Flora agreed to become his countess.
There, he had admitted the possibility of making her precisely that, something he had not previously allowed himself to contemplate consciously. Would Grandmamma approve of his choice? Almost certainly. She was inordinately fond of Flora.
‘Does it really matter if she rebels against her father’s religious doctrine by embracing diametrically opposed views to his?’ he asked Romulus, who now had his nose pressed to the ground, wagging up a storm as he tracked some invisible scent. ‘It isn’t as though she would take to conducting seances here at the Court, is it?’
‘Oh, excuse me. I thought I was alone.’
Luke glanced up at the sound of a female voice, quelling his disappointment when he found Ottilie rather than Flora standing in front of him. She was flushed and out of breath, implying that she had seen him from her chamber window and deliberately set out on the opposite side of the lake to affect an apparentlyaccidentalmeeting close to the halfway point. It was the first occasion upon which she had deliberately put herself forward. Perhaps she was tired of waiting for Luke to make the first move.
Romulus bounded up to her, but she shuddered and took a step backwards. Luke called his dog to heel and he obeyed, looking mystified by this human who didn’t seem to like him very much. Luke realised that Ottilie was afraid of dogs, especially a large and boisterous dog like Romulus, who could appear terrifying but was actually afraid of his grandmother’s cat.
