Page 19 of A Duchess' Irresistible Tutor

I shall need to be prepared the next time we meet,she told herself as she left the others and started to head towards where she had left her father’s carriage along with the coachman driving it earlier that morning.

She found him there almost exactly as she had left him. He must have read over the morning paper several times since her leaving, yet he did not look upset with how long she had been gone. Instead, upon seeing her, he jumped down from his bench and prepared to open the door for her.

“How was your walk in the park, Lady Lockhart?” Garratt asked with a bow as she approached. He smiled warmly at her, and it was clear from the look on his face that he wished her to have had a good time.

“It was pleasant, thank you, Garratt,” she responded, smiling back at him in return. “Though I cannot say that Lady Jennifer and I did all that much walking. I do believe that I should like to walk home.”

Daisy was restless after having sat on the bench talking for what must have been nearly two hours, and she wasn’t yet ready to return home just to sit in the parlour or even the library.

“Are you sure, My Lady?” Garratt asked, and Daisy didn’t miss how he looked up at the sky, clearly seeing the clouds rolling in from the horizon. “It looks like we might be in for a spot of rain.”

“I am sure, Garratt,” Daisy insisted. Her gloved hands were clasped before her, and she gripped them just a little tighter as she wondered whether the coachman might protest further. “Please, go on ahead, and if my father is home, be sure to tell him that I insisted upon walking, and I shall be home well before the rain begins.”

The coachman continued to look dubious, but he did not protest again. Instead, he closed the carriage door that he had already begun to open and stepped forward to offer her another low bow before promising, “If it begins to rain before your return. I shall come back for you.”

“No, please, Garratt,” Daisy insisted with a firm shake of her head. She looked at him pointedly and added, “I need some time alone, and a little rain shall not hurt me.”

The old man’s lips tightened, and for a moment, Daisy thought he might try to protest again. Then he bowed his head once more and offered her a smile. “I do hope that you enjoy your morning walk, My Lady. I shall tell your father all that you have asked.”

“Thank you, Garratt,” Daisy responded with a smile still plastered upon her face. She stood and watched Garratt pull himself back up into the front bench of the carriage. Then she watched and waited as he picked up the long horse whip and urged the large black stallion from the park.

Once she was certain he had gone, Daisy turned and began to make her way back through the meadow, choosing to take the long way around to get home. It was remarkably quiet considering it was only late morning, and she was relieved not to have to stop and greet someone every ten paces or so.

Instead, she enjoyed the solitude, stopping every so often to admire this plant or that tree or taking a moment to look down into the clear waters of the fountains just to see if she could spot any fish or other water life, trying to identify several of the species she had read about in her study books with Mr Radcliffe.

She was just walking down the footpath that ran parallel with the carriage driveway when the first drizzle began to patter down, tickling the tip of her nose.

For a moment, she wondered whether she ought to have just taken the carriage back after all but just as quickly, she pushed the thought away, deciding that it was better to quicken her pace than regret something she could not change now. A small drizzle had never hurt anyone. In fact, it even felt quite refreshing, the way it coated her face when she turned her head upwards to the clouds.

Yet within minutes, the heavens had opened, and Daisy had to make a split-second decision. She could continue, running towards home, or she could turn around and race back to the shelter she had passed only a minute or two before. Looking forward, she saw that the meadow gates were still some distance away, and beyond that, she had to run the rest of the way back home.

Glancing back over her shoulder, she decided that the shelter was the much better option. Beneath it was only a single older woman who had already been sitting upon a bench beneath the shelter as Daisy had passed by the first time. Then her head had been bobbing close to her shoulder as if she was fighting the urge to snooze, but now she was sat upright watching the rain pouring.

And as Daisy turned and raced towards her, she realised that the downpour was getting heavier and heavier, making it almost impossible to see the woman or the pavilion. She had to squint her eyes closed to make out where she was going.

By the time she made it beneath the shelter, the downpour was in full swing, though it was much easier to look out at it now that it was not pounding against her face. All around her, the ground was already looking waterlogged, and out of the corners of her eyes she could see thick, wet strands of blonde hair that had grown lank and lost their curls due to the weight of the rain that had soaked into her hair.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the old woman sitting on the bench behind her remarked. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, over her shoulder at the woman, Daisy grumbled. Though she often liked to watch the rain dancing upon the flowers in the townhouse garden from the safety of the parlour window seat, she did not very much like being caught in the downpour.

It was not that she did not like the rain but that she hated how heavy it made her gown and how it made her skin itch when it clung to her body. She also hated how cold and slimy her hair began to feel, losing its curls and causing her to look like a drowned rat.

She was about to respond to the little old woman, hoping to say something much more polite than she was thinking when she suddenly heard someone shout, “Lady Lockhart!”

The instant she recognised the voice, her heart started to race. Whipping around in the direction the voice had come from, Daisy turned in time to find Mr Radcliffe hanging right out of the window of his carriage around a hundred metres away. Only a small patch of lawn and a flowerbed separated them save from the sheet of driving rain. Though she struggled to see through the downpour, she would have recognised him anywhere. His handsome face was practically undisguisable.

Even before she could respond, the carriage started to draw to a halt, and before it had fully stopped, Philip was striking from the door with his jacket pulled up around his ears. He wore a fine outfit of cream breeches and a dark emerald jacket with a matching cravat and a white shirt beneath but as he hurried down the stepping stone path that cut through the patch of lawn between them, his white shirt grew see-through, and his cream breeches darkened until they were brown.

“My Lord, what are you doing?” Daisy demanded as he hurried under the shelter to join her, “You are soaked through!”

“I could say the same about you!” Philip exclaimed with great laughter, and the sound caused Daisy’s heart to skip another beat. She quickly glanced over her shoulder at the little old lady sitting on the bench but was relieved to see that her head had bobbed, now resting her chin upon her chest as though the downpour had only offered a moment’s entertainment before the desire to rest peacefully returned to her.

Had she not seen the lady regularly taking cat naps upon the meadow benches, Daisy might have been concerned for her, but today, she was merely relieved that it was her and not another woman who might judge her for meeting Mr Radcliffe alone.

I didn’t ask him to join me,she reminded herself, but the moment she turned back to look at him, she realised that had been exactly what she had been about to do the moment she saw him hanging out of his carriage. She chuckled along with the nobleman for a moment, unable to stop herself from admitting that they did look like a right pair, soaked to the skin and practically drowned as they were.

“My Lady, what are you doing out here all alone?” Mr Radcliffe asked when the laughter finally subsided. As the rain grew heavier, pounding on the hard wood of the shelter above their heads, Philip stepped closer, seeming to wish to comfort her against the loud roaring noise.

Forgetting entirely about the old woman snoozing close by, Daisy suddenly felt as though the rain had cut them off entirely from the rest of the world. For the first time ever, they were the only two people in existence, and she had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him, this man who had been hired as her tutor but had somehow become so much more. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she was quite sure that it had; she could feel it in her bones.

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