“All right. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” He cast her a tender smile.
The rest of their waltz proceeded in silence.
She closed her eyes through most of it, although that was not very clever of her because shefelthim, her heart melting a little at the gentleness of his touch and the powerfully protective way he held her.
When the music stopped, she opened her eyes to find him looking at her with an unreadable expression. “What are you thinking, Your Grace?”
“That I would like to dance with you again.”
Was he serious?
He could not be.
She looked up at him in dismay. “You would subject yourself to this ordeal again?”
How many times had she stepped on his foot?
She had lost count after three.
“Ordeal?” he muttered, his smile breathtaking in its warmth.
She laughed lightly because she liked this man and the gentle way he was treating her. “Are you merely a glutton for punishment or completely insane?”
CHAPTER 3
ADELA WAS SURPRISEDto find bouquets of flowers littering Lady Dayne’s elegant entry hall when she came down to breakfast the following morning. “Watling, is there a flower fair going on that we are not aware of?”
“They are all for you, Miss Adela,” he said with a kindly smile.
“All of them? Do you know who sent them?”
“Various suitors, I expect. Shall I have them put in vases now or do you wish to read through the cards sent with them first?”
“What do you think Lady Dayne would do?” she asked him since the dowager was still in her bedchamber and not likely to come downstairs for another few hours yet.
“She would read through the cards and make a note of who sent which flowers. There is also an art to the meaning of each flower, but I suppose you are aware of this.”
She laughed softly. “One would think I should be, but I never gave it a moment’s thought. If it isn’t skulls or bones, then it does not hold my interest. Does Lady Dayne have a book on flowers in her library?”
“I am certain she must have several. It is the sort of thing she would find of interest.”
“Thank you, Watling. You have been most helpful.” Adela went into the library and searched through the rows of books until she came upon some that appeared to be on the topic. She took a few into the dining room and also had the bouquets brought in along with quill pen, ink, and notepaper.
First, she had the footmen lay a protective padding over the table so as not to accidentally damage it or the table linens while the flowers and writing supplies were laid out upon it and she scribbled her notes. There was an abundance of honeysuckle and red roses in the bouquets, so she decided to look up the significance of those blooms first. The honeysuckle, she read in one of the reference books, represented ardent devotion and the abundant red roses represented love.
What a jest!
If her so-called beaus were trying to impress her, they had failed. How could she ever trust the very gentlemen who had considered her a country cow all of last Season and into this one? Were they all suddenly struck dumb by her beauty at the same time? Love was not a disease that infected everyone at once. The truth was obvious, for these men were merely aping the Duke of Huntsford’s supposed interest in her.
If the duke liked her, then surely they ought to like her, too.
She went through all the bouquets with a diligence usually reserved for her research on bones and took precise notes regarding each.
Yellow tulips symbolized happiness.
A gentleman by the name of Lord Faun had sent her those, but she had no idea who he was.
Red tulips meant mates of the soul. Ha! Which dolt had sent her that bouquet? No doubt, it was one of the men who had openly snubbed her last year. And now she was expected to forget his callous behavior and consider him as her true love?
