Beside Wu-lai, Madame Chaumont waited solemnly.This morning, she hung back with the girls and that was unusual for the countess.She’d joined the Hanniford family when first Killian had come abroad with Lily and Marianne nearly five years ago.Ada, at the time, was still in finishing school in Connecticut and had not sailed for Europe until she had commenced in June eighteen-seventy-eight.She’d arrived with their older brother Pierce days before Lily married Julian Ash.On their wedding morning, Julian had been a marquess, but hours later, upon the sudden death of his father, the duke of Seton, Julian had inherited the man’s titles and estates.Chaumont, who had been hired by Ada’s father, had stayed with them these many years, first shepherding Lily, then their cousin Marianne and finally Ada through the rigors of European customs and manners.Through it all, Chaumont had been loyal even as she searched for a husband among the many men she met.But she had not found one she loved.A pretty blonde in her mid-thirties, perhaps a bit too eager to enchant a man, the French woman was aging.Today, she moved slowly, her skin ashen.Ada frowned, wondering if she were ill.
She beckoned Chaumont, hoping she might join her, but the lady gave a small shake of her head and slid her gaze toward Victor.
He was her next target?
No.Ada whirled away.Please don’t want her.
“Up there.”Richard pointed toward a nest high in a budding oak.“We’re about to have a cast of woodpeckers banging on the trees.”
“Any idea when?”Grateful for the diversion, she craned her neck but through the thick foliage, was not able to see more.
“None.Like birds, do you?”
She shrugged.“As long as they don’t eat crops, yes.Do you?”
He talked about the value of birds.“Buzzards are especially useful.Eating detritus and depositing the remains everywhere.”
“Hmmm.Bat guano.”
He choked on laughter.“You know about that?”
“I do.Importing it made quite a few men wealthy.The soil here needs the added enrichment.”
“Yes,” he said with a scowl.“I missed that investment.”
He rattled on about the importance of catching a wave of a new product before any and all spoil the fun and take all the proceeds.She listened, polite but assessing him.
Despite gossip she’d heard of him, he possessed the finest manners.Still, those alone could not quell the unease she felt beside him.He walked too closely to her, put a hand now and then to her forearm and grinned much too broadly.He was a fox, wily, aggressive.She would show him that she was not his rabbit.
“Your family is well-known in England,” he said as they strolled along the river’s edge.“Your father quite successful here in shipping and trade.Railroads, too.Your brother Pierce buys up land as if he intends to become an Englishman.”
She ignored his leading statement.“My father and brother have a golden touch.”
“Even your older sister married the Duke of Seton.And your cousin?Forgive me as I’ve forgotten her name.She married a German baron, isn’t that so?”
“A Frenchman.”A duc.A prince of the Bourbon blood.Bonapartes’ too.“The sculptorRemy.”
Richard snapped his fingers.“Ah, yes!And she’s that artist—what is her name?—who paints only women and children.”
“She is Marianne Duquesne, using her maiden name professionally.”
“And what do you do, Miss Hanniford?”
I plant.I cultivate.“I design gardens.”
“Charming.Any one I might have seen?”
“My step-mother’s and my sister’s.”
“I should love to view them.”
Angling for an invitation?
“And when you are not planting and pruning, what do you do?”
“Everyone assumes I search for a husband.”
“Ha!And do you?”His dark brown eyes twinkled.
