Mr. Grenville turned to face her, his tone earnest, but his eyes hard. “All people have a basic right to privacy. No one should broadcast their neighbor’s faults or profit from exploiting others’ peccadillos.”
Nora did not think it would help her case to point out that not only did her captions fail to reveal anything High Society didn’t already know, they also did not in any way alter her subjects’ pre-existing reputations.
She simply bowed her head in silence and took the chair beside the baroness. They waited for the footmen to arrange the settee for transfer. Nora sent a nervous glance toward the door.
Mr. Grenville was positively the worst person for her to be anywhere near if she intended to keep her secret. Yet she could not flee; Lady Roundtree had insisted on her companion’s company.
Nora straightened her shoulders and affected a blank stare. She would simply have to act perfectly normal. Subservient. Disinterested. Unremarkable.
As the footmen prepared to move the baroness from her chair to the settee, Mr. Grenville stepped forward and held up a hand to halt them.
“Before you install yourself in this parlor on my account, I have news to share.” His eyes shone. “The Dulwich Picture Gallery is open to the public at last. Would you care to accompany me, madam? You cannot stay cooped up all day. There is a special exhibition on display.”
Nora tried not to feel slighted that only the baroness was invited. One did not invite one’s peers’ servants on outings. She knew that.
But from the first moment she’d heard about the Dulwich Picture Gallery, she had been consumed with the desire to attend.
There were no special exhibitions back home. No gallant gentleman to escort her. No money to pay for tickets.
She would simply have to hope that, just like on every other occasion, the baroness returned eager to share with Nora every single moment of what had transpired.
Nora fervently hoped the baroness had a picture-perfect memory.
“And your companion, of course,” Mr. Grenville added before Lady Roundtree could respond. “I am certain you would not wish to be without her.”
“A picture gallery,” the baroness said, as if tasting the idea. “Miss Winfield positively adores pictures. Why, just the other day we dressed Captain Pugboat as a lion and—”
“Thank you,” Nora said quickly, interrupting her patroness in as polite a manner as she could devise. This was not the ideal audience for extolling one’s talent with a sketchbook, even if the drawing styles were completely different from the caricatures. “I would be honored to accompany the two of you to such a prestigious event.”
“Well, of course you’d be honored. You’re from the country.” Amused, Lady Roundtree turned to Mr. Grenville. “Miss Winfield has probably never been to a gallery in her life.”
Nora smiled tightly.
If her patroness painted her as a country bumpkin to Mr. Grenville, well, it was only for the best. Better a lord like him think of her as the outsider she was.
“Shall we take my coach, or do you prefer your own?” he asked the baroness.
“We must take yours,” the baroness replied at once. “I want everyone to see me in the company of one of London’s most eligible bachelors.”
“One of the many? You wound me, madam.” Mr. Grenville clutched his heart as if grievously injured. “Very well, my coach it shall be.”
As a footman pushed the baroness’s wheeled chair toward the front door, Mr. Grenville fell into step beside Nora.
She tried not to trip over her own feet out of sheer proximity. She was neither a rose nor a ruby, but a complete zany.
His eyes twinkled. “If I had likened you to a strawberry, tart and sweet, would you still have been able to find fault with my analogy?”
Her cheeks heated.
Tart and sweet, precious and beautiful, soft and delicate. There was no possible way a handsometongentleman could ever truly be interested in her as anything more than a momentary diversion. Yet she could not help her traitorous heart from wanting to believe.
“What if I said strawberries give me a rash?” she asked, deliberately more tart than sweet.
“Then I would be in awe of your commitment to a theme,” he said without missing a beat. “Rose-colored hair, rose-colored gown, rose-colored rash…”
She giggled despite herself. Of course he would have the perfect answer.
But she could not allow herself to thaw. Not when his motives were so unclear. Was he suspicious of her and trying to win her confidence? Or could the heir to an aristocratic title truly be a man this marvelous?
