That demure paragon certainly would not be whooping delightedly as her iron hoop flew down a mountainside at nine o’clock in the morning.
And yet.
Adam flipped to the final page of his planning journal and added a new heading to the top:
Required Qualities for my Future Wife
He dipped his quill in fresh ink and added:
Friendly
Fearless
Good with children
There. He would know he’d found the right bride when she not only possessed the proper decorum and feminine accomplishments expected by the ton, but also displayed the sort of personality Adam hoped to share the rest of his life with.
Swinton strode into the dining room bearing a silver tray.
Adam quickly shut his journal.
“Crown secrets my lord?” Swinton eased down into the chair opposite. “Or penning a love note to a future duchess?”
“Neither,” Adam bit out. The heat flushing his cheeks probably wasn’t helping. “Where wereyouwhen Miss Quincy and I spent the afternoon alone in the library?”
Swinton held out the tray of correspondence with wide-eyed innocence. “Guarding the door with my life, Your Grace. ’Tis my sworn duty never to abandon my post.”
Adam arched a brow. “Even if a certain next-door maid happened to also be inside that closed door for the entirety of the afternoon?”
Swinton leaped up from the chair and fled the room without a backward glance.
Adam shook his head. When he’d purchased this cottage and installed his lifelong butler as master whilst Adam was away, it had occurred to him to wonder what Swinton was doing in Adam’s absence. If there had been only one social call during the entire summer a duke was in residence, there would have been even less for a butler to attend to without him.
Adam had allowed his friend Theo the use of the cottage for a few months while the soldier recuperated from war wounds. Again, not exactly the hustle and bustle of a typical Mayfair town house, but at least there had been someone new to welcome.
The rest of the time… Perhaps Swinton hadn’t been as lonely as Adam had feared.
He placed his papers and the journal in neat piles out of the way, then reached for the new correspondence. As usual, every one of the senders served with him in the House of Lords. This time every year, Adam received a flurry of letters begging him to join this committee or head that investigation.
Usually, he said yes. He was proud of being a good leader, and pleased that his attention to detail and command of each subject were useful to the cause. Whatever the cause. Today, he found himself wishing that just once, a letter would appear in which the only thing the sender wanted from Adam was his friendship, not his labor.
To be fair, they had tried.Adamhad tried. He’d trailed along on pheasant hunts, shown up in his best outfit at Almack’s. He’d managed to mumble something-or-other when the gentlemen gathered to boast after deer stalking, and a time or two had even participated in a minuet with some lord’s daughter or sister.
Adam was fairly certain he was the only one who recalled his presence on those occasions.
The past didn’t matter. He was New Adam now. Or would be soon. This billiards scheme was going to work. Whatever Miss Quincy’s true motivation was for helping him with his library and his party, Adam appreciated it more than she would ever know. Soon, he would be well practiced and socially competent. Instead of just pontificating at parliament meetings, he’d develop a circle of friends and the capacity to win the hearts of ladies.
“Your Grace?”
Adam glanced up and smirked to see a footman, rather than Swinton, bearing a letter on a tray. The crafty old codger would shackle himself to the front door before returning to the dining room and allowing further questions about his interest in the maid next door.
“Thank you.” Adam had been waiting for this report. It had not been part of the morning post because it had come from his man of business, who was lodged up at the castle with a hundred other travelers.
Adam despised taking meals in posting inns because he hated feeling out of place in large public dining rooms. However, according to his man of business Paterson, Marlowe Castle’s enormous dining hall could not be improved upon. The kitchen and staff were second to none, but more importantly, dining services were open to the entire village.
Paterson claimed he amassed more contacts and useful information over a simple bowl of soup than he could elsewise acquire in a week’s worth of hard labor.
Adam opened the report. It contained a list of commissions and the expected times to be taken for construction proposed by master craftsmen in the area capable of creating a professional-grade, visually beautiful, physically perfect billiard table. Money was no object, although he appreciated being able to compare offers.
