Organized.
He had not written a speech. He had not even planned one in his head. Every time he had decided to do it, his thoughts had scattered in fright to the four corners of the earth and stayed away, no doubt searching for corners that were not even there.
He had no roses either. It was the wrong time of year. Tulips did not seem quite right. And, Vince’s gardeners might have looked askance at him if he had sallied forth into the beds, scissors or shears in hand. And daffodils, she would no doubt inform him, were better left to bloom in the grass.
So he arrived outside the cottage empty-handed and empty-headed.
He knocked on the door and then wondered whether it was too late to bolt. It was. A woman with a little boy in tow and a large basket over her free arm was passing on the other side of the street. She was watching him curiously and bobbed an awkward curtsy when she saw him looking.
Anyway, he had said he would come.
The door opened, and he prepared a polite smile for the housekeeper. But it was Mrs. Keeping herself who stood there in the doorway.
“Oh,” she said, the color deepening in her cheeks.
“May I hope,” he asked her, removing his hat and making her a bow, “that the mere s-sight of me robs you of coherent s-speech, Mrs. Keeping?”
“Dora has gone up to the house,” she said, “and Mrs. Henry has gone to the butcher’s shop.”
“The coast is c-clear for the big, bad wolf, then, is it?” he asked.
She looked at him in apparent exasperation. But, really, did the woman have no more sense of self-preservation than to inform a man at the door that she was alone in the house?
“I c-cannot come in, then,” he said. “Your n-neighbors would fall into a collective s-swoon before recovering and r-rushing off to share the scandalous news with their more d-distant neighbors. Fetch your cloak and b-bonnet and come walking with me. It is too fine a day, anyway, to s-spend indoors.”
“Do you ever ask rather than state?” she asked him, frowning. But her shoulders lost their tension when he merely raised one eyebrow, and she sighed. “I suppose you knew Dora was at Middlebury.”
“I did,” he admitted. “I did not know your h-housekeeper was at the butcher’s, however. Would she have informed me that you w-were not at home?”
Mrs. Keeping gave him a speaking glance and shook her head slightly, as though she were dealing with a troublesome child.
“I will fetch my outdoor things.”
It did not appear that she had been waiting on pins and needles and with bated breath for him to come and renew his addresses, then. Had he expected that she would?
9
He made light conversation as they walked back down the street and turned through the gates to Middlebury. And she was ready enough to contribute her mite. It was better than silence, she had probably decided.
They fell silent, though, after he had drawn her off the drive to walk among the trees. He took a diagonal path, though there was no walking a straight line in the woods, of course. They came out close to the lake, as he and George had done yesterday. She looked inquiringly at him. No doubt she had expected they would walk out to the cedar avenue and beyond again.
“Have you been across to the island?” He nodded in its direction.
“No, I never have.”
He led her toward the boathouse.
Seated in the boat a few minutes later while he rowed, she looked out across the water and then directly at him. She looked rather pale, he thought. Her cheeks looked slightly hollow, as though she had been ill or had not slept well—as she very probably had not. For someone who was supposed to be worldly-wise, he had bungled yesterday’s proposal abominably. It would have helped, he supposed, if he had known he was about to make it.
He wanted to say something. She looked as ifshewanted to say something. But neither of them spoke. They were like a pair of bashful schoolchildren just discovering that the opposite sex meant more than just people dressed differently from oneself. She shifted her gaze to the island, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure he did not crash against the little jetty there. He busied himself tying up the boat and helping her out, and he took her to look inside the little temple folly as though this were a mere sightseeing outing.
It was a pretty shrine, complete with finely carved chair and altar and rosary and stained glass.
“I believe it was built for a former viscountess,” Mrs. Keeping told him. “She was Catholic. I can just picture her sitting alone here in quiet meditation.”
“With her beads clicking piously between her fingers, I suppose,” he said. “Rowed herself across, d-did she? I have my doubts. She probably b-brought a hefty, lusty footman with her.”
“A lover, I suppose.” But she laughed softly as she moved past him back to the outdoors. “How you would destroy the romance of the place, Lord Ponsonby.”
