She pretended not to notice him. It might have been a convincing performance if every muscle in her body had not visibly tensed as he approached.
“Far from being cold in here,” he observed to no one in particular, though all except one person close by was involved in the card game, “it is actually overwarm. Quite b-boiling with heat, in fact.”
No one either agreed or disagreed.
“And although d-darkness has fallen,” he persisted, “and it is still only M-March, it is not a cold night, and there is not a breath of w-wind. It is perfect for a stroll on the terrace, in fact, p-provided one wears a warm cloak.”
It was Miss Debbins who answered. She looked over her shoulder, first at him and then at her sister.
“Take mine, Agnes,” she said. “It is warmer than yours.”
And she returned her attention to her cards.
Mrs. Keeping did not react at all for a moment. Then she turned to look at him.
“Very well,” she said. “For a few minutes. Itiswarm in here.”
And she turned to precede him from the room. He had to move smartly in order to open the door for her.
And here he went again. Acting from sheer impulse before he had prepared himself properly or composed any pretty speech or gathered any rosebuds or their March equivalent. And with a mind befuddled from lack of sleep. Would he never learn?
He suspected that the answer was no.
She asked the footman in the hall for her sister’s cloak, and she and Flavian stood side by side, not touching, not looking at each other, while it was fetched. He took it from the footman’s hand and draped it about her shoulders, but before he could touch the fastenings, she very firmly buttoned the cloak herself.
The footman had moved ahead of them and was holding open the door.
Flavian hoped the Survivors, their wives, and all the guests were not lined up at the drawing room windows, looking down at them. It might as well be daylight. The moon was more or less at the full, and every star ever invented was beaming and twinkling down from a clear sky.
But, no, not a single one of them would even peep from a window. They were far too well-bred. But he would wager there was not a one of them who had not noticed and drawn his own conclusion. Orherown conclusion.
Mrs. Keeping kept her hands very firmly inside her cloak as he indicated the terrace that ran along the east wing of the house.
***
All Agnes had been able to think of when he had walked into the drawing room, looking immaculate and immaculately gorgeous, was that she ought to have worn her lavender. On balance she preferred the blue, but it was primmer than the lavender.
How stupidly random and trivial one’s thoughts could sometimes be. As if his coming into the room had not turned her world on its head.
“Did you m-miss me?” he asked.
“Miss you?” she said, her voice surprised and brittle—she would surely be booed off any stage and perhaps even helped off with a rotten tomato. “I did not even realize you were gone until someone mentioned it today. WhyshouldI miss you?”
“Quite so,” he said agreeably. “It was mere v-vanity that made me hope you had.”
“I would imagine,” she said, “it is yourfriendswho have missed you, Lord Ponsonby. I thought this annual gathering of the Survivors’ Club meant more to any of the seven of you than any fleeting pleasure that might draw you off for a few days to enjoy yourself elsewhere.”
“You are angry,” he said.
“On their behalf,” she told him. “And yet, even now that you have returned, you are not spending time with them. You have stepped out here with me instead.”
“Perhaps you are one of those f-fleeting pleasures,” he said with a sigh.
“Much of a pleasure I am to you,” she said tartly, “when you can go away for five whole days without a word in order to indulge some other whim.”
“You are a whim, Agnes?” he asked her.
“Iam not what took you away,” she told him. “And I am Mrs. Keeping to you.”
