“Is gaining a wife anywhere in those plans of yours?” Tollerman asked.
“Yes, but I’ll cross that bridge when I meet it,” William stood and reached for his jacket. “I shall let myself out, old friend. Please, go and enjoy the delightful soiree your wife has put on.”
Reclining in his chair, Tollerman twiddled a pen. “You won’t be joining us?”
“With no disrespect to your dear wife, I might corrode if I am forced to drink tea and make inane chatter with other gentlemen and gentlewomen,” William replied with a wry smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
With a curt nod, he descended the stairs and headed to the carriage gate, but after sending for his carriage, turned to the nearest back porch and stepped under the shade.
Women in light pastels paraded the walks, twirling parasols and the men accompanying them. It felt all so… domestic. Jaded, William could only compare the men in the bright waistcoats and colored cravats to strutting peacocks trying to sway the hens to their roosts.
The courting game was so tedious—meet a lady, make an offer of marriage, choke down dry watercress sandwiches, two waltzes at maximum every night, publish the banns, and swan off to live a humdrum life of domesticated purgatory.
A cold shudder ran through him at the very thought of seeing himself scheduling intimate appointments with his wife. No true gentlemen fulfilled their real desires inside their wives’ bedchambers. Instead, they did what was perceptually expected of them and then found the sort of woman who would embrace their baser needs somewhere else.
Glancing over the mass, he tried to find the little nymph in white and found her standing near a water fountain, looking as if she would rather be anywhere else but there.
What is a simple seamstress doing in a ladies’ soirée?
As if summoned by his stare, the little miss turned and met his gaze, and her eyes rounded. He held the gaze for a long moment, allowing a slow, tantalizing smirk to curve his lips as she grew even pinker.
If he had a mind, seducing the impetuous little goddess would be a simple matter. Almosttooeasy… but no, he had to keep his focus on his responsibilities.
After allowing his eyes to appreciatively trail over her from head to toe, he gave her a slow nod, then headed back the way he’d come. Outside, under the gentle sunlight and cool wind, he paused on the step of the carriage.
“Home, Your Grace?”
“Not this time, Percy,” William replied, his decision made on the fight. “Take me to Spitalfields. I need to speak to a man about a horse.”
CHAPTER 3
Bridget was having trouble breathing, and not just due to the strip of linen binding her bosoms beneath her dress. Perspiration pricked along her hairline at the sight of the same man whose face—and touch—haunted her dreams at night.
The feel of his muscular arms as he caged her; the memory of how her heart had beat a rapid staccato as his heavy-lidded eyes latched onto hers, and the crimson scar pulled taut along the right side of his face.
He is here, that rogue who kissed me is here.
She felt mortified at how easily he had awakened a hidden unknown emotion inside of her. After the moment he had taken—or ratherstolen—her first kiss, she’d had… urges. What could another kiss from him feel like? A touch maybe? She may be virginal but was not a featherbrain.
“Bridget? Dear?” Ellie’s concerned voice cut through the shocked haze in Bridget’s mind. “Have you seen a phantasm?”
“No.” She turned, trying to ignore the thudding in her ears from her heightened awareness of everything around her. “I just feel… unwelcome. It’s clear that I don’t belong here, and Lady Ophelia, or should I say, Lady Obnoxious’ smug superiority set my teeth on edge.”
“Let’s ignore them,” Josie said quietly, as she led them to an empty gazebo near an artificial, ornamental pond.
All around the sprawling gardens of Tollerman Manor, butterflies floated, dipping to perch on plants with sweet pollen while ducks and ducklings splashed on the water’s surface, and sunshine rendered the still part of the pond into faceted prisms. Everything seemed more vibrant, more alive. A warm breeze caressed her skin, and she breathed in the scent of clipped hedges, lavender, and spring roses.
For a moment, her eyes rested on the faded posts of the gazebo, before trailing to the tall stone wall that protected the garden and manor house from prying eyes beyond it.
“…not sure if he will be a good husband?”
Snapping at attention to Eleanor's words, Bridget sequestered her thoughts about the Beast of Brookhaven aside for another day. Blinking with embarrassment at her thoughts, she asked, “Pardon?”
“Lord Weatherly,” Eleanor replied, dropping another square of sugar into her delicate cup. “My latest suitor. He is a decade and a half older than I am, but mama says he is a staid choice. Not once has he ever been implicated in a scandal or had any illegitimate children.”
“Plus, his investments have made him very rich,” Josie added. “He sounds like a true gentleman in every sense of the word.”
Ellie did not look as eager or happy as Bridget thought she would be. A suitor was a wonderful thing to have… not that she had any experience. Why did her friend look so hesitant?
