“I must confess,” Miss Fox spoke in the particular haughty tone that characterized her voice. Mayhap the sound would grate less on Jake’s ears over time. “I was rather surprised to have received your note yesterday.”
“Oh?” He wouldn’t confess that he was rather surprised to have sent it.
They encountered yet another mud puddle in the path, this one too wide for a lady to cross without assistance. He leaped the shallow distance and held out his hand for her. She placed her fingers in his and met him on the other side with a dainty, little hop. She strolled ahead while he assisted her chaperone, Miss Markley, who accepted his hand with a giggle and a blush.
Once again, they progressed forward, Jake and Miss Fox arm in arm, Miss Markley falling discreetly behind. “The trails aren’t as well groomed here in the Green Park as they are in the more fashionable environs of Hyde Park.”
“My apologies, if I was mistaken in suggesting this park for our outing.” The lady wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. He should find it refreshing, but he couldn’t quite. Every word she spoke, and the way she spoke it, contained a sharp edge.
“No need to apologize, my lord. I understand perfectly why you would suggest this park.”
He cut her a sideways glance. Her features were composed and placid, but he could see that she did understand perfectly. He’d chosen this unfashionable park at this unfashionable hour—ten in the morning, no less—for the simple reason that he didn’t want the curious eyes of Society watching him court Miss Fox. If what he was doing could be called courting.
Of course, it was courting. He was an eligible bachelor, she a single young lady, and they were strolling a path together, her chaperone trailing them at a discreet distance. This was courting.
Although he hadn’t sufficiently considered all the steps it would take to secure a Society marriage, he could see that he’d officially entered the path toward finding a stepmother for Mina.
All the goals he’d set for himself were beginning to fall into place. He’d even made an appointment with a Bow Street runner later today to find Jiro. A Japanese artist living in Limehouse couldn’t be too difficult to find. He should’ve handled the situation this way from the beginning. It was the most civilized and proper approach, he could see that now.
Rather, he’d engaged with a divorcée who Society deemed scandalous for her insistence on conducting her life according to her own principles. And yet, yesterday, he’d done more than engage with her in his bedroom . . . And there had been nothing civilized about it.
“My lord, are you quite all right?”
His jaw unclenched long enough to say, “Of course, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, you were glaring at that poor squirrel”—She pointed out the animal, tail twitching in the mid-distance—“as if you would incinerate it with the intensity of your gaze.”
“My apologies if I alarmed you. I can assure you that I harbor no such animus toward that squirrel.”
A tight smile pinched the corners of Miss Fox’s mouth. He’d never seen her smile any other way. Had she ever smiled unreservedly in her life? Had she ever looked at someone and poured her entire being into a smile only for him?
A face possessed of just such a smile appeared in his mind’s eye.
“You were missed at the Dowager Duchess of Dalrymple’s dinner party,” Miss Fox said. “She let it be known that she was most annoyed at having an odd number at table.”
“I’d committed to another engagement that posed a conflict.” It wouldn’t do to say which commitment came first.
“Two nights ago . . .” Miss Fox’s eyes narrowed. “That was the night of Lady Olivia Montfort’s monthly soirée, no?”
“It was,” he drawled, certain he was admitting guilt. Miss Fox possessed a specific shrewd quality that he wasn’t sure he liked. A possibility occurred to him. “Are you a lover of art? Perhaps you’ve attended one of Lady Olivia’s soirées?”
Miss Fox shook her head. “I’ve never been invited. Lady Olivia and I don’t figure prominently in each other’s social spheres.” Another descriptor for Miss Fox’s smile came to mind.Hard. “In fact, I’m not sure she’s fully aware of my existence, which is likely for the best.”
“And why is that?”
She laughed, a sound tinny and false, as if it had been forced out of her. “Lady Olivia has cultivated quite the scandalous reputation, and it wouldn’t do for an unmarried miss, such as myself, to be seen in her company.”
“Quite,” Jake bit out. Even as their feet progressed forward, he made himself go very, very still, fighting the urge to tell Miss Fox, politely and calmly, that three Miss Foxes wouldn’t amount to one Lady Olivia. But it wouldn’t do.Quitewas the only word he trusted himself to say, politely and calmly, on the matter.
He unclenched hands that had curled into tight fists. It wasn’t Miss Fox’s view in particular that had him wound up, but Society’s view in general. Society deserved a good drubbing.
Perhaps Miss Fox sensed the storm brewing at her side for she asked, “Isn’t this a perfect spring day, my lord?”
“It is a lovely day,” he replied, even as a note of disappointment shot through him at this conversational turn, the weather. Possibly, it presaged his future with a proper wife. Proper marriage, proper wife, proper stepmother, proper dull.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of poems rhapsodizing about emergent spring that the publishing house gets this time of year.”
“The publishing house?” At last, something interesting.
