“Is the velvet too much?”
She shook her head. “You look—” She gave a sheepish laugh. “You look, well, magnificent.” Was the appreciation in her eyes for the clothes? Or him?
Unsure what to do with the comment, he didn’t address it. Her gaze slid away, a light blush staining her cheeks. She looked… “Lovely.”
Her eyebrows met, forming one long questioning line. “Pardon?”
He’d spoken his opinion aloud. Deuce take it. “You look lovely.”
She picked at her skirt, a small laugh escaping her. Full of jitters, that laugh. “I’m not here to look lovely.”
“Loveliness has nothing to do with intention. Loveliness simply is.”
Her gaze fixed on London passing them by outside the window, presenting him with her, yes,lovelyprofile. As they went, the sounds of the city teemed all around: the carriage wheels rolling across noisy cobblestone streets; the shouting of vendors plying their wares; animals barking and clucking about; children whining; parents scolding… And the list went on, for London was a place with myriad varieties of people and experiences being lived at any moment. It was the wildest of cities, lest anyone forget it to their peril.
The coach and four rattled across London Bridge, the Thames a murky brown in the cloudy afternoon light. Hortense discreetly wiped her palms on her skirts for the dozenth time. An indication of nerves, that gesture. He had a subject to broach, and he had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t like it, so he allowed silence to prevail for a time, his gaze mostly resting on the river flowing below, but also flicking toward her every so often.
When the carriage rolled onto solid land again, he decided he could wait no longer. “You seem to know rather a lot about St. Mary Magdalen.”
She inhaled a subtle sip of air, but he caught a trace of the nerves she hadn’t quite been able to control yesterday at the first mention of the workhouse. “Aye,” she said.
“From your investigative work?”
“No.”
He detected unsteadiness in that single syllable. She didn’t want to say more, and he had no right to ask.
“I vowed never to return,” she said.
Her confession had been spoken so softly, he could have imagined it. One word, however, jolted him. “Return?”
Her mouth pressed into a firm line, as if she’d said one word too many, and she picked at her skirt. “I’m wearing my best.” An abrupt, self-conscious laugh escaped her. “My best dress, best bonnet, best spencer, best boots. Well, my only boots.”
“I meant it when I said you look lovely.”
A scoff scraped across her throat, a bitter shard. “I am nothing to you.”
“Clothes are hardly the measure of one’s magnificence.”
She nodded, pensive. “True.”
He exhaled a slow breath of relief. She appeared to be returning to her usual pert self.
“Do you have coin?” she asked.
He pulled a plump bag from an interior pocket of his greatcoat.
“The sort of person willing to run a workhouse is impressed by titles, finery, and coin. All of which you, the Marquess of Clare, possess in abundance.” Her cool appraisal told him she’d most definitely returned to herself. “Can you be the haughtiest lord the world has ever known?”
“I believe myself equal to the task.” He spoke in his loftiest voice. Which sounded disconcertingly like his usual voice.
She didn’t react. “May I speak plainly?”
“Do you ever not?”
“Be a pompous dunderhead.”
He snorted. “And you?” he asked. “Who are you to be?”
