“Miss Tait,” said the Dowager Duchess, even as she signaled the servants to begin serving the evening meal. “I hope you found your room to your satisfaction.”
A bowl of soup appeared before Nell. “Um, yes, quite,” she said, distracted by the pale orange color. Carrot soup?
She made to pick up a spoon so as to satisfy her curiosity, but she found no fewer than three to choose from.Three.Who needed three spoons to eat a bowl of soup? The answer to that was easy.Aristocrats.
A footman appeared at her side, cutting between her and one of the lords as he leaned forward to adjust the candelabra. “Start from the outside and work your way in with each course,” he said, quiet, discreet, and then he was gone.
Nell counted three spoons, three forks, and two knives. How many courses were there to be anyway?
Even so, relief spiked through her. She could do this. She could survive an evening meal with a family of aristocrats.
Unable to ignore the heat of Lucas’s gaze on the side of her face a moment longer, she flicked him a glance. Something shone within those hazy blue depths.Knowledge.He’d sent the footman with those instructions.
A feeling wanted to well up inside her.Gratitude.
Another feeling, too.
One she’d experienced only this afternoon for Mr. Lucas Kendall, valet. A feeling that had felt safe and…right.
But His Grace Lucas Kendall, the Duke of Amherst…
She didn’t know how to feel abouthim.
If he was expecting her to melt into a puddle of thankfulness, it would be a long wait.
Still, it was with a smile on her face that she pivoted away from him and toward the Dowager Duchess when the lady asked, “And I suppose the Galante sisters know how fortunate they are to have secured your dressmaking talents for their Bond Street shop?” She delicately sipped a spoonful of soup. “Truly, in all my years, I’ve never seen finer stitchwork than yours, Miss Tait.”
Irritatingly, Nell felt the flood of a hot blush staining her cheeks, pinking the tips of her ears. “’Tis I who was the lucky one to have secured a place with them, Your Grace.” It was the absolute truth.
As only a duchess could, the woman waved the idea away. “Oh, pish, you’re being too modest.”
“Well,” began Lady Elizabeth, “one thing you can say about the Galante sisters.”
Lady Catherine finished her sister’s thought. “They certainly know how to marry well.”
Nell detected no snobbishness in the statement, but rather admiration. In fact, though a family of the highest social standing in England, they seemed rather nice. She’d always thought so when they visited the shop, but now she had it confirmed. She couldn’t help stealing another glance at Lucas. He was one of them. She might have to allow that he was nice, too. Which only confused matters further. How could he be a nice man and lie to her for days?
“The second son of a duke and a French marquis? I’ll say,” added the Dowager Duchess, after another sip of soup.
Though Nell detected no negativity toward Isabel and Eva Galante—now Lady Percival Bretagne and the Marquise de Touraine, respectively—she felt the need to defend them. “’Tis their husbands who married well,” she said.
Five sets of brows lifted toward her. Aristocratic brows.
Her blush had most assuredly reached her toes by now.
The only one in the room who refrained from raising a brow was Lucas. Instead, he sat back in his chair and quietly regarded her, head cocked, eyes slightly narrowed. In some intangible way, she sensed he was willing her to say more—whatever was on her mind.
The very notion steeled her to step outside the comfort of invisibility and into the fray. “In addition to being talented women of business, Isabel and Eva are kind and intelligent and strong. They took me in when I had no family and made me theirs.”
She hadn’t intended to say so much, but now that she’d done it, she hadn’t a single regret. She wouldn’t think about how the impressed look in Lucas’s eyes made her feel. Perhaps it was the soup—which had turned out to be summer squash—that warmed her.
“Well said, my dear,” proclaimed the Dowager Duchess. “You’re not only a talented dressmaker, but a loyal friend, too. That speaks well of your character.”
Nell’s smile might have faltered at the praise, but it held.
Once the empty soup bowls were replaced with a plate of fish filet, smothered in a delicate white sauce with a dish of asparagus on the side, Lady Elizabeth cleared her throat pointedly. “Now, Lucas, you must tell us where you ran off to these last three days. Mama has been able to talk of little else.”
“My guess was London,” said Lady Catherine, picking up a strange knife that must’ve been for this course. Nell followed her lead.
