“—and so we were headed through the gloom, intent on getting back to Bath, on the borrowed steads,” Leith narrated from the table.George, Severn, and Philip were both gazing at him, their eyes wide.“We finally thought we had done so.But, then, just as we were riding out of the forest, John was walloped by a gigantic tree branch, which he didn’t see on account of his overlarge hat.So, of course, the chicken went flying, John landed on his arse, and Monty was knocked over in the process, and my horse was sent into hysterics over all of the chaos.And Trem nearly fell off his horse laughing at us.”
The boys followed suit, bursting into screams of delight.
“I seem to have missed the beginning of the story,” Beatrice said, completely perplexed by the scenario before her.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Salisbury,” Leith said, his voice pure, worldly confidence, the type that boys such as Severn and George had no idea yet how to emulate.“I was just telling your brothers of my last trip to Somerset—to Bath.It was taken some years ago.”
“With your friends, I presume?”
Leith smiled.Clearly, the memory was a happy one.“Yes, exactly.”
“Are you done breakfasting?”she asked him.
He nodded.
“Would you join me in the garden?”
“Certainly.I will see you later, boys,” he said to his new passel of admirers.
“Oh, not now, Bea,” said Philip.“Lord Leith was to tell us next of his last trip to Cornwall.”
“You will have time enough to harass Lord Leith later,” Beatrice said, genuinely baffled by how Leith had managed to win her brothers to him in such a short period.
“You mustn’t ever keep a lady waiting,” Leith added.“That is lesson number one, if you want to know anything in this life.”
“Beatrice isn’t a lady!”exclaimed Philip.
“Of course, she is, Philip.Just because she is our sister doesn’t mean she isn’t a lady toothermen,” corrected George, who eyed Leith with as much admiration as his younger brother, but who appeared more determined to keep his dignity.
“I will be sure to tell you the story later, gentlemen,” Leith said, holding out his arm for her.“Come, Miss Salisbury.”
Beatrice took his arm and led him out of the breakfast room and towards the gardens at the back of the house.Parkhorne did not have much by way of pleasure grounds, but it did have a garden, tended by her mother and Mrs.Westmore, that was pretty and—most importantly—private.
“You seem to have made quite an impression on my brothers,” she said to him, as they crossed the threshold to the outdoors.It was a little colder than was strictly pleasant and so she bent herself closer to him.His body warmed her physically—and provided an emotional balm, as well.
“They are very good young men,” he said.“They are a credit to you.”
“I know.”She nodded.“They and Malcolm are everything my father was not.It is a miracle.”
They had gained the footpath.Beatrice craned her neck to make sure that, somehow, Mr.Gordstone had not followed them out of the house.
“We are alone,” Leith said.“I do not believe the man has emerged from his chamber today.”
“Good,” she said.“I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Anything.”
“The only way that I can get Mr.Gordstone to leave, I wager, is by giving him more money towards the debt.If I give him the one thousand pounds—” she stuttered here, it felt so vulgar to ask him for money “—from you—then I think we would earn a momentary reprieve.I know that our two weeks are not yet complete—”
“Obviously, I will give you the money, whenever you want it.We never stipulated terms of that kind.Pray, do not worry of it further.”
She got the distinct impression that speaking of such terms pained him.She understood that, in many cases, when it came to courtesans and their keepers, the man dispatched friends to negotiate terms.It was, after all, not a particularly romantic thing to discuss.
“Thank you.”
“But I would ask you to wait to give him the money.”
“Why?Every day that he is here, he is a risk to my mother.”
