She still wasn’t ready to go home. To spend the night staring up at the canopy above her bed contemplating her bad decisions. Why couldn’t she want what she was supposed to want, to marry some nice gentleman and have a passel of children? Why did she always get bored and act badly?
She slid her hand into Hawksridge’s outstretched one; the warmth of his grip strangely comforting. He squeezed her hand as he walked them over to his coach and handed her into the plush interior. Susanna settled onto the velvet squabs with a small sigh. Perhaps her feet were a bit sore from this evening’s dancing. He settled across from her and stretched out his long legs. His gaze roamed over her face in that assessing way of his, like he was trying to read her soul.
“What else is bothering you? It’s something more, I can tell.”
Of course, he could. They had been friends for two years and she knew him to be an incredibly observant person. That didn’t mean she wanted to spill her innermost thoughts to him. No, her affair must remain a secret she would take to the grave. Miles was nothing if not a stickler for the rules of society. His disproval would be unbearable. She changed the subject. “Let’s talk about something else. How is your aunt Diana faring these days?”
“Good. She has been on a mission to see me wed.” He scowled. “At every social function, like tonight at the Ponsonby ball, she shows up at my elbow with some blank-faced debutant. Introductions, small talk, a dance, and repeat.” He waved his finger in a circular motion. “It’s damn annoying. Sorry.”
Susanna laughed. “You don’t need to apologize to me for cursing. Save that for the ballrooms. I imagine with Daniel happily married she has no one else to focus on.”
“Unfortunately for me.”
Susanna tilted her head. “Not that I am one to talk, but why is it you are avoiding the parson’s noose? I thought it was part of your plan, to get married and beget an heir.”
“It was part of my plan. But you saw how well that turned out with Charlotte. I decided after that debacle of a wedding and the ensuing scandal that I would lay low and wait for the right candidate to come along.”
“Candidate?”
Hawksridge tugged at the edge of his cravat. She wondered if there were more light inside the carriage, would she see a red stain across his cheeks. “I mean lady, wait for the right lady to come along.”
Susanna hadn’t thought too hard about how the scandal of his aborted wedding had affected his life. She had been far too focused on Charlotte, as her friend had finally admitted to family and friends that she was in love with Hawksridge’s twin brother Daniel, and then fled down the aisle of St. George’s to her freedom. What none of them had known at the time was that it had been Hawksridge’s idea to switch places with Daniel one last time and let his brother marry Charlotte, the women he loved. Everything had worked out in the end. The brothers were closer than ever and Hawksridge had been adopted into their tight circle of friends.
“Men are hardly tainted with the same scandal brush as women,” she said.
“No, I suppose not. But all last season everywhere I went ladies and their mamas looked at me as though trying to figure out my mortal flaw which had sent Charlotte racing down the aisle away from me.”
Susanna giggled. “I can’t imagine you having a mortal flaw. You have your life in perfect order. Following in your father’s footsteps. It must be nice to not have doubts about your future.”
Miles frowned. “You make me sound terribly boring.”
“That’s your fatal flaw.” She snapped her fingers. “You are too normal, devoid of tragic emotional scars. Ladies like to tackle a project, you know.”
“A project?”
As the carriage made a sharp turn, she gripped the edge of the seat. She nodded. “Like reforming a rake.”
“Is that what you’d like? To reform a rake?”
“Oh no, but I wouldn’t mind being kidnapped by a handsome pirate with a tortured soul that only I could soothe. I don’t suppose there are any left these days,” she teased. “Anyway, I think what your aunt needs is a distraction. Something to get her focus off your state of bachelorhood.”
Hawksridge nodded in agreement. “But what?”
Susanna bit down on her lower lip as she thought about it. Diana had been a widow for many years, and was the closest thing the brothers had to a mother since their own mother, Diana’s older sister, had died. She loved them more than anyone in the world. Except…maybe the man from the letters! “I’ve got it,” she announced. “What about James Marlow?”
Hawksridge looked confused.
“The man from letters, the man your aunt was in love with all those years ago.”
“What about him?”
“What if I found him and the two could be reunited?” It would be the most romantic ending to a tragic love story. The two lovers had been torn apart by family and class differences. Concerns now moot that Diana was widowed and well established in society. She had the freedom to do what she wanted. Be with whom she wanted. “Don’t you see? If she was reunited with him then she would have someone else to focus all her love and attention on.”
“And she would leave me be.” Miles nodded. “But how would we find him?”
The carriage pulled to a stop in front of her house. Susanna leaned forward and patted his hand. “You just leave that up to me. I will come up with a plan.”
Chapter Four
