Her desire must have been obvious to Davenport.
He cast her a smile and then turned to her uncle.“Now that Tulip and I are officially betrothed, would you mind if she joined me?I will escort her home immediately afterward.”
Her eyes lit up.“Yes, please.That is an excellent idea.Isn’t it, Uncle John?”
He nodded.“All right.Davenport, I want your word on this.Tea at the Denby Arms, and then you take Tulip straight back to my house.”
“Upon my honor, Mr.Farthingale.”
She and Davenport watched her uncle climb into his carriage and ride off.
“The Denby Arms is not a long walk from here,” Davenport said.“Or would you rather ride there in my carriage?”
“I’d love a walk.I think this is one of the things I have missed most since coming to London, those morning strolls I used to take along a country lane in the fresh air.”
“Well, there’ll be plenty of that once we are in Somerset.Not much fresh air around here, however.”
He ordered his driver to go on to the hotel without them.“Meet us there, Trent.”
“Aye, Your Grace,” the man said and flicked the reins to start the team of matched bays forward.
Davenport held out his arm to her.“It is obvious you have a lot more to ask me, Tulip.”
She nodded as she placed her arm in his.“I do.But it is my fault for not trying to get to know you better.I’ve spent these past months avoiding you when I should have kept an open mind and engaged you in conversation.”
“Well, you have your chance now.”
She studied him as they strolled along the busy street, liking the way he quietly drew her closer whenever he thought someone was about to knock into her.
In truth, she likedhim.
But none of this made any sense to her.
Why should a duke commit to marrying a commoner over a simple kiss?Was there something she was not seeing?
“Go ahead and ask your question, Tulip.Why are you looking so perplexed?”
She sighed.“Your Grace, are we about to make a terrible mistake?”
CHAPTER 5
ALEX FROWNED ATthe question Tulip had just posed.
He had not considered his proposing to her to be a mistake at all.In fact, he felt quite comfortable with the inevitability that she would become his wife.He wasn’t certain of the reasons why he felt this way, only that his every instinct told him that she was the right one for him.“Why are you worried we are making a mistake?”
“I cannot get over the feeling we are a mismatch.”
She had mentioned this before, her belief that he was perfect and she found it not only daunting but quite irritating.
“Ah, yes.That.”He laughed softly, for she would soon find out he was not the paragon she imagined.“You’ll see that our roles will be reversed once we reach Somerset.I know London like the back of my hand.I understand the poetry of it and the musicality of its rhythms, the beauty and the blight.I know its seedy back streets and alleyways, and I am all too familiar with the scent of the Thames and the choking smoke of hearth fires in winter.I know the dockside taverns where the lowest scoundrels sit in wait for an easy mark and also know the elite ballrooms where the privileged amuse themselves in splendor.”
She looked up at him as he spoke, her lovely eyes glistening like pale blue crystals beneath her long, dark lashes.“You will adapt fairly quickly to Somerset, Your Grace.We work at a slower pace than London, but we are not completely provincial.Your estate is not far from Bath which is quite popular in the summers with Londoners.You’ll feel quite at home there.There’s also Taunton that may not be as elegant as Bath, but it is a financial and business center, as well as the center of our local government.”
“Yes, I am aware.Those are not the things that concern me.”
“Then what does?”
“I am a crack investigator.What do I know about running a farm or a mill?There are several farms within the Davenport demesne.I understand there is also a cider press on the property and an abandoned cheese works.How am I to fix them up when I do not even know how to milk a cow, till soil, or use a butter churn?”
