Rather inconvenient that he wanted to kiss her at that moment. At a temporary loss for words, he offered his elbow and gestured to stroll along the shore.
“I wasn’t sure you would come,” he said. Mantis matched his steps to hers as they slowly made their way along the edge of the water, inhaling her scent and experiencing a visceral response to it.
“I wasn’t sure you would ever apologize to me.”
“I would have,” he grumbled. “If you had received my calls.”
“What calls?” She jerked to a halt, scowling.
A very pretty scowl that had him staring at the cupid’s bow of her lips.
“I’ve called on you daily since the Willoughby Ball. Without fail on every occasion, Your Mr. Michaels has sent me away.Lady Felicity is indisposed.” Mantis mimicked the butler’s posture and voice.
“Indisposed?” Confusion etched her brow… and then her eyes narrowed. “My father.”
Her father? “Lord Brightley doesn’t wish you to meet with callers? Even with your mother present?”
“My father can be somewhat…” She winced. “Managing.”
Mantis contemplated her explanation even as he reconciled it with the considerable freedom Felicity had had where Westerley was concerned.
Did her father disapprove of Mantis expressly? That would only make sense if Lord Brightley knew of the events that occurred in Westerley’s orangery. And he could not.
Rather than dwell on that, he reminded himself of the two reasons he had for this meeting.
“I did not meet you as promised. Regardless of my excuse, that was unacceptable.” They had not been going to dance. They’d been going to walk—and talk. “I beg of you to accept my apology.”
He stared straight ahead, and didn’t notice until she covered his gloved hand with hers that she was watching him while they walked.
“You were helping a friend. I only wish I’d been there for Bethany.” She turned her face back to stare at the path ahead. “But I was…” She shook her head.
“What?”
“For the past seven weeks… and three days, I have not been myself.”
Mantis kept quiet because she was finally talking to him without bristling. For once, he didn’t have to drag information out of her. He’d never considered her talkative in the past, but since finding themselves caught up in these unlikely circumstances, she’d gone relatively silent.
“I’ve been tired and out of sorts. On the evening that my dearest friend found herself in one of the worst scandals in years, I was… hiding behind one of Lady Willoughby’s plants, wishing I was at home in my bed.”
Comprehending that Felicity, the most socially responsible lady of his acquaintance, would hide rather than mingle dutifully at a ball—drew him up short.
“You have been ill?”
“Not ill.” They’d halted again, and her expression flitted from dismay to chagrin and then to something else as she stared at him. “I’m going to have to tell my father what we’ve done.”
“What we’ve done?” She must mean—“I don’t understand.” His words caught in his throat.
She rolled her lips together, her gaze pinned on his.
And then he did understand.
“You mean?” His heart skipped a beat. “You are?”
“I’m so sorry, Axel.” She was calling him by his given name, smiling at him. Was she saying that he was going to be a father? “I never intended any of this. You were simply being kind to me that night, and now… I’ve treated you horribly. I don’t know what’s wrong with me…”
Which meant he was also going to be a husband.
She was going to be his wife.
