The spectacles she’d balanced on her nose made her eyes appear even larger than usual, and he couldn’t help but grin.
She scowled back at him.
There was something rather enchanting about a lady who, while attempting to appear stern and proper, instead exuded a sort of adorable befuddlement.
“Did you forget something, Mr. Cockfield?” She met his gaze over her spectacles and then hastily swiped them off her face.
“No.” He crossed toward her. “But I got the feeling you wished to speak with me.” The woman wasn’t all that good at hiding her emotions.
Most of them, anyway.
She carefully placed her belongings on the bench beside her and then slid off to rise and face him. “I don’t know how you do that, but you’re right.”
“How I do what?”
“Read my mind. Is that something all butlers learn while training for their vocation?”
She truly was a delight. “Indeed. Right after we learn how to realize someone is at the door before the bell is rung. Was there something you needed from me?”
“No, not at all. I mean, not in that sense. But there is something I wish to discuss with you.” She was wringing her hands now. “I… I need you to please keep your distance from my niece.”
She stilled her hands, raised her chin, and met his gaze, daring him to deny this request. For a moment, her brown eyes appeared proud and almost… magnificent. She was by no means a mousy woman, but he’d not seen her so determined as of yet.
He rather liked the look on her.
“I do not seek her out, Miss Faraday,” he said, which was the truth.
“I am aware of this.” Her gaze darted around the room. “But I would ask that you make excuses to avoid her. You’re a busy man. This oughtn’t to be difficult. She is impressionable and, I think, not as mature as most ladies her age. She’s spent her entire life in the country, you see, and I fear she’s forgotten her place. The affection she’s developed for you cannot be comfortable for you, either. It places you in an awkward position, I understand, and it is most improper. She’s so very young, and even as a manservant, you seem to be very much a man of the world.”
“Affection?” he queried.
“It’s obvious she’s quite taken with you.”
“You mean, romantically?”
“That is precisely what I mean.”
Simon only barely kept himself from laughing at Miss Faraday’s conclusion. Apparently, dear Aunt Violet did not know her niece as well as she believed she did.
This woman, it seemed, was the naïve one.
“You’ve nothing to worry about,” he assured her. And yet again, that pinch of guilt pricked at Simon that he couldn’t tell her the truth. It would be so much simpler if Greystone would simply allow his cousins in on the bet.
“You will avoid her, then?”
Unfortunately, he’d already promised Lady Posy that he would assist her in a rather delicate area.
“I cannot do that.”
“But—but—” He ought not to have found her outrage so beguiling. Rather than attempt to convince this woman her niece was perfectly safe with him, he took the conversation in a very different direction.
“Surely you aren’t jealous, Miss Faraday?” He stepped closer.
If possible, her eyes widened to look even larger than they had when she’d been wearing the spectacles.
“Of course not! Why would you say such a thing?” She glanced from side to side, not meeting his gaze.
“I’ve assured you that your niece is in no danger from me, and yet you do not seem all that relieved. Are you interested in pursuing me for yourself?”
