“You like this,” he whispered against her mouth.
All she could do was nod, and then dip her chin, breaking the kiss. “Perhaps too much,” she mumbled.
Because she was sitting in a public taproom, in broad daylight.
She was sitting here kissing Greystone’s butler when she ought to be at a garden party chaperoning dear Posy.
“You needn’t be sorry for that, you know.” His face was so close that she could practically count the tiny blue specks in his eyes, his pupils the color of strong tea. “And I’m not going anywhere for now. We have all spring—the two of us.”
She nodded again.
Just a few weeks ago, she’d believed him too sure of himself, too top-lofty and secretive to be a capable butler, for certain. And now… he was all of that, but he was also…
More.
So much more.
“I should take you home,” he said. Did he sound reluctant? The idea of returning to reality sent a sinking feeling through her.
“Yes.”
That giddy feeling from the ale turned to more of a melancholy. She couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever know an afternoon like this one again.
He dropped some coins onto the table, and she straightened. “I cannot allow you to spend your hard-earned money on me,” Violet insisted, horrified to allow him to pay out of his wages when she had seemingly limitless funds at her own disposal. She opened her reticule, but his hand stopped her.
The stern glance he shot her halted any further protests.
“A single meal isn’t going to send me to the poorhouse.”
His pride, it seemed, extended beyond words to actual deeds.
Failure to Cooperate
“Wherever did you run off to with the butler today?” Aunt Iris found Violet shortly after she and Mr. Cockfield had returned from the pub.
“We, er…” Violet moved her mouth, but no explanation came out. She hadn’t realized she’d been seen either leaving or returning with him.
“Never mind that.” The older woman waved a hand through the air. “Greystone has finally decided to court Lady Isabella in earnest. And it’s about time. Have you met the girl? Lady Chaswick has invited them to her dinner this evening. I told her Greystone would be grateful when I saw her last week. You will be there, won’t you? We need to make certain that dear boy doesn’t sit around on his laurels too long. She’s like to slip right through his hands.”
“He’ll manage fine on his own. If Greystone has made any promises to the girl’s father, I’m sure he has a plan,” Violet said.
“Be that as it may, I don’t know a single gentleman who didn’t require a nudge when the time came. But, good heavens, he’s practically thirty. Not ancient for a man, mind you, but high time he secures the marquessate by setting up his nursery. One cannot take anything for granted these days. All my friends, it seems, are dropping like flies.”
“But Greystone is hardly—”
“Speaking of the dead. Did you realize Captain Thompson’s family was so well-off? And with both of Coventry’s sons gone—typhoid, you know—and now his brother, your former fiancé, would have been next in line to inherit his uncle’s title. Such a shame your young man never made it back to London. He had so much to gain if he’d only stayed.”
Violet blinked. She’d forgotten about Christopher’s cousins. She’d read it in the papers, three? Four years ago. But it hadn’t mattered—
“Foolish of your young man not to have considered the possibility.”
“I can’t imagine the duke would have allowed it,” Violet curled in her shoulders. Would all of that have kept him in England when she hadn’t been enough? Or was she part of why he’d gone in the first place?
“I’ll check in on Posy.” Her aunt floated toward the door.
Violet, who was already changed and ready to go out for the evening, was happy to end this particular conversation. She loved her aunt desperately, but the older woman had all the diplomacy of a hammer.
Furthermore, Posy needed nudging as well.
