“Dear Lindy, fret no more on that point! But you still have not told me what happened last night. Oh, your face is telling tales. Go on – out with it!”
Stumblingly, Lindy relayed how she had been about to open the parlour door, when Mr Alwyn had appeared. She said nothing of how he had spoken to her privately, focusing only on how he had driven the Chaffees out of the house.
“Good man!” Rose cheered. “I keep finding more reasons to like him.”
“But aunt, you will not believe it! When Anne first saw him, she studied him and…”
“What? What is it?”
“She called himLord Farrmore.”
“Ha!” Mrs Caspar laughed. “Spite has addled her brains — what a bit of bosh!”
“It isn’t! He did not deny it — Aunt,Mr Alwyn is a viscount.”
Belief spread slowly across Rose’s face. “It’s true, then? And Anne was the one to discover him! That will be the triumph of her life. Imogene will eat her hat in fury that she did notsee him with her own eyes. Poor Mr Alwyn must look out! Every living Chaffee will feign illness now in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. Aviscount— simply incredible! He gulled us all!”
The accusation, though good-natured, snagged in Belinda’s ears, and she shook her head. “No, he is not mischievous. He wants to be a doctor in honour of his late mother. I cannot believe he meant to mislead anyone.”
“Oh darling, I think no ill of him. But wait…youknew?”
“Of his title? No. Only of his aspiration and the force behind it.”
“What a remarkable fellow!” Rose lifted her teacup as if to toast him, then knit her brow. “Did he ask to see your uncle after he’d scuttled the girls out of the door?”
“No. I told him Uncle George was resting, so…he left.”
“But why did he come to call last night?”
Lindy’s pulse picked up.To hold my hand and tell me he hoped we would spend the future together.
“He didn’t say.” The fib felt like a rock in her mouth.
“Perhaps he will return today, and make his purposes clear,” Rose said, closing her eyes again to lift her face to the sunlight.
Belinda barely murmured a response, her heart cleft between hope and alarm at the thought that he just might.
***
A little while later, she was in the parlour distracting herself by writing a letter to her mother when Lee entered.
“Beg your pardon, miss,” he said. “But one of them doctor-fellas is ‘ere to see you.”
Lindy’s pen froze above the paper.
Mr Alwyn has come — How is it I both crave and dread his presence? Flighty heart, fickle mind!
“Miss?”
She stared dumbly at Lee while her mind raced.
If I am to be responsible for the matters of my heart, I must hear Mr Alwyn out fully.
“Please see him in.”
With a bow, the footman was gone.
Standing slowly as she heard the approach of footsteps, Belinda equipped her tongue with the greeting she had practiced, but it took a different form as she saw who entered the room.
