When the greetings were done, Lady Gosforth busied herself pouring tea.“Well, Marcus, what brings you here?”she asked handing him a cup of tea.
“Do I need a reason to visit my own house?And to enquire after my beloved aunt and my valued guest?”
His beloved aunt gave him a withering look.“I have been shopping and visiting friends.Your ‘guest’ has been out most of the day visitingemployment agencies.”Sounding as if Tessa had been visiting dens of iniquity.
For a moment she thought he’d frowned, but one blink and it was gone, and he was asking Tessa, “Did you have any luck?”
“They took my details but there are no suitable positions at the moment.”It wasn’t exactly a lie.
He put down his teacup.“I thought you might like to go out for some fresh air, but if you’ve been out most of the day attending interviews...”
She didn’t hesitate.“No, thank you, I’d love it.”
He rose.“Good, then we’ll ride in Hyde Park.I’ll be back here with the horses in an hour.It won’t be the fashionable time, but there will still be enough light.”
“Oh, but I can’t,” she said dismayed.
He turned back.“Why not?As I recall you used to be a keen equestrienne.”
“Yes, but I don’t have a riding habit.”
He frowned.“Didn’t the maids pack it?I told them to pack all your things.”
“I don’t own one.”
His frown deepened.“You didn’t ride as an adult?”
She shook her head.“Neither of my husbands approved of ladies riding.”And oh, the arguments she’d had with them,—both of them—about that.All in vain.The first one kept her penniless and supervised all her clothing, so she couldn’t purchase a habit, and since he didn’t ride at all, there was not even a horse she could borrow.By the time the issue came up with Hewitt, her second husband, he’d been just as adamant, and she’d been more easily defeated.
Lord Alverleigh’s lips compressed to a thin line.He turned to his aunt.“Aunt Maude, do you have a riding habit Lady Hewitt could borrow?”
“Yes of course, though it will be sadly out of fashion.And,”—she scanned Tessa through the lorgnette—“it will also be too long for her.She’s shorter than I am.”
“The length won’t matter,” Lord Alverleigh said, rising.“She’ll be on horseback and ladies’ habits drape low anyway.”
“But it’s dreadfully out of date,” his aunt objected.“It’s been years since I’ve ridden.You don’t want to look a dowdy, do you Lady Hewitt?”
“I don’t care about fashion at all,” Tessa assured her.“And I would be very grateful for the loan of a habit.”The thought of riding again, after all these years, had her almost breathless with hope.
“That’s decided, then.I’ll see you in an hour,” Lord Alverleigh said and strode from the room.
#
WHEN MARCUS ARRIVEDto collect Tessa, it occurred to him to wonder how the urchin, Joey, was getting on.“How is the boy working out?”he asked Peverill.
Peverill’s normally impassive visage betrayed a faint grimace.
“Work-shy is he?”
“On the contrary, m’lord, the boy does his work well.He arrives promptly each morning and works hard until his various job are done.”
Marcus frowned.“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s not exactly a problem, m’lord.It’s the clothing.”
Marcus raised a brow.“Doesn’t he like it?”
“I don’t rightly know what he thinks of it.He arrives in his street rags, washes and changes into the clothes we—er, you— provided.Then he does his work—and he does it well, I admit—and when it’s done, he collects his pay, eats the dinner Cook gives him—his appetite is prodigious.Then he changes back into his rags, only they are clean now, sir—Cook made it clear to him at the start that she would not feed a dirty boy—and he returns to his life on the streets.”
