Tess immediately ducked her head and took another sip of tea. She willed her cheeks not to burst into flames, but she wasn’t certain she could talk about Dominic without revealing any of her feelings where he was concerned.
“That well, eh?”
“We work together well. Amicably.”
A blessed breeze wafted in through the half-open window of the study. The sky had been thick with darkening clouds on her walk over, and she suspected rain was on the way.
“Amicable, are you?”
Tess managed to hold Lord Fenbridge’s gaze with what she hoped was a look that gave nothing away.
“Word is that the two of you get on so well that he escorted you to the village fair.”
“Gossip, you mean. I didn’t think you’d engage with such nonsense, my lord.”
“One hears maids whispering whether one wishes to or not.”
The few bites she’d taken of the scone turned to stone in her middle. Had someone seen them in the orchard?
A cold chill chased down her back. She did not regret a single moment with Dominic, but she had no wish to be fodder for chinwags again.
“Forgive me, Miss Hawthorne.”
Tess snapped her head up and stared at Fenbridge. In all her life, she’d never heard the nobleman apologize to anyone.
“I do not wish to make you fret.” He pursed his lips and laid his clasped hands atop his desk, leaning toward her. “I merely urge caution.”
“Thank you for the apology, my lord. I’m well aware that I’ve been the subject of gossip in the past, and I have been cautious. For years.”
“You think I judge you, but I do not. I understand better than you know.”
“Understand what?”
“That even a very clever young lass can give her heart to ascoundrel.” At his pronouncement, thunder rolled in the distance and raindrops began to patter softly against the windowpanes.
Tess saw more sympathy reflected in Fenbridge’s expression than she’d ever expected to see from the irascible man.
After a long moment, he looked away, glancing out into the garden. The rain was coming faster and harder. Tess considered taking her leave early in order to help the others at the dig site secure it. The tarpaulins they’d used the last time they were rained out were large and unwieldy.
“Your mother did once,” Fenbridge murmured.
Tess almost dropped the teacup she held. “My mother?”
Fenbridge turned back to face her, settling back in his chair and lacing his hands over his middle. “I take it she never told you.”
Tess’s mind spun. Her mother had made the same mistake?
As far as Tess and her brother knew, their parents had met in their youth and loved each other steadfastly from that moment until the day each of them departed the earth. And there’d certainly never been a whisper of scandal related to her mother.
“I think you’re mistaken, Lord Fenbridge. My mother wouldn’t do such a thing. And if she had, how are you the only one who makes such a claim?”
Fenbridge scrutinized Tess a moment and then leaned forward. “Because I was the scoundrel, Miss Hawthorne.”
Tess stared back at the old nobleman, but she didn’t see him. Her thoughts wheeled like the pieces in a kaleidoscope. Moments flashing in her mind—her mother glancing wistfully at Fenbridge Hall as she’d take them on walks through the countryside, the rows between her father and Fenbridge,the fact that the amity between the two men only took root after her mother’s passing.
“My father knew?”
At that question, Fenbridge winced as if pained. “Of course. He was a good man. Told me your mother forgave me.” He blinked as his eyes turned glassy. “Hope he told me true.”
