Mrs. O’Connor stood and closed the few steps between them. “Yes, I am.” Then she hugged her “And I thank you, Miss Eleanor. Truly, I do. I’m glad you and my boy have feelings for one another.”
Eleanor couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat, so she nodded and slipped out the door.
*
Grayson was halfreading, half watching out of the back windows of the morning room, awaiting Eleanor’s return. When he finally saw her dashing across the lawn in the rain, he intercepted her at the terrace before ushering her inside and taking her wet cloak and the umbrella from her.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t look him in the eyes.
“What did my mother want to speak with you about?”
Eleanor shrugged, before sitting and taking a long time to remove her Wellington boots. Her slippers were beneath the seat where she had left them.
For a moment, he got to see her stockinged feet, and in that brief time, his brain seemed to empty of thought. He watched her slip each of her slender feet into a cream-colored kidskin shoe, useless for anything except staying indoors.
From what he could see, her feet were shaped perfectly, with a delicate arch to the underside, which his fingers itched to stroke.
The thought of seeing those same feet unclothed and of touching her sweet toes enflamed him as much as watching one of his London ladies remove her entire corset.
“Grayson?”
He was still staring at her soft shoes when her voice brought his gaze upward. She was now standing.
“Have you seen Lady Angsley? Is she on this floor?”
“I think she is with Phoebe in her ladyship’s upstairs sitting room,” he told her.
“Thank you. I will see you later. It is nearly time for lunch, isn’t it?”
She smiled at him and walked down the hall toward the main staircase.
“Eleanor,” he called after her.
She paused and turned to him.
“My mother?”
“Oh, she is fine. We just had a cup of gossip-water. You know how women can be. Interestingly enough, she already knew about the missive from Turvey House. Perhaps a bird told her, a tall, butler-shaped bird.”
“Indeed. Are we going to…to do something together?” He cringed at his own lame question.What a dunce, he sounded!But she seemed preoccupied and a little indifferent.
“Yes,” she said, and his misgiving lifted. “Later.”
With that, she left him.Later? When?
Unfortunately, at the midday meal, his favorite female was absent.
“Where is Eleanor?” he asked to one and all.
Lady Angsley answered since her husband was preparing for a visit to London. The queen summoned Lord Angsley at a moment’s notice when she needed her Spanish ambassador, and apparently, she needed him the next day.
“Eleanor is at the granary lodge.”
“No,” he corrected her, “she went there earlier.”
Lady Angsley nodded and sipped her tea. “She’s there again, as far as I know.”
