“Where is Grayson?” Eleanor asked as it seemed odd he wasn’t there to greet her as well.
When two pairs of eyes widened, she amended, “I mean, Mr. O’Connor, though we are now on a friendly footing and using our given names. Not to shock you,” she finished.
“No,” John said, his expression a little smug. “It doesn’t shock me.”
“Everything surprises me,” Maggie admitted. “Let’s have coffee and a good chin-wag. You can tell me all about your friendly footing and how everyone is faring at Angsley Hall. That young Miss Phoebe is going to be the belle of the ball one day soon.”
It was over coffee Eleanor learned Grayson was not at Turvey House at all.
“He put everything to rights here, as he always does,” John said. “I don’t know what we would do without him.”
Maggie smiled at her husband. “I suppose you would have to get your hands dirty now and again, my lord.”
“Are you saying I am lazy?” John put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her closer to him on the sofa.
Maggie laughed again. Eleanor had a feeling they spent a great deal of time playfully teasing one another.
“In any case,” John continued, “after Gray finished, he hightailed it to London as he does every so often.”
Eleanor’s dismay was instantaneous, having been certain he would be at Turvey House and having prepared herself to see him again. Her thwarted anticipation, mostly pleasant with a sliver of anxiousness, left her entirely deflated.
“Hadn’t he only just returned from London before I arrived at Angsley Hall?”
“True,” Maggie said. “I was confined to my room and didn’t even get to see him before he went there to tell you not to come.” She glanced at the earl and added, “Because of my ridiculously over-protective husband!”
“Did you send him back to London on Turvey House matters?” Eleanor asked her brother-in-law.
“No. Late yesterday, Gray said he needed to go to London, and though he is my estate manager, he is not my servant. If he wants to go to Town or to Paris, for that matter, I cannot stop him.”
Grayson went away for personal reasons.
Maggie had previously told her he went there forentertainment, but she doubted he’d gone all that way to see a play or an opera. Her instinct told her one thing—Grayson had gone away because of one of his lady friends.
Perhaps his passions had been so inflamed and then so frustrated by their last encounter, he needed to slake them. She’d read how it worked for men. It was not uncommon for their desires to need release, hence the vast numbers of ladies of the night.
“Did he say when he is returning?” she asked.
“Are you well?” Maggie asked her. “You look peaked.”
“I’m fine. Perhaps tired from the journey.”
Her sister laughed. “It was only a couple of miles.”
“True,” Eleanor agreed, “but I stayed up late reading. Do you mind if I go and unpack?”
“Of course not. I’m simply thrilled you made it for your birthday. I have a sweet treat planned, and Mummy and Jenny both sent cards, which I shall give you tomorrow.”
“How thoughtful,” Eleanor said, but she was disappointed, nonetheless. She wanted to see Grayson, and now, he wouldn’t even be there for her birthday.
*
The day dawnedclear, which meant nothing as clouds could blow up on a moment’s notice, and it might be raining by midday. However, it allowed Eleanor to take her morning walk before breakfast. The grounds of Turvey House were one of her favorite walking places. They had orchards and gardens, paddocks and fields of wildflowers. You could hear the river, still swollen from all the recent storms, rushing and tumbling nearby.
And there was Grayson’s lovely house, larger than a cottage, more polished than a farmhouse, it was a modest brick residence of two stories with plenty of windows. She’d only been inside it once with Maggie and Beryl, when the three of them strolled over there a year earlier to take the estate manager some freshly baked goods in trade for his help fastening a long swing to one of the oaks.
Inside, there were polished wooden floors, painted wainscoting, and thick Persian carpets, stone hearths, and large casual furniture, designed for comfort more than for style. It was the perfect blend of elegance and coziness. She’d particularly liked the herbs drying upside-down from his pantry ceiling, knowing he had placed them there himself since he had no cook.
Her favorite part of his house, however, was not inside it but on top. A captain’s walk, Grayson called the large railed platform atop his roof, or a widow’s watch, depending on who was asked or who was upon it. Instead of looking over an ocean, however, the rooftop platform offered a view of the horizon in every direction and the River Great Ouse weaving across the lush green landscape like a silvery ribbon.
