“Now I wait,” she muttered. “I’ll go into the drawing room,” she said to no one, realizing the maid had already dismissed herself.
Hoping it was all right to begin with a glass of Sarah’s claret before her guest arrived, she asked Mr. Dawson, the butler, to bring it in, then took a seat by the fire. The staff already considered her peculiar, what with paying off two of them to secrecy, which meant all the household staff knew of her weekly trips. Moreover, Julia had always been perfectly happy borrowing her sister’s dresses, not indulging in the purchasing of her own. This worked fine except it kept the maid running back and forth between bedchambers looking for gowns. Then she’d gone into the cook’s domain like a ninny, as if she was going to start peeling potatoes the way she had when a child in Chislehurst.
A sip or two calmed her nerves, and soon, she was not the least bit anxious.
Until she heard the rapping at the front door. She stood, then sat, then stood.Gracious!
Finally, she remembered to set her glass down just as Mr. Dawson admitted the earl to the room.
“Lord Marshfield, miss,” he announced.
If possible, the earl looked even more handsome than she recalled. Rather magnificent in a gray evening coat and black breeches and boots.
If only it were polite to openly stare at him.
With nerves fluttering in her belly, she smiled.
For his part, the earl had taken two steps into the room, looked at her, glanced around in puzzlement at the lack of other guests, then jumped slightly when the butler closed the door behind him.
All at once, she realized it was her place to greet him first.
“My Lord Marshfield, so good of you to come.” She sounded like a stuffy matron, but it was the best she could do with her heart racing and her mouth gone suddenly bone dry. Julia offered him the curtsy due his station and waited.
As a gentleman, he stripped off his gloves, approached close enough to take her hand, and while keeping his coffee-brown eyes locked on hers, bowed over her bare fingers. Without gloves, it felt extremely intimate, and she nearly sighed.
Still holding her hand, standing a bit too close, he frowned slightly.
“Am I early?”
“No, sir,” she said. “Exactly on time.” If he’d kept her waiting any longer, she might have jumped out of her own skin.
“Then I assume your sister is still dressing, and Denbigh is fashionably late.”
“Why, no. My sister is never so long at her toilette that she would let a guest arrive while she was still above stairs. She may not have been born a titled lady, sir, but she has impeccable manners. I believe she and Lord Denbigh are already happily dining together, or at least seated close and sharing a glass of wine.”
He blinked. “Are they in the dining room? Without us?”
“I could not say whether they are inadining room, but most assuredly without us,” she confessed at last. “For you see, neither one is here.”
He released her hand and took a step back. “Was I not invited over for dinner tonight?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you not write to me they were having a small get-together and ask me to be your—?” he broke off. His mouth hung open a second. Then the earl shook his head.
“You are a sneaky wench, just as I suspected all along.”
“Wench?” She ought to be offended, but it sounded rather flattering, the way he said it with admiration in his eyes.
“Absolutely. A saucy one at that.” He sat down and started to laugh. The sound, richly sonorous, did funny things to her, relaxing and titillating at the same time. “You tricked me.”
“I suppose I did,” she agreed, taking a seat on the same couch before he could recall his manners and jump to his feet again. For the sake of respectability, however, she left two feet between them.
“And it’s so bloody outrageous,” the earl added. “May I have some of that wine?”
Reaching to the table in front of them, she poured a glass and held it out, knowing their fingers would touch, relishing the frisson that sizzled through her when they did.
Picking up her own glass, she leaned back.
