“I will wait here,” Jonathan said.“Give you time to —” He gestured vaguely back the way they had come.
Lise nodded, gathering herself with visible effort.She smoothed her skirts once more, touched her hair, and when she finally met his eyes again, the vulnerability he’d seen moments ago was shuttered behind polite reserve.
“Goodbye, Lord Bowen.”
Not farewell.Not until we meet again.
“Goodbye, Miss von Ostenfeld.”He almost added an apology but didn’t want to lie.
Lise walked away without looking back, leaving only the scent of her musk on his fingertips, as he discovered a moment later when he found his scatter gloves on the floor, retrieved them, and yanked them on.
Jonathan leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to remember how to be a gentleman.When he returned to the ballroom, the von Ostenfelds had departed.Finding the dregs of the rum punch, he consumed two glasses in swift succession and wondered if it were possible to drown in regret while standing upright.
Chapter Six
Three weeks later
Anearby night watchman called the hour, startling Jonathan out of his reverie.Walking back to his residence on Bedford Square, he’d been lost in thought.Having met Finch for mutton chops and porter, despite persistent distraction, he’d managed to hold his own with the conversation, mostly about how the Spanish were teaming up with the French to invade Portugal.
Instead of the world calming down to a peaceful whisper, it seemed battle cries were growing ever louder.Meanwhile, the KGL was going to infiltrate their own homeland in small parties, not specifically to confront the French, but to determine the placement of the occupying soldiers between Hamburg and the Duchy of Schleswig.
If they happened upon a French detachment and could eradicate them, more the better.
Of course, martyr that he was, Jonathan had chosen a chophouse located a street over from Rathbone Place.Now, leaving Little Germany, the smell of seared meat and hot fat clung to his clothing the way memories of touching Lise were etched onto his brain.
During the brief stroll home, his gaze on the wet cobblestones, Jonathan’s mind wandered to Holstein.To beech forests and Baltic coastlines.To a woman who knew the difference between a deep-water channel and a mapmaker’s fantasy on a poorly drawn map.
Why couldn’t he stop himself from thinking of someone he scarcely knew?
Because above all, he fervently wished to know her better.
She must have arrived home by now, if her sea passage went smoothly, and he’d heard nothing to the contrary.Perhaps he might write to Henrik, and merely inquire innocently after her health at the end of a letter.That couldn’t be misconstrued as inappropriate.
Absurdity!A letter wouldn’t satisfy him, so why bother?
Jonathan sighed, and the helpless sound annoyed him.
He was Lord Bowen.Dammit!Not some hobberdehoy, sighing after a chit he couldn’t have.
Cease your fat-headed foolishness,he ordered himself.As if he had a choice.
Once home, he handed his light surtout and beaver hat to his butler.Then dismissing Mr.Whitney for the evening, Jonathan climbed the stairs to the second floor.His destination, despite the hour, was his study.His sanctuary, smelling familiarly of linseed oil, vellum, sealing wax, and the faint metallic tang of the brass instruments of his practiced pursuit.
Jonathan never thought of mapmaking as aprofession, seeing how his father didn’t entirely approve of his eldest son having a paid occupation.Even so, the Earl had come to accept his heir’s eccentricities.
“As long as you’re here when it counts,” his father had said.Meaning Jonathan had better not think of shirking his duties as the next Earl of Castleton.
Whitney had previously closed and latched the shutters and drawn the drapes across the tall sash windows that faced the garden.During the day these allowed light to fall steadily into the room.Indeed, that was the reason Jonathan had chosen this room over any of the others in the townhouse, ideally suited for the precision task of adding details to his maps.
The study’s silence was broken only by the ticking of the bracket clock on the marble mantel, as the sound of late-night carriages couldn’t penetrate to the back of his home.Jonathan decided not to light a fire in the grate since he would be abed within the hour.Despite the darkness, he easily found and lit the whale oil lamp on the stand beside the door.
Having untied his cravat as he climbed the stairs, leaving it hanging around his neck, he now shrugged out of his bottle-green tailcoat.Crossing the colorful Turkish carpet, a gift from his mother, Jonathan tossed his coat over the straight-backed mahogany chair at his drafting table.However, the leather seat, worn smooth from long hours, didn’t appear inviting tonight.
Snatching up the folded sheet of paper, delivered hours earlier and promptly abandoned for a night’s good company with Finch, Jonathan now settled into his reading chair, then lit the lamp beside it.Briefly, he considered pouring himself a drink, but it was hardly worth the bother.
Just as slaking his normal desires with a woman of his choosing no long seemed worth it.Mainly because none of those available to him were, in fact, the woman he wanted to choose.
With a mild groan, settling deeper into the chair that cradled him with its high, slightly reclined back and curved wings, keeping the drafts at bay, he shook out the letter and began to read.
