“It’s to be our ladies’ den.”
“Your ladies’ den?” He looked both perplexed and intrigued.
Tilly almost snorted.
A rake would be, wouldn’t he?
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy.
“That’s an unusual arrangement for unmarried ladies,” he said diplomatically.
“Which is why they shall have a butler with military experience,” said Lord Percival without looking up from his newspaper.
Lucy rolled her eyes, but let her pa’s words stand. “Tell me, Lord Rhys,” she began, and Tilly recognized that note of mischief in her voice, “do you have your own flat of rooms?”
“I do.”
Lucy spread her hands wide. “And there’s nothing unusual in that.”
“There isn’t,” he said, slowly. He clearly knew full well he was being led into a trap.
That little smile sparkling in Lucy’s eyes said she had him. “Then why can’t we ladies enjoy that same freedom?”
Lord Rhys smiled a smile that must’ve melted many a dress off many a lady. “Why, indeed?”
“Oh!” Lucy shot to her feet. “I must tell Cousin Hugh. He will want to know. I think. Actually, I’m not sure how he will feel about it. He’s been so involved with Lady Rosalind.”
“Are they yet engaged?” asked Isabel without looking up from her embroidery hoop.
“Nothing in the gossip rags yet,” said Lucy, slowly. “But when the heir of a future duke courts the daughter of a current duke…hmm.” Her feet were on the move. “Well, seeing as he’s just in the other wing of the house, I’ll pop by his rooms. Who doesn’t enjoy receiving news of old friends?”
And with that, Lucy was gone.
Leaving a little awkward silence in her absence.
Lord Percival snorted and said, “Daughters,” shaking his head at his newspaper.
With a smile curving her mouth that said, Daughters, indeed, Isabel pulled another stitch through her embroidery piece.
Tilly’s gaze had returned, unseeing, to the books laid out before her.
And Lord Rhys’s gaze remained where it had been most of this time—on her.
“What do you have there, Miss Birdwell?” he asked, his feet following each word, step by step leading him closer.
Tilly must look up and answer.
She understood that.
But for the first time in her entire life, she felt…shy.
It had to do with this lord coming here uninvited to spend time with, of all people, her.
Only when he’d stopped at the other side of the table, leaving her no option, her gaze lifted and met his, aye, shyly. “I like to study,” she said, an unaccountable defensiveness creeping into her tone.
His brow lifted. “You’re a student of the”—he cocked his head at a ninety-degree angle to be able to read the upside-down books—“Classics?”
It took her a tick of time to parse his meaning. “Oh, you mean because these drawings and paintings are Greek and Roman.” She remembered that period was called Classical. “I’m studying their clothes.”
