“Well, we could?—”
The possibilities circling in Frances’ head were interrupted by the breathless arrival of a maid. “Forgive the intrusion,” the newcomer panted, her hand to her side. “A letter has arrived for you, Lady Harriet.”
“For me?” Harriet pulled away from Frances and took off without another word, running toward the manor as if the letter were on fire, and would disintegrate if she did not get there quickly enough.
“Something important?” Frances asked no one in particular.
Dominic gave a weary sigh. “Her letters from her friends are like air to her.”
“Yes, well… Understandable.” Frances cleared her throat and fidgeted with her turned-up sleeves, feeling a little awkward.
The maid stooped to catch her breath, before following the would-be debutante back to the house. And with Catherine at the other end of the garden, suddenly very interested in the climbing roses that would soon bloom on the trellises, it almost felt as if Frances and Dominic had been left alone. As much as any man and woman could be left alone in society, at least.
“I cannot remember the last time I needed a chaperone,” Frances murmured with a smile, realizing too late that she had spoken her thoughts out loud.
Dominic glanced at her, his eyebrow raised. “Is that the real reason you fled London? Too wild? Too free-spirited for the stuffyton?”
Her throat bobbed as she whirled around and stared up at him, aiming for irritation, but floundering somewhat as she saw a smirk on his lips. “If you knew me at all, you would understand how ridiculous a notion that is,” she mumbled. “I doubt I have ever misbehaved, not since… not for a long time.”
Not since Mama died.
“Slapping a gentleman is not considered misbehaving anymore?” he teased, surprising her.
“No, it is considered the death of one’s social standing.” Her mouth could not help but quirk into a smile, though it was really no laughing matter.
He nodded slowly. “Are you mourning it?”
“I… do not know.” She paused. “All I know is that it is too nice a day for mourning and for thinking about things I cannot control.”
Dominic glanced toward the manor. “What will you do with this nice day, now that my daughter has decided to run from your lessons?”
“I have some letters to write, some… things to plan,” she answered uncertainly, feeling as if she were the one sitting on a bench, trying to gauge the intentions and character of the man who had just appeared in front of her. “Yourself?”
He shrugged. “I have a barn to help rebuild.”
“So, Harriet was not joking about that?”
“Why would she joke about a damaged barn? It hardly seems like a plentiful reservoir of comedy.” He began to walk toward the gate, and held it open for her. “Now, if it were a matter of capturing escaped animals; there is plenty of amusement to be found there, though not for the ones doing the capturing.”
It was the most he had said to her since her arrival, his manner relaxed, the roughness of their previous conversations smoothed around the edges. And she did not have the faintest notion of what to make of the change.
It is because you are actually making progress with Harriet, you dolt.Of course, that had to be it. He had thought she was a charlatan who merely needed a place to stay, to hide from her scandal, but today she had proven that she actually knew what she was doing.
“My tailcoat,” he said.
“Hmm?”
He nodded toward her. “You are still wearing my tailcoat.”
“Oh!” Her cheeks flooded with embarrassment as she fumbled at the buttons and struggled to shuffle the garment from her shoulders.
“Here, allow me.” He moved behind her and slipped his hands beneath the collar of the tailcoat, gently easing it away from her.
She was just beginning to feel those agitated butterflies in her stomach, her skin all prickly as if there was a storm coming, her heart beating faster than was probably advised, when he added in a quiet whisper, “Before you damage it with all that twisting and wriggling.”
“I was not—” she started to protest, when she felt the accidental graze of his fingertips on her arm. Choking on her words, she eked out the rest, “—wriggling. I am not a worm.”
As he draped the liberated tailcoat over his arm, he smiled. “No, you are certainly not a worm.”
