“I trust you warned them off?”
“I did. Both the man who lay in wait and his masters.”
“Then I am sure no one will interfere with me.” She returned to her packing.
She wished he would go. Vivid images from yesterday evening invaded her mind while he stood there. Knowing that he harbored more erotic pictures made it worse. How did people have conversations after indulging in such intimacy? It was all she could do not to choke on her own breaths.
“I disagree,” he said. “It would be best if you left London so the trail goes cold.”
“If necessary, I can go to Birmingham.” At least she knew that city. She would not be lost in it.
“That will not do. I need to keep an eye on you. I am taking you to Merrywood Manor, Aylesbury’s country home. We will leave at once.”
She stopped packing. She stood frozen with comb and brush in hand. He had issued a decree, not a request.
“I will be in the way there.”
“You will not be.”
“Is it unoccupied, like this house?”
“My brother is there. I must be too. Our other brother will be returning from a tour of the Continent, and I should welcome him and his wife back.”
She tucked the comb and brush into her valise. “I will definitely be underfoot, then.”
“A person could live her life in that house and never see another soul, Padua. Isolating yourself will prove very dull, but you can do so if you want.”
She peered into her valise, at the old garments she knew too well. “I will have to. I have nothing suitable to wear at a duke’s table.”
“No one will care about that.”
Oh, yes, they will. Even he had noticed how poorly she appeared when she first called on him, although he would never admit it. She noticed him taking in every sad inch of her dress and pelisse and bonnet.I will care too. She did not want to suffer the pity of this other brother’s wife. It was one thing to be a woman of modest circumstances, and another to be the intruding, dowdy guest.
She would indeed isolate herself, and not obligate this family to pretend they entertained her sort all the time.
“I will wait below for you.” He turned to go.
“Where did they travel? The brother and his wife?”
He shrugged. “Rome, Florence, Venice, and thereabouts. The Alps, I expect. France. They have returned sooner than planned. They chose to shorten the journey.”
Venice? Florence? Padua reconsidered her resolve to be invisible. She supposed she could suffer a little pity if she learned about the sites and environs of those cities. Her mother used to reminisce about her visits to Venice, and it would be good to learn how things had changed.
She closed her valise after Ives left. Before she went down, she jotted quick letters to Jennie and Mr. Notley, to let them know she was leaving town but that mail sent to her at Langley House would find her.
***
Ives spent the better part of the journey to Merrywood up beside the coachman. The alternative, to sit inside with Padua, promised to cause him nothing but discomfort. Far better to face the autumn wind than her palpable fear.
The expression on her face when she left Langley House had not been companionable. At the inns she retired to her chamber and took her meals there. Only a fool would not recognize the signs of a woman keeping her distance.
She thought he would seduce her if he had her alone again. Finish what he had started. Pass the long miles dallying the best way one could find. He had sworn to himself he would not do that, but he guessed the odds were at best even that he could resist the temptation if he met it.
Therefore he kept his distance, too, up on the board. He took the reins at times, so his mind would not dwell too much on the woman out of sight a few feet away.
The reception at Merrywood involved only servants. Ives watched Padua escorted away by the housekeeper while he went in search of Lance.
He found his brother in the library, wearing riding clothes that displayed a good deal of autumn mud. Lance’s acknowledgment was a gesture toward the brandy and a raise of his own glass.
