Merry shook her head. “Father will come and take me home.”
“Perhaps not. I shall assure him that you are closely chaperoned and ask if you might stay for a sennight. Because Robert is your cousin, I am sure he will agree.”
Merry looked hopeful. “Do you really think so?”
“It’s an entirely reasonable request. An awful thought struck her. What if Merry’s father refused because of the family rift? And what if Robert felt the same way? It might stir up the unspoken grievances between them again. But as things stood, they couldn’t get any worse. And might Merry be the catalyst that brought them together again?
Robert strolled through the door, appearing large and very male in his riding clothes in the daintily furnished salon.
“Cousin Robert!” Merry jumped up from the sofa.
“Well, how d’you do, Merry?” He bowed over her hand. “You’ve grown since I saw you last. You were a skinny young thing with your hair in braids then. Now you are a beguiling young lady.”
Merry giggled and her cheeks flushed becomingly. “I’ve just been explaining to Kate how I came here all the way from Bath by stage and sat next to a horrid fat man,” she said all in one breath, fluttering her long dark eyelashes at him.
Kate smiled, suspecting this was common practice when any attractive man was near.
“Your parents permitted you to travel by stage?” Robert turned to kiss Kate’s hand, and a dark eyebrow peaked.
“Well no… not exactly…” Merry flushed.
“I’ve invited Merry to stay with us for a sennight, Robert,” Kate hastened to say while enjoying the brief touch of his cool lips on her skin, impersonal as it was. “We are in the process of composing a letter to her father.” She would enjoy taking Merry about town, and it might serve to remove the Frenchman from her thoughts. What this Armand needed was a little competition. Although there was Mr. Foster. And she wasn’t entirely sure Merry had dismissed him entirely as a suitor.
Robert picked up a sandwich and settled in a chair opposite. “I’m not certain he’ll agree to it, Merry.”
“Oh, but he will. I’m sure of it,” she said in a breathy voice. “He often said he wished someone would take me in.”
Kate stifled a laugh as Robert cleared his throat. For a moment their eyes met, and she saw with a rush of delight, that he was struggling not to chuckle.
“Why didn’t you go to your Uncle Henry?” Robert asked, speaking of Charlesworth.
She screwed up her nose. “He’s so stuffy.”
“You mustn’t speak so of your uncle,” Robert said sternly.
But Kate caught the smile which quirked at the corner of his mouth. He had discovered a like-minded soul. No doubt the task would fall on her to rein in this lively girl, for clearly, she could wrap Robert around her little finger. As she would most men under forty.
Kate was a little envious.
