In her chamber, Mrs. Joyce ate her breakfast with Mary. “You look much better,” Laura said warmly.
“I feel much better today. Thanks to your cousin and you, Miss Peyton. I’ve even had my hair washed.” She patted her brown locks. “I shall get up after breakfast.”
“Don’t rush.” Laura flushed, uncomfortable with the lie. “You may stay here as long as you need to. Lord Debnam is a very generous man.” And he was, Laura thought. He’d become difficult to hate. But she imagined before long she would find a good reason for it. “You must write to me at Longworth, Mary,” she said. “I should like to hear how you get on. You have my address. I will return there in a month.”
“I will write,” Mary promised, as her large brown eyes filled with tears.
Laura went to hug her. “Oh, please do. I should like that very much.”
When she returned to Longworth, would she be her same ebullient self? Or would she become too low in spirits to even enjoy a letter from Mary?
She would not allow Lord Debnam to overwhelm her. If he wanted her, he would have to prove himself worthy. Although, how she managed to keep him from overwhelming her, she was yet to decide.
*
On Friday, Brendanushered Laura into the coach after her lengthy goodbye to Mrs. Joyce and her daughter, along with promises that one day Laura would visit them. He found it fascinating how a friendship could develop so fast. Men were more cautious regarding whom they befriended.
“I told them I was a relative of yours,” she said.
Laura’s composed manner made him glance at her. “They had little reason to doubt it,” he said wryly. After all, she had slumbered undisturbed during the last few nights with Mary ensconced in her bedchamber. They’d lost days when they might have gotten to know each other better. Not that he relished bedding a lady for the first time at an inn.
He admired her sympathy for the woman and her child, when most well-born ladies would consider it beneath them to notice, let alone nurse, such people, but it also irked him. While he had no intention of falling in love with her, he couldn’t deny she was a good-hearted person.
He had her to himself now. His gaze roamed over her, still puzzled why he had ventured into this arrangement, while still not sorry for it. He had never brought a mistress to Beechley Park, his time with them always spent in London among friends, where he could escape to his Mayfair home when he felt the need to be alone. What was it about Laura that made him prepared to spend weeks alone with her in the country? Such a gamble when a lengthy time with a woman could quickly lose its appeal. Few of his mistresses lasted longer than that, even with the entertainments offered in London. It was true, Laura’s mouth would make a saint’s knees tremble. As delicate a form as a fragile Dresden shepherdess, but he had discovered there was nothing fragile about this flesh-and-blood woman whom he suspected sought to hold him at bay. To continue this affair on her terms. To be wooed, perhaps.
While it surprised him, he wasn’t disappointed. He hid his impatience and looked forward to a battle of words with the hope she would soon warm to him. To come to desire him as he did her. That fascinating dimple on her cheek when she smiled beguiled him. It had been absent since he’d danced with her at the ball, and he wanted very much to see her smile again. It would mean she was more at ease in his company. That she might even like him a little.
“How long before we arrive at your estate?” Her soft voice drew him out of his thoughts.
“We’ll be there within a few hours. Are you eager to see it?”
She sighed. “I am eager to end this tedious journey.”
Brendan frowned and crossed his arms. No, no sign of her frosty demeanor beginning to thaw. He had never encountered a woman so remote and disinterested in him. When her brother had written to him, assuring him that Laura was more than happy with the arrangement, that she wasn’t an innocent and knew what was what because of some fellow in her past, he’d been a fool to take the man at his word. But he still didn’t want to end it. If within a week, matters didn’t improve, well, then, he would send her home and write off the money he’d given her brother as pure folly. But there was always the chance a gently handled seduction could improve matters. He wasn’t a man to give up easily.
Two hours passed in almost complete silence, then Laura turned from the window where she’d been watching the landscape pass by. “Why do I smell salt on the breeze?”
“My estate lies close to Chichester Harbor.”
In the bright light, there were hints of gold in her eyes and at the tip of her fair lashes. “I should like to see it.”
“And so you shall,” Brendan said, pleased to have found something to break the ice between them. “We can walk along the beach if you’d care to.”
She smiled. “I would like that.”
At last, a smile, and that dimple. The pleasure it caused him gave him pause. Disastrous to get too fond of her when they could not marry. He was skating on thin ice and was the worst kind of fool. He steeled himself against it. Laura was a brief interlude in his life, and nothing more.
The coach passed beneath the gatehouse archway and followed the long, curving, oak-lined drive emerging into the sunshine.
“Your park is wonderful,” Laura said, turning from the window.
“Some oaks are more than five hundred years old.”
The Elizabethan, three-story stone-and-brick building came into view on the next turn. The coach followed the sweep of raked gravel drive to the house, where the coachman pulled up the horses.
“Don’t wander too far from the house. It’s best if you take a maid with you,” he said as the footman opened the door and put down the steps. Leaving the coach, he reached up to take her hand and help her down.
The heavy paneled door stood open. His butler, Redfern, was in the doorway, dressed in his usual garb of sober black, still refusing to adopt the new fashions. Brendan’s dog, Hunter, rushed out from behind him and darted down the steps to leap up at Brendan with an excited bark. After the dog had received a welcome pat, he ran over to greet Laura.
