“Oh,” Cecilia said. This was not the modest roadside hotel she had been envisioning.
There was no time to change her dress now. The carriage door opened and Ned lowered the step, then held out his hand to assist her exit. Responding automatically from a decade’s rigorous training, Cecilia laid her hand upon his, lifted her skirt’s hem, and alighted gracefully to the pebbled drive.
“Miss Bassingthwaite,” he said in a low voice, bowing before her. “You look exquisite.”
Cecilia lifted her chin disdainfully. “I will brook no pleasantries from a scoundrel,” she said, and then winced as she heard her aunt’s tone in her own voice. “You look quite reasonable yourself,” she relented. “Would you help me with my buttons?”
She turned her back to him. There was a long moment of silence, and then Ned cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said, and began slipping pearls into their related holes. His fingers at no point touched her skin, and yet they seemed to stir the same breeze she had experiencedon the road, cool yet electrifying. Cecilia swallowed dryly. Perhaps she was coming down with a cold. Miss Darlington was going to be furious.
“I didn’t drive us to the door,” he said as he finished his task, leaving her feeling oddly disappointed. “It would look strange for us to have no coachman. Can you stand a walk?”
“I am well equipped for it,” Cecilia said, drawing up her hem to reveal her walking boots. “But what about the poor horses?”
“I’ll send someone down for them. My lady.” He offered his arm. Cecilia hesitated. “It’s only for the sake of appearances,” he explained, and so reluctantly she took it.
“There will be no Sissy-ing,” she said as they walked across the drive to a set of wide marble steps, trying not to notice the strength of the muscle beneath her gloved hand. “No shambolic poetry. And give me back my earrings.”
“Madam?” he said in an innocent tone.
She stopped walking, and after a moment he grinned and handed her the pearl drops. Cecilia replaced them in her ears, and they continued on up the steps.
“You need no such adornment,” Ned murmured. “You are beauty without—”
“I said no poetry.”
“But you are a poem, and so—”
She stopped again. “Do you want to sleep in the carriage, Mr. Lightbourne?”
“Captain.”
She merely raised an eyebrow and waited.
Eventually he bowed. “Prose it shall be, Miss Bassingthwaite.”
“Thank you.”
They finished the steps, crossed the upper driveway, and approached the entrance. The doorman, in a red frock coat, nodded respectfully as he opened the door.
“Good man,” Ned said in a lofty tone, “our coachman fell ill and is even now inspecting the contents of his stomach in the bushes beyond the lawn. Would you send someone to stable our carriage and tend the horses?” He slipped a coin to the doorman, who bowed.
“Consider it done, sir.”
They swept into the hotel foyer.
10
lord albert and lady victoria—free wine!—a fair-weather friend—cecilia is disarmed—flying fish, wayward spirits, bare arms, andother scandals—cecilia is disrobed—a bad idea
Cecilia never lacked common sense, not even when taken by surprise. So although she had not expected such a grand inn as the Knowle, she entered it complacently. After all, she had patronized many grand establishments during her life as ward of the wealthy Miss Darlington and was not overcome by the grandeur of the Knowle, its polished marble surfaces and polished ferns, its elegant furniture, and the stylish people who loitered ostentatiously in lamplit corners. She was tired, however, and hungry, and felt pleased to be in such an excellent place rather than the rustic tavern serving only beer and the hearty stew that, as a reader of novels, she had anticipated.
They did not approach the desk but proceeded directly, and with a calm air of belonging, through the foyer into the lounge, then the dining room beyond. “I’m famished,” Ned said. “Shall we eat before taking a room?”
“That would be sensible,” Cecilia replied.
The maître d’ took their names—Lord Albert, the Viscount Lumines, and his wife, Lady Victoria, who were not on the guest list by some unforgivable error for which the maître d’ was most apologetic, and would they please accept a complimentary bottle of wine in lieu of complaining to the management? Lord Albert was most displeased, but Lady Victoria persuaded him to forgive, and after he handed over his hat they were ushered to a white-clothed table beside a window overlooking the park. A menu was brought, and the wine, and Lord Albert ordered two servings of cod with oyster sauce, followed by a Russian salad, duck, lemon sorbet, and assorted cheeses, while his wife gazed out the window at the moon rising over the dark gardens.
“Something to remember,” Ned said after the waiter had left, “is that the Wisteria Society are not any regular women and men. They are strong, smart, dangerous. I wouldn’t want to be the one trying to manage them.”
