“You earned that money, Joseph,” she said softly.
He dropped his head back and stared at the sky. “I’ve done nothing but abandon you, Tessa.”
“You married me,” she said, but her stomach flipped and flipped and flipped. It wasn’t even a declaration. There was no affection or feeling or intent. It was merely... an acknowledgment.
She hadn’t allowed herself to feel abandoned, but it was true. She had been very much alone.
“And I will buy you a house,” he went on, “if that’s what you wish. I simply need...” He leveled his head and rolled his shoulders, looking at the bridge. “I need a moment. Please. You’ve just proposed the very last thing I had in mind.”
“I am perfectly happy to negotiate or compromise—it is merely a place to start.”
“I want to give you what you want,” he sighed. He sounded... if not angry, more like frustrated. He was struggling to make himself clear.
I’m not challenging you,Tessa thought, but she said nothing. She sat very still and upright, staring patiently at his profile. Energy ricocheted through every limb of her body. She wanted to flap her hands and jump up and down like Perry.
“This is not what I had in mind,” he repeated. He looked down at the reins in his hands.
“I am not surprised,” she said.
“Do you mind if we ride on?”
She shook her head. “I never asked where you were taking us. To the office of your buyer, was it?”
“Eventually. I had another destination in mind but I’ve... changed my mind.”
“Not on my account, I hope.”
“I’m long overdue to call on old friends,” he said.
The flipping in Tessa’s stomach ceased. “We’re making a social call?”
She’d not expected the world to stop when she finally spit out her request, but it seemed to warrant more consideration than asocial call.
Furthermore, how would he portray their marriage to “old friends”? Or the baby? Would they blithely mention that while Joseph was in Barbadoes he became a father? They hadn’t been able to stomach this discussion with the strange woman at Vauxhall Gardens, and now they would parade their odd circumstances in front of “old friends”?
Joseph made a clicking noise and reined the horses away from the bridge, turning back toward Mayfair. “Not a social call so much as... going home. To my family. Or, the closest thing I have to a family. The Earl and Countess Falcondale. In Henrietta Place.”
Must we?thought Tessa, but she said, “Do they know about the baby? The earl and countess?”
“Probably.”
“What will we say?”
“One of the many good things about calling upon the earl and his wife,” he said, “is that we do not have toplan outwhat we will say.”
Tessa considered this, an answer that was not really an answer. The earl had been Joseph’s sponsor and mentor and his wife, Lady Piety, was held in the same esteem. Tessa had met them only once, at the wedding, and they had seemed lovely. Their affection for Joseph had been so very clear.
But to call upon themnow? Is this what Tessa’s request had driven Joseph to do?
But he does not seem outraged,she thought.
And he had not saidno.
And it was no small thing to be taken, finally, to the home of the people he considered to be his family.
It was confusing, perhaps; but unless he intended for her to remain hidden in the phaeton while he went inside, it could mean... something positive?
She settled back in the seat. “Of course. An earl and his countess. ‘Old friends.’ Alright.”
