“Do you not like Cumberland, miss?” He could not resist poking.
“Oh no, sir, it is just . . . Well, it is rather remote.”
“Yes, remote unto the ends of earth. Precisely why I find it so appealing. Reminds me of my years at sea: endless ocean with nothing in sight but miles upon miles of?—”
“Lord Wellesley,” she interrupted.
“Hmm?” He was feeling pleased with himself.
“Why do you fight with your mother so, my lord? Has she done something to upset you? That is, other than our visit?”
Her forwardness again surprised, granting him a glimmer of her humanity, and he was warmed by it, though also chastened. He’d behaved poorly at breakfast, though she did not seem to hold it against him now.
“The Duchess and I rarely see eye to eye on matters,” he answered honestly. “And as I’ve no other siblings to distract her, I am the subject ofallher focus, and so, it seems, the sum of all her disappointment as well.”
“Surely she is not disappointed in you, sir.”
Wells laughed. “Dear lady, I can assure you she most certainly is!”
“But that is . . . Rather, what could she possibly find disappointing in your person when you are clearly?—?”
“Duty, Miss Mowry.” He caught her eye. “I disappoint by failing so terrifically to do mydutyby her.”
“But I do not see how you have failed when you?—”
“I should prefer we change the subject, miss, as I’d rather not spoil a perfectly fine day discussing my mother. Allow me to show you what will someday be Almsdale’s gardens. Once I’ve finished with the house, that is.”
He took her arm to lead her around the back end of a buttress, yet once there Wells surprised himself by asking, “Might I kiss you, Miss Mowry?”
She startled. “I . . . Well I suppose . . . If you should like.”
She was so noncommittal he simply took her face in both his hands and stared into her panicked eyes a moment, deciding he might at leasttryto seduce her, see how she’d react.
Yet the moment his lips pressed her own he felt nothing. No spark, no invitation, not even a slight softening. It was like kissing a dry leaf. Hell, even Charles had responded better, drunk on his lap that first night, than this girl did sober by daylight.
He hid his disappointment behind a thin smile. “Thank you, Miss Mowry. I hope I was not too bold just now.”
“Not at all, sir,” she hurried to reply. “Only I have not been kissed so often as to, well, know how it is one should respond.”
Wells was suddenly saddened this woman thought one was taught to respond, when one simply did, or did not, enjoy a kiss. When it truly was that simple.
“You were perfect in your response, miss.” He lied to spare her any hurt. “Only it grows chill out here without the sun to warm us. Shall we return to the house for tea?”
“Yes, please.” She latched on to his suggestion. “A cup will do wonders, I am sure, to revive me.”
Charles chose the worst possible moment to look up from her labors and out the window onto the Abbey’s back gardens. For there below her, Lord Wellesley proceeded to declare his intentions more clearly than if he’d spoken the words out loud. She watched him kiss Miss Mowry’s dainty lips and felt her heart recoil. It was not just her sister she would lose to Cuthbert now. She’d lose his lordship too, far sooner than expected.
Charles would lose the man she’d somehow, impossibly, come to love.
ACT III
WRATH
Anybody can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
