“Well, then? Why do you stay? My aunt tells me the rest of your family is in Oxfordshire at the moment. I would think you’d wish to be with them.”
“I already told you why, Lord Fairmont. I made a promise to your sister and your aunt that I would remain in London for the season. I won’t go back on my word.”
“Your services are no longer required, Miss Templeton.”
“Not by you, perhaps.”
What the devil did that mean? “I beg your pardon?”
“It may be true that my matchmaking services are no longer required, but my friendship is still very much necessary to Harriett. I wouldn’t dream of abandoning her.”
“I don’t see why it should make any dif?—”
“Forgive me, Lord Fairmont. You’re Harriett’s elder brother and guardian, but you’re notmine, or indeed, anything else to me. You don’t get to dictate where I may go, or where I may stay.” Her blue eyes flashed. “I am your aunt’s guest, and here I shall remain until either Harriett or Lady Fosberry expresses a wish otherwise.”
He leaned back in his chair, taking in her pink cheeks, the way that flash of temper turned her eyes a darker blue. Well, it seemed the quiet, reserved Miss Templeton was hiding a bit of fire underneath that calm exterior.
She was good at that. At hiding.
Not just her temper, either, but everything that could distinguish her as anything other than the spinster she pretended to be. Her wit, the sharp edge of her tongue, those pretty blue eyes, and those distracting curves.
All at once, all those somber dresses began to make sense.
Miss Templeton was hiding in plain sight.
Butwhy? What did she have to gain from?—
“Bishop to E4, my lord.”
He jerked his attention back to the board, and shifted his pawn, sacrificing it to keep his king safe. Not that it would do him much good. The game was effectively over.
She plucked his pawn from the board. “Do you not think, Lord Fairmont, that Harriett has a right to marry the gentleman she loves?”
He slid his king to F7, the only move available to him. “Harriett has led a sheltered life, Miss Templeton. She’s too innocent to know what love is.”
“You underestimate her, my lord.” She slid her bishop forward to C4. “She knows her mind.”
Perhaps she did, at that. Harriett had told him from the start that she didn’t care for Farthingale, and since then, she’d never wavered. She was no longer the child she’d been when he’d left England, no longer the little girl he’d read stories to, and whose hurts he’d tended.
He’d missed so much of her life, and now, she no longer needed him. A pang sliced through him as he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was bent over a sheaf of sheet music, Lord Gilbert’s fair head next to her dark, sleek one.
They almost looked as if they were?—
“It’s your move, Lord Fairmont.”
He tore his gaze from Harriett and parried by moving his pawn to D5, but it only delayed the inevitable.
After that, it was over quickly in a flurry of bishops, pawns, rooks, and kings, until at last, Miss Templeton seized his queen. “Well done, Miss Templeton.”
She didn’t gloat—he’d give her that—but merely toyed with his queen, rolling it between her fingers, the black ebony like a dark inkblot against her pale skin, until at last she set it aside and rose from her chair.
He looked up, holding her gaze with his. “Another game, Miss Templeton? It’s only fair that you give me a chance to recover my wounded pride.”
She smiled. “Perhaps another time, Lord Fairmont.”
Chapter
Seven
