Mr. Delacorte’s expression flickered between stricken and abject hope that Kirke was jesting.
“Now that you’ve met Mr. Delacorte,” Delilah interjected somewhat dryly, “I should like to present Mrs. Pariseau. We very much enjoy her erudition and intellectual adventurousness and she admires your work enormously.”
Mrs. Pariseau’s curtsy was graceful. “A great honor to meet you, sir. I suppose Iamrather an Intellectual Adventuress. I, in particular, admired your speech about supporting our prisoners of war! ‘Are weallnot prisoners of complacency?’” she intoned. “So stirring! And your Freedom Speech! ‘No man is free whose liberty requires the enslavement of another.’ Myyy goodness.”
The almost vixenish appreciation Mrs. Pariseau radiated at Lord Kirke startled Catherine.Imaginehaving the freedom and confidence to overtly flirt with an MP in a sitting room full of people. Just one of the many benefits of widowhood, apparently. Mrs. Pariseau had claimed the night before that she’d enjoyed being married but had never wanted another husband after hers expired some years ago. It was beginning to seem as though some man had to die in order for a woman to really begin enjoying her life. Surely that couldn’t be right?
Lord Kirke offered a patient little smile. “A pleasure, Mrs. Pariseau. Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to spirited discourse, as per the bylaws of The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
This made Mrs. Pariseau clap a thrilled hand to her bosom.
He had not so much as glanced at Catherine yet.
Which, paradoxically, suggested to her that he was profoundly aware of her presence.
Her heart was thudding oddly now. She wondered if he would go still again when he looked at her, as he had last night. She had taken the memory out to ponder more than once today. The sensation had seemed akin to stepping a little too close to something beautiful and possibly dangerous, perhaps a wolf, in order to get a better view.
Delilah turned to her. “And Lord Kirke, I don’t believe you’ve yet met our guest, Miss Catherine Keating. Miss Keating told us over breakfast this morning that she enjoys your speeches.” She shot a swift, mildly remonstrating glance at Mr. Delacorte when she said this. Like every good hostess, Mrs. Hardy clearly knew that often the easiest way to make a man comfortable was to flatter him.
Catherine and Lord Kirke exchanged a bow and curtsy each. They both knew better than to let on they’d already had a conversation on a semidark verandah. At least she hoped he did.
Her breath snagged when their eyes met, as surely as though she’d been dropped a few inches from a height. The force of his personality was soundilutedin his gaze. Perhaps one would need to learn to build up a tolerance to it, as with ratafia, or anything else that inebriated a little
“How do you do, Miss Keating. I’m pleased to hear that you enjoy my speeches in the newspapers. I understand some people spread them under their puppies and in their birdcages.”
She smiled. “My father reads them aloud at the breakfast table in a very deep voice—he imagines you as very stentorian, and says you have ‘nerve.’”
“Oh, that I do, Miss Keating.” A little smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“I find some of them rather stirring as well,” she confessed.
“Only some of them? I fear you have set me a challenge,” he said softly.
Warmth crept into her cheeks. She was suddenly without words.
“Miss Keating hails from Northumberland, and her father is a physician,” Mrs. Hardy prompted helpfully. “She’s here for the season and we’re looking after her at The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Ah. I imagine as the daughter of a doctor from Northumberland, you have seen a lot, Miss Keating.”
Lord Kirke said this with every evidence of gravity. But Catherine was touched that he’d remembered their previous conversation, and by the hint at their shared secret. She smiled at him.
“Miss Keating told us that she helped her father sew the tip of a man’s finger back on,” Mr. Delacorte volunteered. “And once helped deliver a lamb.”
Now she was a little embarrassed. Shehadgotten a bit garrulous the night she’d arrived, thanks to the sherry.
But Lord Kirke’s eyebrows gratifyingly shot up. “How brave and interesting, Miss Keating.”
He sounded sincere. It was astonishing to think that someone like him would find her the least bit brave or interesting. “It is kind of you to say so,” she said somewhat shyly. “But that’s just everyday life in my town.”
He smiled as though she’d said something singularly charming.
“Lord Kirke,” Mrs. Pariseau ventured, “you’re Welsh, is that not so? Do you hail from mining stock?”
He turned to regard Mrs. Pariseau in silent bemusement for a tick. “Mining stock,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Is that what miners are simmered in?”
His little smile suggested he might be amused. And also might not be.
“Lord Kirke has had an eventful week,” Mrs. Hardy interjected swiftly and gently. “We can press him for his autobiography later. I’m sure we’ll come to know him better as the days go by. I see you’ve brought a book down with you, Lord Kirke, and you’re welcome to quietly read. But I don’t suppose you’d enjoy a game of chess, would you? Mr. Delacorte is our resident champion.”
