“Anything you’d care to share through a powder room door.”
“Certainly. I have a sister, who has children. I don’t see them often as they live farther north. She says London isn’t a place to raise a child. Not that I would know. I do not go back to my country estate very often, as I have a capable steward who knows the land and the people. It is very beautiful there, and I have promised myself that someday I will return and live out an idyllic life.”
“Once your Parliamentary responsibilities subside a bit?” she ventured.
That surprised him. “What do you know of my Parliamentary responsibilities?”
“I am not a fool, Beckett, you know that. I read often and I read widely. You are the leader of the opposition. It’s a great task. And one that requires a great deal of time and energy. Yet, here you are.”
“Yes,” he said, looking down at his wet trousers. “Here I am, spending time in your powder room.”
“Not quite as nice as a seaside cottage in Brighton, I’d wager.”
“But peaceful,” he said, looking round the tiny room again. “I daresay no one will recognize me here.”
She laughed, a little twittering, twinkling sound that he quite liked. Strangely, he felt proud that he had been able to make her laugh. She was a serious person, who didn’t express mirth easily. “I hope not. Oh, wait. I hear Jacobs coming through. Yes, your man has returned. I will leave you now to change and get the tea at the ready.”
He heard her slippers skidding across the floor, and then the heavy stomps of his footman. There was a knock, and he opened the door, receiving the trousers. And then, knowing this was a terrible, terrible idea, he handed two canvases through the door.
“Don’t let them see you with these,” he said. “Put them in the carriage.”
Bah. He was going to Hell.
Chapter Seven
“Before you sayanything,” Jane said, her cheeks flushed with excitement. Even Nell could see she was overjoyed about her news. The ribbon in her hair waggled as Jane struggled to contain her excitement as she walked over to her position on the red loveseat. “I am about to be engaged.”
Nell nodded. This speculation was nothing new. Jane had been saying this for weeks. Nell was unsure how this was different than what she had said the weeks prior. Perhaps Jane was looking for affirmation that Nell had listened. “I know.”
Jane gave her an irritated look. Nell was not reacting appropriately. She would have to match Jane’s level of enthusiasm, and Nell just wasn’t sure she had the ability.
“No, silly. I amaboutto be engaged.”
Nell nodded, still not understanding the difference between today’sabout to be engagedand last week’sabout to be engaged. “That’s…” Nell fished for something new to say. “Anewdevelopment.”
Jane gave her another irritated look. “Itisnew.”
Nell poured them both tea, as Jane was finally willing to sit down.
“Listen,” Jane said. “When I say I am about to be engaged this time, it is because Rafe is drawing up contracts with Papa. It’s a formal agreement now.”
Nell wasn’t aware there was enough money for them to be drawing up formal contracts. Was there a dowry to exchange hands? Did Jane’s parents have anything to bestow upon their heirs at all? “That is news.”
“It is!” Jane insisted, taking a sip of the tea. She stilled and stared down into her cup. “Nellie.” She inhaled the steamy aroma. “This is delicious. Where did you get this?”
There was so much to say in order to answer this question fully. How much backstory must she give in order to convey the whole truth of her new tea? She settled for the simplest version. “It was a gift. I rather enjoy it.”
Jane’s lifted brows conveyed the meaning that even bathwater would have been an improvement. “A gift. From your suitor?”
Heat emanated from the roots of her hair down to the beds of her toenails. There was no reason to consider Lord Beckett a suitor. He had not enjoyed Nell’s pretensions of a courted lady. And while the tea tasting had gone swimmingly, apart from his ruined trousers, it was clear that there was no path to an actualaffaire de couerwith him. They were good friends, which made sense, as they were both profoundly unlikeable people.
They continued with their silent morning walks after the tea tasting of course, but the air between them felt thick somehow. At no point had Nell been able to forget that he was there, at her elbow. Her thoughts no longer meandered and piqued on her own musings. No, now they focused on if his footsteps sounded heavy. If his presence was an act of gentlemanly attention, like one a man might give to an elderly woman doddering across a crowded thoroughfare. Did he resent her for being soindependent that she must walk every morning, and he felt obliged to tend her?
“Yes,” she said, swallowing a lump that had appeared in her throat. “Lord Beckett arrived with an array of teas within my budget, so that I might choose an appropriate one.”
Jane’s mouth fell open. “An array of teas? How many did he bring?”
Nell thought back through, remembering each name and taste, the look of the dried black leaves as she scooped them into a pot. “I believe he brought fourteen.”
