Still, when the knock came at last and Clara let out a delighted little gasp from the bedchamber window, Aurelia felt her own heart give a traitorous leap. She told herself it was only relief that the captain had not forgotten. In fact, she told herself several such things while descending the stairs.
When the maid admitted them into the drawing room, Aurelia saw at once that Captain Harrow was not alone. For one brief, private, ridiculous moment, pleasure flared so brightly in her chest that she nearly smiled outright.
Lord Westbridge stood beside his friend, grave and elegant in dark morning clothes. Captain Harrow greeted Clara with such open warmth that Aurelia had to look away from them almost immediately. It felt too intimate somehow, even in a room full of daylight and propriety. Clara glowed under his attention like a flower turning its face to the sun.
“My cousin and I are honored by your call,” Aurelia greeted them both, summoning the polite reserve she wore so often it was nearly a second skin.
“That sounds alarmingly formal,” Captain Harrow said. “I assure you, Miss Finch, we have not come on any business so grave as to require such a reception.”
Lord Westbridge bowed over her hand only, propriety forbidding more. “Miss Finch.”
“My lord.”
There was nothing in the exchange that anyone could have objected to, yet Aurelia was absurdly conscious of it all the same.
They set out for Hyde Park soon after.
The day was bright without being warm, touched by that thin spring sunshine which seemed more a promise than a fact. The paths were busy enough to satisfy all expectations of respectability: ladies were strolling with companions, gentlemen were on horseback, and children were darting along under harassed nurses’ watchful eyes. Carriages rolled past at a stately pace, and now and then a breeze stirred the new leaves overhead with a sound like faint applause.
Captain Harrow and Clara naturally drifted ahead almost at once, though not so far that Aurelia could not keep them in sight. Clara’s bonnet ribbons danced at her back as she turned her face up to the captain, listening with shining attention to whatever he was saying. The Captain bent his head toward her with an ease that suggested he had already forgotten the rest of the world existed.
Aurelia watched them a moment, then slowed her pace slightly without quite meaning to, allowing Lord Westbridge to fall into step beside her.
For the first few minutes, their conversation was awkward enough that she wished she had thought of a polite excuse to remain behind. It was not unpleasant, exactly, but there was a stiffness to it she had not expected. They remarked upon the weather, upon the number of people in the park, upon the excellence of Captain Harrow’s spirits. Each topic rose and fell almost as soon as it had been introduced.
Beside her, the marquess seemed more withdrawn than he had been before, although she could not attribute that to his coldness or rudeness. He seemed merely guarded.
She wondered whether he regretted speaking to her so openly the previous evening, whether, after hearing her name and the truth of the scandal attached to it, he had spent the night reconsidering the wisdom of his acquaintance.
The thought should not have mattered, and yet it did.
At length, Aurelia glanced at him. “Is the matter troubling you?”
He turned slightly. “What matter?”
She held his gaze. “My family’s scandal.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she thought perhaps he would dismiss the question. Instead, he answered. “I am afraid it is.”
The honesty of the answer steadied rather than shocked her.
“I am glad you have the courtesy as well as bravery to say so plainly,” she replied. “I would rather have that than pretense.”
A faint expression crossed his face then. “So would I.”
They walked another few paces before he spoke again.
“It was actually Miss Langley who unsettled me yesterday,” he confessed, much to her surprise. “Or rather, what her presence suggested. Her father is deeply connected within military circles. If what you told me is true, if this scandal touched some official account or report, then I cannot think his name irrelevant.”
Aurelia felt a small chill move through her, though the sun was on her face.
“You know him well?”
“I have known of him a long while.” His mouth tightened. “And my mother saw fit to remind me that your family’s name is still not spoken of kindly in certain houses.”
There was a trace of bitterness in the words that surprised her.
He glanced ahead toward Clara and the Captain, then lowered his voice. “I do not like that our conversation has already begun to circle dangerous ground.”
