“Oh—tender.But getting better.It is really only sore now.The doctor said it wasn’t serious, as you know.”
“I am glad to hear it.I worried for you.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” he said with a smile.“Is that surprising?”
She wanted to say,You didn’t seem so worried when you were attempting to bed me.
But, alas, they were at the table, surrounded by others.
“You must tell me, though, what caused that girl—Miss Larchman, is it?—to push your brother into the pond.”
“My brother.”Malcolm glowered.“You would be shocked to hear how I spoke to him yesterday.”
“You were cross with him?”
She looked across the table at Mr.Tarlington and realized that hedidlook a little more sullen than usual.
“Yes.His nonsense with Miss Larchman endangeredyou,an innocent bystander.He needs to be more careful.”
She laughed.“But surely it was nothisfault that he was pushed into a pond.Isn’t it—well—herfault?Was it just a lark?”
Malcolm looked around the table, as if to ascertain who would overhear him.
He took a sip of wine, appearing rather irritated.“Miss Larchman and Philip have been friends since they were children.She is a very nice girl.Unusually clever.If she were a man, she would undoubtedly be at Cambridge or Oxford.Her father, our vicar, Mr.Larchman, is very learned for a country parson and has taught her near everything he knows.In short, I am sure she would not push my brother into apondunless she had a very good reason.He can, after all, be very vexing.”
She frowned, imagining the worst.“Do you suppose he did something untoward?”
He scowled.“No, nothing of that sort.I am sure he was just quarreling with her about something childish.They have long been the closest of friends, and yet somehow fight like cats and dogs.Their antics are endless.But they are grown up now and need to give up such childish behaviors.”
“Perhaps it is not childhood that is the problem,” Scarlett theorized, “but the growing up.”
He raised his brows at that.“What do you mean?”
She shrugged.“Perhaps their relationship is not as simple as it once was.”
“You mean that there is something between them?”
“I don’t know many young ladies who would push a young man they didn’t care about into a pond.Unless he had done something very rude indeed.”
“It could be nothing of the latter nature.I know that Philip cares for her—and he is not depraved.”
“Well, then, perhaps it is an affair of the heart.I hope you weren’t too harsh with him.”
Malcolm looked across the table, grimaced, and then brought his gaze back to her.“I may have to apologize.”
She shouldn’t laugh at such an admission, a man quarreling with his brother, but she couldn’t help it.He seemed so serious.And the idea of him browbeating his own brother to defend her honor filled her with a ludicrous sort of pleasure.
Soon, however, it was time for the ladies to withdraw, and she had to leave him for the time being.
In the drawing room, she took tea with Miss Marburry, Miss Jones, and Tilly.The girls were very cordial to each other, despite their competition for the same man, although it seemed increasingly obvious that Tilly had won that race.After the matter of the handkerchief, George had returned to giving her sister his utmost attention, and so Scarlett had begun to regard the game of forfeits as a mere anomaly.
When the gentlemen entered, George proved true to this thesis.He immediately claimed Tilly, pulling her into a tête-à-tête in the corner.
Slowly, the drawing room emptied.Often, Malcolm stayed to escort her back to the lodge, but tonight he never entered the drawing room after dinner.She heard it mentioned by Severn that he had been called away by his overseer to discuss an urgent matter of business.She knew that he felt he had been neglecting his duties of late, given that he had said as much to her.
So, as the fire died down in the grate and she tried to read one of the fiction volumes strewn around the room, it was once again only her, Tilly, and George.
