Page 29 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Lady Balfour preened. “I do indeed.”

A small crescendo of “oohs” and “ahhs” rose.

“We all know that boy protects himself beautifully from adventurous misses. Yet your Miss Cantwell had him for a dinner, a dance, a long walk at a picnic, a drive home on a rainy day—am I missing anything?” asked Mrs. Constable.

“No, ma’am,” Louisa hurriedly said.

“Oh, but I must differ,” said Mrs. Tytherley.

Louisa’s head snapped up.

“I ran into Lady Avery at the modiste’s this morning. And she told me that her nephew, Mr. Baxter, had seen Miss Cantwell and Lord Wrenworth seated together in a refreshments room at the British Museum a while ago. Though Mr. Baxter, being a man, had not bothered to mention it to her until very recently.”

“Louisa!” exclaimed Lady Balfour, almost making Louisa prick her finger. “Mr. Baxter didn’t know any better, but why have you not brought it up either?”

“It was the merest coincidence!” Louisa protested; at least this time she wasn’t lying. “I certainly never thought to see him there, and I daresay the same for Lord Wrenworth.”

“The meeting might have been a coincidence, but Lord Wrenworth could have simply nodded and moved on. That he sat down at your table was indisputably a conscious choice.”

“I cannot agree more,” said Mrs. Tytherley. “Furthermore, taken as a whole, I feel quite strongly that so many occasions cannot possibly all be coincidences. There must be some design to it—on Lord Wrenworth’s part.”

“I say whether it is design or coincidence, you are one lucky young lady, Miss Cantwell,” opined Lady Archer. “In fact, you might prove to be the luckiest lady in London, if this current course holds.”

“I do not mean to disagree with you, Lady Archer, but I—”

The rest of Louisa’s argument never saw the light of the day, as the drawing room door opened, and Lady Balfour’s footman announced, “His lordship the Marquess of Wrenworth.”

* * *

The four older women in the room, with identical expressions of surprise—eyes wide, jaws slack—swung to face Louisa. Who stared back at them, similarly agape.

Lord Wrenworth strolled in, looking relaxed and stylish in a dove-grey Newmarket coat. Louisa closed her mouth and bent her face to her embroidery frame, trying not to stab herself as she pushed the needle through the velvet silk.

Afternoon courtesy calls were those threads in the fabric of society woven almost exclusively by women. Given that Lady Balfour ran no salon and belonged to no “fast” set, the presence of a man at this feminine place and hour—when he should be snoozing off his postluncheon stupor at his club—was extraordinary.

What did he want?

A theatrical rendition of normalcy was put on: Lord Wrenworth was offered a seat, fresh tea was called for, and comments on the weather—a bright afternoon, for once—were exchanged all around.

Some of the ladies were better actresses than others: Lady Archer was a natural, chatting about her meteorological apparatuses at home, her husband being very particular about the measurement of rainfall and of atmospheric pressure. But none of them were as good as Lord Wrenworth, who made it seem as if he took tea with ladies of his mother’s generation every Wednesday during the Season.

He asked after Lady Archer’s son, currently on a tour of the Continent. He inquired into a fence of Lady Tytherley’s, which had apparently been giving all sorts of offense since the previous autumn. And he brought up the subject of Lady Constable’s hybrid roses, which quite surprised and flattered the latter—even Louisa had no idea that she experimented with new varietals.

Was it possible that he had come on a whim? Perhaps he missed her a bit. Perhaps he missed her more than a bit. And perhaps he happened to be nearby and decided that he would rather cause brows to rise than go another day without seeing her.

She grimaced at her dangerously self-indulgent thoughts. More evidence of her besottedness, that: The old her would never have woven an entire tapestry of starry-eyed amour out of spools of a man’s sexual curiosity.

The clock struck half past four. He had been in Lady Balfour’s drawing room for ten minutes—five minutes left before etiquette dictated that he take his leave.

She wished she could understand what went on behind those hypnotic eyes of his. The man would not cause rampant speculation without a good reason. But if that good reason existed, she could not fish it out of the chaos in her head.

“And they are truly excellent on an arbor,” Mrs. Constable said with a flutter of her hands, imitating the motion of a climbing rose. “In a few years you will have a profusion of blooms, exceptionally lovely in early summer.”

“I will be sure to pass on the knowledge to my head gardener,” replied Lord Wrenworth, looking for all the world as if he had nothing in mind except summer roses.

“I can have mine send the design for the arbor, too, if you like,” offered Mrs. Constable, a little breathlessly.

“It will be most sincerely appreciated, my dear Mrs. Constable.”