Page 99 of Discovering Her Earl

But it was Lainey who answered before Aunt Rose could.

“What is happening is that Lord Melville is going to choose a bride and marry, but it can’t be me, because I never attended finishing school. Instead, I was dragged about the world digging with my hands in the dirt and getting all these bloody freckles. Why couldn’t you have at least seen that I wore a blasted bonnet in the sun so I might one day be a bleeding countess?”

To say she had shocked them was an understatement. They sat there in complete silence with mouths gaping.

She would need to apologize for yelling at them as well as accusing them of thwarting her opportunities. It wasn’t their fault. She was grateful she had such kind people to love her after she’d lost her parents. Freckles or no.

“I’m going to pack,” she announced. “I’ll send word to Girard that I will be joining his team shortly. I’ll see to getting passage on the next available ship.” She left the room as more tears overflowed.

As expected, Aunt Rose entered her bedchamber a half hour later and sat in the chair by the window. She had probably been counting down the minutes in an effort to give Lainey enough time to calm down before approaching her.

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Rose. I shouldn’t have shouted at you and Uncle Henry the way I did. I sounded like a spoiled, ungrateful child, but I’m most grateful for the two of you. Please forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, love. And nothing to feel grateful about either. Opening our home and our hearts to you was the easiest thing we’ve ever done. You are ours.”

She stood and stared out the window down to the gardens.

“Do you remember how much Henry and I used to spoil you before your parents were taken from us?”

She shook her head as she tried to remember… before.

She’d been eleven when they died. Old enough to have many memories of them. But often she only recalled the night they died when she thought of that life.

But now that Rose mentioned it, she did recall the many times her mother and father ventured to Darlington Hall for Christmas. All the gifts waiting under the tree for her to open.

“You must know I am not leaving because of you or uncle.”

“I know that, dear.” Rose came and wrapped Lainey in her loving embrace. “I’ve known for some time how you felt about the earl. I could see it in the way you looked at him.”

“He needs to marry a woman who will be a proper countess, and I do not qualify.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to leave. You may think running away will ease the pain, but there is no escaping a broken heart. At least here, you have us.”

Lainey considered the suggestion but thought of how horrible it would be to see Julian after he married and know he could never be hers. At least if she fled England, she would be sure not to have to see him again.

She would surely be too busy to think of him.

It had to be easier this way.

Chapter Thirty-One

Another dance with another debutante. Julian forced a smile as he led her back to her hopeful mama.

Each girl he danced with was perfectly suitable. Perfectly elegant and poised. Able to carry on a perfect discussion of the ordinary topics, and smile in a perfect way. They were all perfectly… perfect.

But they were all a near replica of the last. True, their coloring might be different. Brown hair with hazel eyes, or blonde with blue eyes. They were lovely in their own ways. But none had the alluring combination of fiery gold curls and warm brown eyes a man wished to melt in.

It wasn’t just Lainey’s face he missed. It was her compelling conversation.

If ever she’d spoken to him of the weather, it had been to inform him of rainy seasons and draughts. Not the predictable drizzle of a London spring.

“It certainly is damp of late, is it not, my lord?” Miss Wendell said as he spun her around the dance floor.

“Yes, it is. I predict it will get increasingly warmer as we move from spring into summer,” he answered with only slightly disguised sarcasm.

“Oh, yes. I hope you are correct.”

The chit hoped he had decrypted known weather patterns for their geographical climate correctly? He might have asked, but there were at least six or seven words in that thought she possibly wouldn’t understand.