Page 56 of Engaging Sir Isaac

“You are here for Miss Wedgewood. She told me of your plans to take a ride through the countryside.” He pointed out the front door. “I think she meant to wait for you outside. Did you not see her?”

Isaac shook his head, puzzled despite himself. “I did not. The butler did not even suggest she might be without.”

Lord Neil shrugged and went to the staircase. “Perhaps she walked along the side of the house to the gardens. She went out some time ago.” He did not bother turning as he spoke, but Sir Isaac bowed to the man’s back anyway. He would remember his manners, even if Lord Neil did not.

Outside again, Isaac walked along the house to where it turned a corner into gardens that still maintained the stricter, geometric style of generations past. Esther had begun to change Inglewood’s gardens into the more wild sort that many of artistic sensibilities preferred.

Which did Millie prefer? Clean lines of clipped hedges, or wildly swaying grasses and jumbled ivy?

He wound his way through a few shrubs and rose bushes, tempted to call out but resisting. He would come upon her soon or go back to the house and wait for the servants to run her to ground.

Then he saw someone else already had.

Millie stood next to a gleaming marble fountain, as pale as the stone itself, facing down the viscount, Lord Carning. Her small fists were clenched, her chin tilted up, and she glared fiercely at the peer. The man himself smirked down upon her, standing far too close.

What was it about the woman that attracted rakes and scoundrels?

Isaac quickened his step, though he maintained an aloof expression. “Miss Wedgewood, here you are at last. I have combed the entirety of the gardens looking for you.”

Lord Carning stepped back, and Millie jerked around to face him with an expression upon her face that pained him. She appeared afraid. And she clutched something in her hand—a long, slender object. A pin?

What had Carning done to frighten her?

There was no use trying to figure it out with the man himself standing there, smirking.

“Lord Carning.” Isaac bowed when he came close enough, and the viscount returned the gesture gracefully. Then Isaac extended his hand, rather than his arm, to Millie.

Let the viscount see that she had friends.

She took his hand at once, allowing him to draw her close. “Are you ready for our ride?” he asked, voice pitched lower, almost intimate. He ignored the viscount’s expression of interest. The man could go to the blazes for the look of fear he had put upon Millie’s beautiful face.

“I am. Thank you for collecting me.” Her fingers twined through his.

“Good day, Lord Carning.” Isaac barely tipped his head this time, then whisked Millie away the moment she made her curtsy. The viscount did not say a word, though he stared after them.

Millie’s hand trembled in Isaac’s grasp, and he quickly drew her closer, the inside of her forearm flush against his. “Are you well?”

“Well enough.” She smiled at him, still pale, her eyes shining with pain. “Please, get me away from here.”

They were at his carriage, and he handed her up with swiftness. The moment she sat, she jammed the long pin back into her hat fiercely, as though she rather wished she was shoving it into something else. Perhaps someone else.

She already wore a dress, hat, gloves, and appeared entirely ready for the diversion. The diversion turned escape. He walked around quickly and found his seat with all speed before lifting the reins.

“I will drive you to the sea.” With a quick flick of his wrist, the horses jolted forward, and they were moving away from the house at a fast clip.

The further they drove, the more Millie relaxed, until she leaned upon his left shoulder.

It felt natural to have her there, nearly tucked against his side. His only regret was that he did not have the ability to put an arm around her. Not that it would have been appropriate. But it would have felt natural, right, to hold her closer.

She did not seem to mind, did not even seem to notice or care, that the arm she leaned against did not possess an elbow, a crook to tuck her arm through, or a hand to hold.

He looked down at the top of her bonnet, barely able to glimpse more than a few curls and the tip of her nose from beneath its brim. What was she thinking?

Millie sat up abruptly. “I am sorry. I do not mean to be so cloying. You must think me weaker than a kitten.” She rubbed at her eyes with her gloved fingers. “I am exhausted, Isaac. I thought this would all be so easy.”

He missed the weight of her head upon his shoulder. “I do not think you weak, though I certainly question your decisions prior to your confession.” He kept the words gentle, not accusing. She was distressed enough, he need not belabor that point with her. “What did Carning want?”

“Carning was the man engaged to my sister. And the man who attacked me.”