Page 105 of Brown-Eyed Earl

As the miles slipped by, a question began to take shape. What if he didn’t go back to Town?

He had no earthly idea what to do about Diantha, but there was another problem he did know how to tackle. He didn’t want to, but he knew how. And he’d been ignoring it long enough.

Best-Laid Plans

There was a letter from Mr. Baldwin waiting for Diantha when she and both Countesses of Harcourt arrived back at the London house. It was a shock, yet not a shock. She had been waiting for it, after all. He had said, after they discussed the terms of her ruination, that he would be in touch with details.

She held off on opening it while their return operation unfolded. Their trunks were unloaded. Mrs. Saunders had tea and an easel and paints waiting in the garden. Diantha and the dowager refreshed themselves while the younger Lady Harcourt, who had been looking quite green on the jostling journey, went to rest. After their tea, Lady Harcourt decided to attempt to paint the pool at Gurglewood from memory, and Diantha opened her book.

She had the letter tucked into the book. It would have been a logical moment to open it. No one was paying her any mind.

She did not open it.

Instead, she remarked on the quality of the stone Lady Harcourt was painting, and that set the two of them off on a discussion of what time of day it ought to be in the painting, and how the light should subsequently look shining on the stone at the edge of the pool.

When it was time for the evening meal, which the younger Lady Harcourt joined them for, they shared memories of the cold water and wondered aloud when Lord Harcourt would arrive.

Diantha wondered silently if Simon was returning to his London house. She assumed so, but she hadn’t asked him.

Would he call, as he sometimes did?

How was she to be in his company now, after all that had unfolded between them? And she didn’t just mean their lying together. How could she sit in the garden with him and other members of the household and pretend that everything was the same as it had always been?

But was the alternative preferable? That he didn’t call?

What would happen when they traveled to Mollybrook, which she assumed would happen in the coming days—each year, after Parliament closed and Earls Trip ended, they decamped to the family’s country estate for the autumn and stayed through the holidays.

Lord Harcourt didn’t generally see his friends over that stretch.

And then … at some point … she would be gone.

A kind of dread took hold in her gut.

“Miss Brown, are you all right?” the younger Lady Harcourt asked. “You’ll forgive me for saying, but you look distressed. Is the food not to your liking?”

“Oh, no, no. I am quite all right.” She picked up her fork. “Just woolgathering.”