Page 62
“She did conceive once, and his demeanor changed. But it didn’t last—the pregnancy, or the warmth from Mr. Hill.”
The next pause was long enough that it couldn’t rightly be considered a pause. Simon broke his rule about interjecting. “At some point, you came to Mollybrook.”
“Yes. Lady Harcourt swooped in, like an angel from above. She always maintained she didn’t remember where she heard about my situation. ‘I can’t remember, my girl.’” Miss Brown said, lowering her voice and putting on quite a credible impression of the dowager. “‘I suppose I heard about it at some party or other. I am sorry your mother and I lost touch.’ I believe that my sister wrote to her, though she always denied it, as did Lady Harcourt.”
“Does it matter, the mechanism by which you came to be with the dowager?”
“I felt that it did, initially. I still had the idea, back then, that I didn’t want to be anyone’s charity case.”
The way she said that implied that she had shed that concern. He wondered—he wondered desperately—if time had ground her pride out of her. He hoped not. He thought back to that marker.
A person may be proud without being vain.
“You have been indispensable as a companion and caretaker for Lady Harcourt,” he said carefully.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
He ventured a little further. “You ought to be proud of your work.”
“I am,” she said, and he was happy to hear it. “But it is work.”
“I never doubted it. Harcourt has confided in Stonely and me about the toll extracted by the caretaking effort. I imagine that toll is much higher for you.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. He is her son, and she rarely recognizes him as such. He pays a different cost.”
“Yes.” He was struggling to connect the pieces of her story. Did she not want to continue in her position as companion to the dowager? “So your late sister’s husband proposed marriage, you said no, but he was, as you said, not inclined to accept that answer.”
“I thought I needed a credible reason to decline. Something to make him not want me.”
“Hence your visit to my home last month.”
“I thought we were using the code word to talk about that unfortunate evening.”
He smiled, though she couldn’t see it. “Hence … obelisk.”
“Yes, and I am sorry for it. It was the wrong approach. But as I’ve said a number of times, you needn’t worry about the situation. I have devised another plan.”
What did that mean? I have devised another plan was not the same as having delivered a refusal and it having been accepted.
“My lord, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“You may turn around if you like. I brought a blanket to warm myself post-bathing, and I am thoroughly covered by it. And while I appreciate your aim to adhere to proprieties, I would venture to suggest that being out here at all is as improper as your seeing me covered in a blanket would be.”
He wanted so badly to turn. He wanted to see her.
“And,” she added, “I seem to recall someone claiming to be, what was it? Profoundly uninterested in adhering to social mores he considers nonsensical?”
He laughed and turned, and it was as if they were bosom friends reunited after a long separation. Her smile was fond, he flattered himself, and everything about her was familiar. The shape of her mouth as it smiled. The shape of her, despite the fact that she was indeed covered from ankle to chin with a blanket.
But everything was also different. She was wearing a blanket instead of a dress. And her hair wasn’t disappearing into the night as he had thought it might be. The light cast by the fire was greater than in his invented version of this scenario, and her hair was clearly visible. It was down, though, which he had neither imagined nor seen before. It curled damply around her ears, gradually becoming less wavy closer to her shoulders.
“Did you put your whole head under the water?” he asked, since they were dispensing with the veneer of politeness.
“I did. I decided to try total immersion this time, since I was alone—or so I thought.”
She was fascinating. Fearless, and fascinating. “What was your question?” He couldn’t wait to hear it.
