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“In the barn on my father’s estate,” Beatrice replied immediately.
A surprising answer. “Why?”
“The barn isn’t clean, exactly, but it isn’t dirty the way London is.” She wrinkled her nose. An adorable nose, he noticed. “London streets smell of coal and smoke.”
“True.”
“The barn has a peaceful smell that comes from old leather and tired horses. With the peppery scent of lineament.”
“If your father’s barn is like mine, there’s a whiff of the ale the stable hands drink secretly in the tack room.”
“Better than something stronger, so my father says.” She looked up at him, her eyes alight with amusement. “I thought you were a city creature, Your Grace.”
“I’m only in London for my sister’s debut,” Jonah said. “I haven’t taken up my seat in the House of Lords because there’s too much to do in the country. I usually spend the year at the duchy.”
Her eyes asked a silent question.
“My father left our lands in poor shape.” He couldn’t imagine why he was telling her this; if an acquaintance dared to bring up the subject, he would snub him roundly.
They reached the door of the ladies’ retiring room, but he managed to keep her with him by dint of spilling details about the estate’s neglect and the work he was doing to repair fields exhausted by repeated wheat crops.
“Have you tried sowing clover, Your Grace?” Beatrice asked. Her eyes met his frankly, without a hint of coyness.
“Jonah,” he said. “Please call me Jonah.”
She frowned at him.
“I only shared the ill effects of my father’s neglect with my friends. Ergo, you are a friend.”
“Absolutely not,” she said, without even pausing to think about it. “I suggest clover, because apparently it adds nutrients to the soil. And I recently read about an iron plow with interchangeable parts that might also help with aeration.”
They were still talking when a lady who had passed them and gone into the retiring room came back out and gave them a sharp look. Beatrice bit her lip, and promptly curtsied. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
Jonah wanted to catch her arm and keep her with him, but instead he bowed and walked back slowly to the dining room. No woman of rank had ever looked at him so directly and spoken to him so frankly, without giggles or suggestiveness.
Beatrice was polite but showed no signs of interest in him. Not even in being his friend.
It abruptly occurred to him that he wanted far more than friendship.
It wasn’t a matter of her lush figure, or her beauty, or even her lower lip. She smelled like lemons and soap, not a sophisticated fragrance. Yet he only had to touch her hand to feel heat spreading down his body with reckless speed.
When he reached their table, he was greeted by his sister, sitting alone, an ominous light in her eyes.
“What happened to Lord Peregrine?” Jonah asked.
“I sent him away,” she said acidly. “He is a miserable rat whom I will never marry.”
Jonah sank into a chair next to Regina, all thoughts of Beatrice fleeing his mind. “You did what?”
“I gave that man back his ring,” she snarled. “He suggested that I keep it! As if I would want that filthy diamond as a reminder of him!”
Jonah’s heart sank. Their father had accepted a large sum of money a decade ago when he set up the betrothal. Now Jonah would have to repay the Peregrines.
Somehow.
“I wish to return home immediately,” Regina stated. “Where’s that stupid chaperone of mine?”
“Mrs. Hastings is dining with Lord Fencibles,” Jonah said. He nodded at Mr. Paine, the Master of Ceremonies, who was hovering not far away. Paine bowed, managing to convey without words the fact that the ducal carriage had already been summoned.
