Chapter 1 #3
She had also been in the drawing room for the better part of an hour without exchanging a single word with His Grace. She was starting to think that was not composure but avoidance.
Supper was announced, and Mr. Atherton offered her his arm with the easy manner of someone who’d decided they were friends and saw no reason to make a production of it.
"You will tell me," he began as they followed the others toward the dining room, "if I have overstated the horses. I should hate to set expectations too high and have you disappointed, Miss Corinna."
"If the horses are half as remarkable as you've described, I shall be perfectly satisfied."
"They’re at least three quarters as remarkable," Mr. Atherton said, with great seriousness. "I was being conservative."
She was smiling when she sat down, which was useful, because she needed something to do with her face when she looked up and found herself directly beside the Duke of Linthorpe.
Oh, goodness!
Cori swallowed a bit nervously.
Clearly, the Countess of Upwell had been responsible for the seating arrangements. That much was obvious as the woman was staring directly at Cori as though waiting for a reaction.
Cori was determined not to give her one.
She accepted a glass from the footman and took a healthy sip of claret.
She could do this. She could make pleasant conversation with His Grace.
She was perfectly capable of doing so. She was.
After all, she had faced down a Bahamian customs official for the better part of an hour one time.
She had once even talked a pelican out of the ship's cook's best hat. So she could manage dinner next to the Duke of Linthorpe. Even if he did have the loveliest grey eyes she’d ever seen.
To her right, Mr. Atherton had turned his attention to his sister Emma, which left Cori to manage the left side of the table on her own.
The Duchess of Hythe was next to Linthorpe on his other side, which Cori had only just noticed; but the duchess was already engaged with Lucien to her left, and there was a moment, just a brief one, where it was only the two of them, Linthorpe and Cori, at their end of the table with no one else paying them particular attention.
His Grace turned.
"Miss Corinna." His greyish blue eyes were direct and a bit warmer than she'd expected. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced, though under the circumstances that seems rather beside the point, doesn’t it?"
"We’re nearly family," she agreed with a nod. She meant to say something clever, something to capture his interest, but what came out instead was, "I'm very glad to finally meet you properly. Cait speaks so warmly of your family."
He looked at her for a moment in that steady way he had. "Your sister has made Daniel extraordinarily happy," he finally said. "I find I am quite in her debt for that."
Oh, that was unexpected. And lovely. And she liked him enormously for it.
"She’s happy too," Cori replied quickly before reminding herself to steady her pace.
"Happier than I've ever seen her, actually, which is no small thing. Cait does not do half measures, so the fact that she’s this blissful is rather significant. "
The corner of his mouth moved upward. There. She had been waiting for that since the Plumstead ball. Up close it was even better than she'd remembered.
"Daniel does not do anything by half measures either," he confided. "It has been the defining challenge of my existence for the past twenty-seven years."
She laughed at that, genuinely, and his almost-smile became something a little more definite and a great deal more appealing.
"At least they are well-matched in that regard," she said.
"At least," he agreed, and there was something dry and fond in it that made her want to ask him a hundred more questions about Lord Daniel and about growing up at Acklan Castle and about whether Hannah had always been the force of nature that she was, but dinner was beginning in earnest and the Duchess of Hythe had said something on his left that required his attention, and he turned.
Cori turned to Mr. Atherton.
"You look pleased about something," he said with a knowing glint in his eye.
"I am pleased about everything," she replied, which was true. "It is a very good evening." And it was even better than she could have imagined.
Mr. Atherton glanced briefly past her toward the head of the table. "Yes. I rather think it is."
She chose to ignore the knowing quality of that remark.
Between courses, the conversation opened up to include the duchess, and it was Her Grace who said, with the natural ease of someone merely following the thread of the evening, "I was thinking today about the arrangements for the wedding.
Acklan Castle in August. It has been too long since I've seen it. "
"It is very fine in the summer," Linthorpe said. He paused briefly as though deciding whether or not to divulge a truth. He surprised Cori when he added, "Daniel has been after me for years to open it up more. He feels it sits empty too much of the time."
"Is he right?" Cori asked, before she thought the better of it.
He looked at her, and she felt it in her bones. Then something passed through his expression that she couldn't quite name. "Probably," he said. “But do not tell him I said so, it will make him unbearable.”
Cori bit back a smile. "He says it’s one of the loveliest places in the world. He says it with such conviction that I find myself quite prepared to believe him."
"My brother says most things with conviction," Linthorpe replied. "It’s one of his more exhausting qualities."
"Is he ever wrong?"
“Often.” His greyish gaze held hers with just a hint of mirth. "But not about Acklan. He’s not wrong about that."
There was something underneath those words, something she couldn't quite reach from across a dinner table at a first meeting, but she tucked it away carefully because she thought it mattered.
"Then I am very much looking forward to seeing it," she said.
He held her gaze for a moment longer than was strictly necessary which made her belly flutter in response. Then Mr. Atherton drew her attention away. By the time she turned back, the moment had dissolved. Though the flutters were still in her belly, and Cori managed, just barely, not to sigh.
The rest of dinner passed pleasantly. Cori said sensible things and listened well and did not embarrass herself in any visible way.
Beside her, Linthorpe spoke when spoken to and listened with the same focused, unhurried attention she had now noticed three times over, and she found, somewhat to her own surprise, that she enjoyed watching him listen as much as she enjoyed watching him talk.
Floating a bit after her success at dinner, Cori went in search of a retiring room and was thankful when she bumped into a footman who gave her directions. Apparently, however, she should have written them down. How in the world did someone get lost in a home, for pity’s sake?
After navigating the corridor for several minutes, she heard a voice she recognized. "You're going the wrong way," Lady Hannah Westham said from somewhere near the marble floor.
Cori looked down.
The little girl was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the corridor floor in her nightrail, with an adorable orange and white kitten settled in her lap.
"Hannah." Cori smiled at the child. "What are you doing in the corridor?"
"Marmalade was not supposed to be here," Hannah said, which was not precisely an answer. "He belongs in the kitchens. I was returning him." She paused briefly. "He was already in the corridor when I found him."
"Was he, indeed?" Cori couldn’t help but be charmed by the little girl.
Hannah regarded her with the frank, assessing look Cori remembered from their first meeting and then, as though extending a significant honor, she held out the kitten for Cori. "You can hold him. He remembers you, I think. Do you remember about his back legs?"
"I do," Cori said, and sat down on the floor beside the girl. The kitten didn’t like his hind legs to be touched and was not shy in reminding people if they forgot. Cait had a scratch on her wrist that served as a reminder.
Hannah settled Marmalade carefully into Cori's hands. The kitten, after a brief and businesslike assessment, tucked his head beneath Cori's chin and began to purr with an enthusiasm utterly disproportionate to his size.
"He does remember you," Hannah said, nodding once as though a matter had been settled.
"Animals usually remember people who mean well by them," Cori told her.
"Papa says that too." Hannah was quiet for a moment. "He says Biscuit is the most trouble of the litter though. But I think Marmalade is sneakier, which is worse."
"Strategic trouble is always the kind to watch for," Cori agreed with a nod.
Hannah nodded too with great seriousness and then she tipped her head to one side. "Do you think you will stay in England? Uncle Daniel says you might go back to Bermuda after the summer’s over."
Goodness. Had Cori been a topic of conversation at Linthorpe House? "I’m not yet certain," she said honestly. "There are things at home that need looking after." And now that Cara was remaining in England—
"I hope you’ll stay,” Hannah said. “Marmalade does too.”
Cori smiled again at the child, completely taken aback that Hannah might have any opinion whatsoever about Cori’s comings or goings. An unfamiliar warmth settled in her chest.
She was still sitting with the feeling when she heard footsteps at the far end of the corridor. She looked up to find the Duke of Linthorpe standing there.
Cori gulped.
His Grace appeared in the corridor, clearly having come in search of his daughter and found considerably more than he had anticipated.
His grey gaze moved from Hannah to Cori to Marmalade, and then back to Cori.
Then she realized with complete and sudden horror that she was sitting on the floor of his corridor in her third choice of gown, and that the careful composure she'd crafted over the previous two hours had not survived contact with a five-year-old and a kitten.
She returned Marmalade to Hannah and pushed to her feet, suddenly close enough to catch the clean scent of sandalwood. His eyes were more direct than she'd prepared for, serious and yet with the very faintest suggestion of amusement held carefully in reserve.
"Your Grace," she said. "I believe I took a wrong turn."
"Ah, the retiring room—” he gestured behind him "—is the second door on the right. Not the left."
"Yes, Hannah was in the process of redirecting me," Cori said. "I’m afraid we got distracted."
"Marmalade escaped the kitchens, Papa," Hannah said, from the floor, with dignity.
"Indeed." He looked down at his daughter with an enigmatic expression. “He’s not the only one to escape this evening, it appears.” Then he glanced back at Cori. "You will have to forgive us, Miss Corinna. We usually keep a tighter ship at Linthorpe House.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Cori muttered.
“Come along,” the duke said to his daughter. “We’ll find Miss Roseberry and return you to the nursery.”
“We have to take Marmalade back to the kitchens,” said the girl.
Linthorpe took Marmalade from Hannah's arms, mindful of his hind legs, then held out his free hand to his daughter, who took it and stood with the ease of a child who had learned to trust that hand completely.
"Say good night, Hannah," he said.
"Good night," Hannah parroted around a little yawn. Then with the thoroughness of a five-year-old who wanted to be certain all-important things had been addressed, she added, "You should come and see Biscuit soon. She is very small but very loud about everything."
"She sounds like someone I would very much like to meet," Cori said.
Hannah smiled with her whole face, the way she did, and allowed herself to be steered back down the corridor.
Linthorpe glanced back once, at the turn.
Cori’s cheeks warmed. Goodness! He’d caught her sitting on his floor. On his floor for pity’s sake. She wished that very floor would open up and swallow her whole.
The duke inclined his head and then disappeared around the corner.
Cori found her way to the retiring room and managed not to sag under the weight of her own embarrassment once she arrived.
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror for a moment and sighed.
Her third choice of gown had something on the left shoulder that looked almost certainly like fluff from a white and orange kitten.
She closed her eyes, her embarrassment complete, and her cheeks stung from the experience.