Chapter Five
o
Daphne slowly released a breath, willing the tension to ease from her shoulders.
She would never forgive herself if she ruined this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by being too nervous to enjoy even a moment of it.
Perhaps if she thought of him as James instead of both names together, he would seem less intimidating, different somehow from the imaginary gentleman she’d thought of so often during the past half dozen years.
He broke the silence between them. “Has your sojourn in London been pleasant thus far?”
Her voice stuck in her throat a moment when she turned to look at him. His eyes focused ahead as he carefully drove the carriage toward the park. Even in profile, she thought him the handsomest man of her acquaintance.
Stop being a gudgeon, she told herself. What a ridiculous person she must seem, entirely unable to speak a coherent sentence. Was it any wonder she’d sunk under the weight of her come-out?
“The warmer weather of Town is . . . is a welcome change after the long winters of Northumberland,” she said.
Had her very first sentence really been a comment on the weather, and a broken, inarticulate one at that? He was bound to think her an imbecile now.
“Lancashire is not particularly warm during the winter months either.”
He hadn’t laughed at her. That was encouraging.
“You seem to prefer Lancashire to London.” That was a better topic of discussion. He would at the very least realize she had paid attention during their conversation the day before. And the comment had emerged whole. That was an accomplishment.
A moment passed before he replied, his attention focused on maneuvering the carriage around a cart on one side of the street and a carriage moving in the opposite direction on the other. The vendor who tended the cart watched them rather closely as they passed. A touch too closely, in fact.
“My mother’s health has been poor for many years,” he said when they had successfully passed the obstacles. “I worry for her when I am away. Likewise, my brother remains on his estate a great deal of the time—also in Lancashire—and I sorely miss his company while I am in Town.”
A note of longing threaded through his words.
Daphne glanced at him as they continued at a subdued pace.
She understood loneliness. Perhaps he would appreciate knowing she did.
She was not, however, ready to confess that she felt alone most of the time.
Her father had begun rejecting her company when she was still very young.
She had tried again and again to convince him to allow her a space in his life, but to no avail.
One did not endure such personal and repeated dismissals without a great many scars.
She would not, however, speak of that. His opinion of her would be rendered decidedly low if he knew her own father had not cared overly much for her.
An accounting of her siblings was a far safer topic.
“My sister Athena and her family do not come to—They do not travel from their home often,” she said, “and I miss my brothers as well.”
“I did not realize you had brothers.” James glanced briefly at her before returning his attention to the increasingly busy street.
She nodded. “Linus is in the navy.”
He looked over at her once more, his gaze lingering.
She had to turn her gaze away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. He would probably like her better if he did not study her overly much.
“You said you had brothers. How many others are there?” he asked.
“One other: Evander. He—” Her throat closed up a touch.
Speaking of her siblings had not proven a harmless subject after all.
Thoughts of Evander did not always affect her as they had in the first few years after Trafalgar.
What a time for her emotions to take hold once more.
She prayed her voice would remain level.
“He was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.” Her voice broke as she forced out the word killed.
Evander had meant the world to her. Of all the members of her family, only he had never been too busy to notice a lonely child desperate for affection.
After leaving for the navy, he had regularly sent her letters in addition to those addressed to the family as a whole.
She had lived for those letters. She would read them again and again until the creases wore through.
He had been her reassurance that she mattered to someone.
His death had torn her to pieces, fragments of which remained unhealed and broken still.
“I am sorry for your loss,” James said.
Dear heavens, she was very nearly crying in front of James Tilburn.
What a ridiculous impression she must have been making.
Not only could she not seem to produce an unbroken sentence, but she was turning into a watering pot too.
“Forgive me.” She blinked away a tear threatening to form in her eyes.
“I do not always grow so emotional when speaking of him.”
“I assure you, Miss Lancaster, there is nothing to forgive. Were I, heaven forbid, to lose my brother, I doubt I would ever fully recover.”
James carefully tooled his way into the mad crush of carriages and horses descending on Hyde Park.
The outing had not yet proven disastrous.
She was keeping up her end of a conversation.
He did not seem utterly bored with her. A smile tugged at Daphne’s lips even as she felt warmth creep into her cheeks.
She had worried for hours on end over the reason for James’s call the day before.
Adam, she feared, had forced the call despite insisting he’d merely suggested it.
But James didn’t act like someone being bullied into spending time with a young lady.
He’d asked her to take a ride with him without any noticeable prodding from her brother-in-law.
She had reason to hope James enjoyed her company.
“Hyde Park is busy this afternoon,” he said. “A sure sign the Season has truly begun.”
Daphne nodded, glancing around at the others who had ventured out for the promenade. “I have never been at the park during the fashionable hour. My sister and brother-in-law prefer to avoid crowds.”
“I cannot say I blame them. With the Season in full swing, the madness of this undertaking boggles the mind.”
Daphne would gladly endure even the most crowded days in the park simply to sit beside James Tilburn as she was. She’d wanted for so long to know him better. “Do you often come for the promenade?”
He nodded. “Often enough to know that this is Mrs. Bower and her daughter approaching in their carriage. Have you met them?”
Daphne’s pulse quickened dreadfully, as it always did at the prospect of meeting new people. “I have not.”
“I would be happy to make the introduction, if you would like. This is also Miss Bower’s first Season, and I believe the two of you are of an age.”
Her first inclination was a quick and decided refusal. But that would make her even more ridiculous than she likely seemed, having admitted to never before entering Hyde Park during the daily crush. “Yes, please,” she managed with some degree of believability.
He brought the carriage to a very gentle stop.
The approaching carriage did the same. A matron in a bonnet with so wide a brim as to cover her face entirely sat on the far end.
Closer to James’s carriage sat a young lady who looked shockingly like two of Daphne’s sisters: flawless complexion, beautiful golden curls, and a figure that would have inspired even the pickiest of sculptors.
How horribly dowdy Daphne must have appeared in comparison, with her drab-brown hair and alarmingly colorless complexion. She had a figure, but only just.
“Miss Lancaster,” James began the introductions, “may I make known to you Mrs. Bower and Miss Bower.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” she offered.
“Mrs. Bower, Miss Bower, may I present Miss Lancaster, sister of the Duchess of Kielder.”
That never failed to both impress and terrify people. Miss Bower’s eyes widened, though in a way that somehow only made her more pretty. Her mother’s may very well have done the same, but her face was not visible.
“Lord Tilburn,” Mrs. Bower said, “I did not realize you were at all connected to Her Grace’s family.”
“The duke and I belong to the same political party and the same club,” he said. “Now that Miss Lancaster has made her bows, I am pleased to be given the opportunity of knowing her better.”
Daphne recognized it for the polite explanation it was but cherished it just the same. She hoped he really was pleased at the acquaintance. She herself was elated.
The same scenario repeated a few times. Some of the individuals they spoke with were already known to her; others were new acquaintances. Some of her trepidation over the coming Season abated over the course of their ride. She would recognize a few faces in the crowd, at least.
They had completed half a circuit of the park when a rider on horseback slipped into her line of vision, keeping pace with James’s carriage. Though she did not see the rider’s face, Daphne felt certain she knew him. She attempted to watch the stranger surreptitiously.
“I did not wish to alarm you,” James said, “but that man has been following us for some time, hovering nearby every time we have paused to greet someone.”
The man in question looked very briefly in their direction. That fleeting glimpse was enough to identify him.
“Good heavens,” Daphne whispered. Her face heated in an instant. She might as well confess. “That is Johnny from the stables.”
“One of your stable hands?”
“Yes.”
“And does the man on the horse just ahead of us look familiar as well?” James asked. “He has done a remarkable job of following us, considering he is in front and not behind.”
Though she could not see who was riding, Daphne knew the horse. Fanny’s barely veiled look of guilt told Daphne her growing suspicions were entirely accurate.