Chapter 12
“I think,” Lord Westbridge announced with the grave countenance of a man proposing something entirely reasonable, “that we ought to allow society to believe I am courting you.”
Aurelia stared at him.
For one suspended instant, she was quite certain she had misheard. The distant rumble of carriage wheels, the murmur of passing voices and the soft crush of boots upon gravel seemed to fall away, leaving only his words hanging absurdly between them.
Then they arranged themselves into sense, and it made her burst into a boisterous chuckle.
It escaped her before she could stop it, wholly improper and entirely sincere.
She turned her face aside, pressing her gloved fingers lightly to her lips, but it was too late.
The sound was out in the open air between them.
When she looked back at him, he was watching her with an expression of such controlled affront that, had she been less astonished, she might have laughed again.
“You find the idea amusing,” he frowned.
“I beg your pardon,” Aurelia managed, though she was still fighting the remnants of her mirth. “It is only that you said it so solemnly.”
“I was being solemn.”
“That was precisely the difficulty.”
His mouth tightened. “I had thought you might at least hear the merits of the case before dismissing it.”
That did sober her a little. She looked at him more carefully then. He was not teasing her. There was no smile hidden in the corners of his mouth and no glimmer of mischief in his eyes. He was in earnest, completely, impossibly in earnest.
Aurelia drew a steadier breath. “Very well. I am listening.”
That seemed to restore him somewhat.
He glanced ahead, where Clara and Captain Harrow had gone a little further along the path, deep in cheerful conversation and thankfully out of earshot. Then he lowered his voice.
“If people see me with you and begin to speculate, then we may as well use the speculation to our advantage. A public understanding, that is, an appearance of attachment, would answer several difficulties at once.”
Aurelia opened her mouth, but he continued before she could speak, as though he had prepared the argument while walking in silence.
“It would protect your reputation,” he clarified. “If my intentions are understood to be honorable, then no one can say there is impropriety in my calling upon you or walking with you.”
Honorable.
The word was almost enough to make her laugh again, though now she restrained herself.
“It would also protect me,” he went on, “from my mother’s determination to parade every suitable unmarried woman in London before me as though I were a horse to be inspected.”
Despite herself, Aurelia felt the corner of her mouth lift.
“And it would protect you from any unwanted suitors,” he added. “Men are less inclined to trouble a woman when they believe another man has already declared an interest.”
He paused just long enough to ensure she was still listening.
“And most importantly, it would allow us to continue our investigation. If society believes I am courting you, then our calls, our walks, our conversations, all of it becomes perfectly respectable. No one will think it strange that we spend time together. In short,” he said, with an air of satisfaction at the neatness of his own reasoning, “it solves a great many problems.”
Aurelia looked at him in silence.
There was a part of her that still found it utterly absurd.
This was Hyde Park, not a chessboard. One did not simply rearrange society’s rules to suit oneself by making declarations on a gravel path.
And yet another part of her, the same part that had been sharpened by years of caution, by her mother’s disgrace, by all the humiliating lessons of reputation and propriety, could not help seeing the logic in what he said.
It would answer Charlotte Langley’s insinuations. It would give their continued acquaintance a shape society could accept. It would shield Clara, perhaps, from some of the worst interpretations. And it would allow Aurelia to keep speaking to him.
That last thought came softly and uninvited, and she turned her face away from it at once.
Lord Westbridge, mistaking her silence for continued resistance, continued. “I realize it is unconventional to ask this of you.”
“That,” Aurelia said faintly, “is one word for it.”
He ignored the remark. “But it is practical.”
Practical.
Yes. That was what he meant it to be. Not romantic, not flattering, not reckless in the manner of novels and foolish girls’ dreams. It was a plan, cleanly constructed and coolly offered.
And yet her heart would not taken the same calm view.
She thought of the strange ease she had begun to feel in Lord Westbridge’s company, and of how disappointing it would be to lose it now. For one wild, ridiculous instant, she thought that perhaps he might be the hero she had been waiting for.
The next instant she rejected the thought with firmness. Heroes did not exist. Men were merely men, and this one was offering convenience, not salvation.
Still, her pulse had not quite steadied.
She turned to look ahead at Clara, then back at him. His expression had changed. There was impatience in it now, yes, but beneath that she thought she saw something more uncertain, as if, having proposed the thing, he now waited to discover whether he had overstepped beyond repair.
“You truly believe this would work?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You are very sure of yourself.”
“I am sure of the principle,” he told her. “The execution may require effort.”
That, more than anything, felt like him.
Aurelia lowered her gaze for a moment, then raised it again.
If she refused, what then? Distance, caution, the slow retreat into silence? An abandoned investigation, Charlotte Langley free to spread whatever version of events pleased her, Clara left exposed to rumor all the same? Refusal would not spare them half so much as it pretended.
And if she agreed, then she would be taking hold of the matter for once rather than merely flinching from it. However, there was one other matter he hadn’t voiced. So, she knew that she had to.
“You do know that your reputation would suffer by courting me,” she pointed out, almost afraid that it might make him change his mind.
To her surprise, he shrugged. “So be it. I like to consider myself a follower of the truth, no matter what the consequences might be.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
It took her only a moment of hesitation, before she relinquished her fears.
“Very well,” she said quietly.
He blinked. “Very well?”
“Yes.”
She could see surprise first, then unmistakable satisfaction.
“You agree?”
“I agree,” she said, a little more firmly this time, though her stomach gave an alarming flutter as she heard herself say it. “On the understanding that this is an arrangement of convenience and nothing more.”
“Of course,” he agreed at once.
The speed of the answer ought to have reassured her. Instead, irrationally, it stung.
She lifted her chin. “And that we remain sensible.”
“Yes.”
“And discreet where it matters.”
“That, too.”
Aurelia nodded, as though they were agreeing upon the terms of some ordinary household matter and not an utterly outrageous deception. She kept her eyes ahead, fixed upon Clara’s pale bonnet and the captain’s easy stride.
Then movement across the path caught her attention. Charlotte stood some distance away beneath a young tree, with one gloved hand resting upon its trunk, her posture lazy with observation. She had evidently not gone on so far as Aurelia had assumed. She was watching them.
Of course she was.
Aurelia felt her whole body tighten at once. She did not need to turn to know that Lord Westbridge had seen her, too. The faint change in the air beside him told her enough. Charlotte’s gaze moved from Aurelia to Lord Westbridge and back again with poisonous interest.
Aurelia’s instinct was immediate and old as fear itself: step away, diminish the impression, leave nothing that could be sharpened into gossip. Her body had half obeyed before she caught herself.
But before she could move, Lord Westbridge did.
It was the smallest shift, no more than a deliberate shortening of the space between them. Yet it was unmistakable. He stepped a little closer to her side, enough that anyone watching would see not accident but intention.
Aurelia’s breath caught.
He did not look at her. But in that quiet movement was a message as plain as any declaration.
Let her talk.
If Charlotte Langley was determined to spread gossip, then let her spread the version they had chosen.
A strange warmth rose in Aurelia’s chest. It was alarm braided tightly with gratitude, and something else she refused to name. When they reached Clara and Captain Harrow, Clara turned at once with the bright expectancy of one who believed all the world existed to become more romantic by the hour.
“There you are,” she chirped. “I thought you had both fallen hopelessly behind.”
Captain Harrow glanced between them, and Aurelia had the fleeting impression that he noticed rather more than Clara did. But if he did, he gave no sign beyond the briefest flicker of amusement at the corner of his mouth.
Lord Westbridge said evenly, “Miss Finch and I were discussing a matter of future convenience.”
Clara’s eyes widened with immediate delight.
Aurelia, hearing the phrase and knowing just how much had been packed into it, nearly choked.
“Were you indeed?” Clara asked.
“Yes,” said Lord Westbridge.
The walk resumed, but nothing in Aurelia felt as it had before. She had agreed to a false courtship. The thought ought to have filled her with dread. In some measure, it did. She knew too well what happened when appearance and reality became entangled. She knew too well the cost of whispers.
And yet, beneath the apprehension, there was something else, a feeling almost like hope, though she did not trust herself enough to call it that.
Whatever happened next, there would be no retreat now. Charlotte Langley had seen. And any woman in London could be trusted to carry a story exactly where it would do the most good or the most damage.
Beside her, Lord Westbridge walked in silence, steady as ever, as though proposing false courtships in Hyde Park were the sort of thing he did every day. Aurelia kept her eyes ahead and told herself very firmly that she had agreed only for practical reasons.