Chapter 9
From her place behind the table, Tilly held an unimpeded view of the doors the men had disappeared through.
The room had gone quiet without them in it. Lucy continued flipping through her correspondence. Isabel remained concentrated on her embroidery, but with a newly heightened air of watchfulness about her. And Tilly kept her gaze cast down toward the books spread before her.
But her stillness was a facade.
Inside, she was stirred.
Lord Rhys…here.
When, after an interminable number of seconds and minutes, he walked into the room through the doors he’d disappeared through looking like he’d stumbled out the other side of a hurricane, she understood he’d braved that hurricane for one reason.
Her.
While she didn’t know what to think about that, her body seemed to have an idea about how to feel about it.
She’d always liked champagne, and now she knew exactly how a champagne coupe felt with all those sparkling, little bubbles fizzing inside it.
A new feeling, this one.
His silver eyes found hers, and like that, she was too full of this feeling to draw or release another breath.
“A letter from Mina!” exclaimed Lucy, bolting upright as she cracked the seal.
Tilly only realized Lord Rhys had been moving toward her when he stopped and asked, “Mina?”
“Miss Mina Radclyffe,” Isabel explained.
“She’s my step-sister,” said Lucy, distractedly, for her eyes were already scanning the contents of the letter. “And best bosom friend.”
Lord Rhys returned his attention to Tilly. “And you, Miss Birdwell, do you know Miss Radclyffe?”
Tilly nodded. “I met her two or three times before she sailed off to Japan a few years back.”
“Japan?”
“She has Japanese ancestry,” cut in Isabel.
“A right beauty she is,” said Tilly.
“But that mind of hers might even surpass it,” said Lord Percival, not bothering to look up from the newspaper he’d resumed reading.
Lord Rhys lifted his brow as if to say, Well, and Tilly felt the urge to giggle, which she suppressed with a smile.
“All right.” Lucy lowered the letter to her lap and addressed the room. “She is returning next year.” Her mouth was racing as quickly as her mind with excitement. “Which means I can start readying the house on Queen Street for her arrival.”
Lord Percival lowered his newspaper. “Is that still the plan, then?” One couldn’t take his tone for pleased.
“Of course, it is, Father,” said Lucy, all breezy indifference.
“You’ll have a butler,” he said, firm. “Of my choosing.”
“But we’ll have Mrs. Bloomquist as our housekeeper,” countered Lucy.
No mistaking that stubborn set to Lord Percival’s jaw. “Does she know how to handle weaponry?”
A moment ticked past while Lucy gave the question her full consideration. “Honestly? Likely.”
Tilly agreed.
She’d only met Mrs. Bloomquist on the rare occasion, but the woman was formidable.
After all, she’d been the headmistress of The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds, which had been founded by Lucy’s mother, Lady St. Alban.
Tilly felt certain Mrs. Bloomquist could handle herself in any situation that presented itself.
“All right, Father,” said an exasperated Lucy. “We’ll have a butler, too.”
“And the man will be of my—”
“Of your choosing.” She exhaled an irritated huff through her nose. “But Mrs. Bloomquist won’t like it.”
“What is the purpose of Queen Street?” asked Lord Rhys, addressing Lucy.
“It’s to be our ladies’ den.”
“Your ladies’ den?” He looked both perplexed and intrigued.
Tilly almost snorted.
A rake would be, wouldn’t he?
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy.
“That’s an unusual arrangement for unmarried ladies,” he said diplomatically.
“Which is why they shall have a butler with military experience,” said Lord Percival without looking up from his newspaper.
Lucy rolled her eyes, but let her pa’s words stand. “Tell me, Lord Rhys,” she began, and Tilly recognized that note of mischief in her voice, “do you have your own flat of rooms?”
“I do.”
Lucy spread her hands wide. “And there’s nothing unusual in that.”
“There isn’t,” he said, slowly. He clearly knew full well he was being led into a trap.
That little smile sparkling in Lucy’s eyes said she had him. “Then why can’t we ladies enjoy that same freedom?”
Lord Rhys smiled a smile that must’ve melted many a dress off many a lady. “Why, indeed?”
“Oh!” Lucy shot to her feet. “I must tell Cousin Hugh. He will want to know. I think. Actually, I’m not sure how he will feel about it. He’s been so involved with Lady Rosalind.”
“Are they yet engaged?” asked Isabel without looking up from her embroidery hoop.
“Nothing in the gossip rags yet,” said Lucy, slowly. “But when the heir of a future duke courts the daughter of a current duke…hmm.” Her feet were on the move. “Well, seeing as he’s just in the other wing of the house, I’ll pop by his rooms. Who doesn’t enjoy receiving news of old friends?”
And with that, Lucy was gone.
Leaving a little awkward silence in her absence.
Lord Percival snorted and said, “Daughters,” shaking his head at his newspaper.
With a smile curving her mouth that said, Daughters, indeed, Isabel pulled another stitch through her embroidery piece.
Tilly’s gaze had returned, unseeing, to the books laid out before her.
And Lord Rhys’s gaze remained where it had been most of this time—on her.
“What do you have there, Miss Birdwell?” he asked, his feet following each word, step by step leading him closer.
Tilly must look up and answer.
She understood that.
But for the first time in her entire life, she felt…shy.
It had to do with this lord coming here uninvited to spend time with, of all people, her.
Only when he’d stopped at the other side of the table, leaving her no option, her gaze lifted and met his, aye, shyly. “I like to study,” she said, an unaccountable defensiveness creeping into her tone.
His brow lifted. “You’re a student of the”—he cocked his head at a ninety-degree angle to be able to read the upside-down books—“Classics?”
It took her a tick of time to parse his meaning. “Oh, you mean because these drawings and paintings are Greek and Roman.” She remembered that period was called Classical. “I’m studying their clothes.”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “Interesting pastime.”
“It’s not a pastime.” There was that defensiveness again. “What you see here in these illustrations of statues is the history of fashion.”
He appeared to give her words consideration. “I never thought of it like that.”
“After my friend Nell taught me how to read a few years back,” she continued, “I took to books. They look dead boring from the outside, but it amazes the mind what they hold inside.”
She couldn’t help noticing how he was looking at her as she spoke.
How he always looked at her as she spoke.
Like he was interested, genuinely.
Another wash of champagne bubbles glittered through her.
Across the room, Isabel set her embroidery hoop down and stretched her arms over her head with a loud yawn. “I think it’s early to bed for me,” she said. “How about you, husband?”
“I have another article to—”
Isabel cleared her throat. “You look tired, Percy.”
Lord Percival met his wife’s gaze for a full three seconds. “Right.” He folded the newspaper and came to his feet. “Good night, Tilly. Osborne, you know the way out.”
And with that, Isabel left the room with her husband—leaving Tilly alone with Lord Rhys.
The air felt different now that it was just him and her.
Though, why should it?
Except, simply, when a woman was alone in a room with Lord Rhys Osborne she noticed.
“I have a question I would like to ask you, Miss Birdwell.”
“You invited yourself here tonight to ask me a question?”
The smile he gave her brought out his dimples. “It wasn’t smoothly done of me, was it?”
“Can’t say it was.”
“I came here thinking I’d catch you in the kitchen at the evening meal.”
“Ah.”
“And to inform you of the date and location for my second noble deed.”
“You could’ve sent a note.”
“I could’ve.”
But he hadn’t.
That was what was left unsaid.
He’d wanted to come here.
He’d wanted to see her.
Lawks.
She might be in trouble.
How was a woman to withstand the charms of the reformed-perhaps-unreformed rake Lord Rhys Osborne?
“But then I wouldn’t be able to ask you a question that’s been on my mind since we spoke at Hope House.” He hesitated. “In the scullery.”
In the scullery, they’d spoken of her past.
And now he had a question?
She mustered up some bravado and opened her mouth. “What’s your question?”
He shifted on his feet, looking a hair anxious, and it only increased his attractiveness. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“All right.” Now she really wanted to hear this question of his.
“What’s your dream, Miss Birdwell?” He looked as earnest as she’d ever seen him. “You mentioned having one, and I must confess to finding myself incredibly intrigued.”
Her? A woman who incredibly intrigued Lord Rhys Osborne?
Blow her down.
Perhaps it was his earnestness or perhaps it was being the object of his intrigue, but she found herself saying, “I told you what my dream once was.”
He nodded.
“But that’s the sort of dream little girls have, innit?
So, when Isabel came along and swept me into her world, that was when my life really began, and I became skilled at something that makes me proud.
” She swallowed against a sudden knot in her throat.
“I never thought I could be proud of myself.”
The way he was watching her made her feel like she could tell him anything.
So maybe that was why she was.