Chapter Three #2
So she’d heard, but she couldn’t imagine he’d ever been as reclusive as people said. In fact, though she stood by her low opinion of most peers, she made an exception for him. He was—what term had Emily used?—bon homme. A good sort of fellow.
She ran her hand over the wool. “What a warm blanket this is!”
“Bought special for Eliza.” He took the reins from the groom. “Can’t have my wife’s feet get cold. Yours, either, for that matter.” He leaned forward. “Ready?”
Just beneath Adrian’s hat, Millie noticed a tell-tale tangle in the back of his locks. She harrumphed.
“Problem?” he queried.
“You stopped to say goodbye to my sister, didn’t you?”
“I always do.” He winked.
“I’m ready,” Millie grumbled.
As they set off, she huddled beneath the blanket, lips pursed. Honestly, couldn’t Eliza ever keep from running her fingers through her husband’s hair? Eliza saw Adrian every day. As for Adrian, by now she would have expected his ardor to cool.
Wasn’t that usually the case with husbands?
Surreptitiously, Millie studied her brother-in-law.
The evidence of his continuing infatuation was obvious.
But infatuation alone didn’t explain why this once reclusive marquess had allowed his life to be upended not just by the addition of a wife, but by her three younger sisters, too.
His love for Emily had always been plain, but his patience with Lenora, Nettie, and her had been a surprise.
He was always kind, too.
Perhaps she ought to make a greater effort to know him.
She ventured a question, “When you said you recognized my expression, what did you mean?”
“Doesn’t everyone, on occasion, feel the itchy need to be free?” He kept his attention on the traffic as he spoke. “For me the feeling was, at one time, quite literal.”
She couldn’t imagine any reason Adrian could have for feeling constrained. “Respectfully,” she spoke carefully, “there are more limitations on a young lady than on a gentleman, especially a peer.” Whoops. She hadn’t meant to add that last part.
He slanted her an amused glance. “Eliza always says you and she are most alike.”
“We were,” Millie said bitterly.
“Before I came along?”
“Oh!” She straightened in the seat. “I don’t object to you.”
He laughed. “Don’t you?”
“Not per se.”
He chuckled, again.
“I’m sorry,” she added.
“Don’t be.” He waved his free hand. “Feel free to speak your mind.”
“Well, then.” She could hardly resist. “Present company excepted…and Asquith…and maybe even Harbury, although I do not know him as well, I simply cannot understand the appeal of having a man about, poking into one’s business, disrupting the course of one’s day.”
“That’s certainly frank.” He sent her another sympathetic glance. Too sympathetic. “Although I suppose I can understand.”
Could he understand how she felt?
Perhaps he could. Unlike most, he knew all about their father’s true character. He’d read the letters her mother had sent to his, as well as the more recently recovered letters his mother had sent to hers. He knew all their family secrets.
“Eliza wasn’t too keen on men in general, either,” he continued. “I’m lucky she gives me the benefit of the doubt. One day”—he gave her another quick, sidelong look—“you might find a man to whom you would like to give the benefit of the doubt, too.”
“Perhaps,” she replied noncommittally.
If such a man existed, that man’s deeds would have to unequivocally prove his thoughtful character for her to even begin to grant him her trust. Finding such a man was unfathomable to her at present.
The carriage rounded the corner, bringing into view the iron-fenced garden at the center of Berkeley Square. Adrian brought the curricle to a stop in front of Harbury’s residence, and they were swarmed by footmen in Harbury livery.
“Both the duke and the duchess have gone out,” one of the footmen explained. “But the duchess is expected back soon.”
Adrian turned to Millie. “I will stay with you until she returns. My solicitor can wait.”
“Oh, that’s not at all necessary.” Millie waved her hand in the same dismissive gesture she’d just learned from him. “Do go on.”
Adrian studied her for a moment before nodding. He turned back to the footman. “Miss Millicent will wait for her sister in the house. You may expect me to return for her before three.”
“Very good, my lord.”
After the footman helped her down, she paused on the sidewalk and watched the curricle blend into traffic.
“If you’d come with me into the parlor,” the footman suggested, “I will bring you something warm to drink.”
Millie shook her head no. Following the thrill of a brisk ride, she couldn’t bear to be trapped inside again so soon. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a quick turn inside the square.”
“But it’s cold, Miss.” The footman gazed doubtfully at the barren landscape. “And I’m not sure—”
“You may watch me from the window if you must,” she mimicked Adrian’s authoritative tone. “And I give you leave to intervene should you see anything untoward.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer.
Instead, she took advantage of the break in the flow of carriages and horses and quickly picked her way across the dung-riddled street.
Thank heavens she had put on those clunky pattens after all!
For every inconvenience, there was an ingenious solution, if one could but discern it.
Perhaps, within every experience, there was a lesson to learn, too.
So what message could she take from today’s unexpected excursion?
Seize the opportunity?
She passed through the gate and paused to inhale. The aroma of winter broke through the less pleasant smells that had dominated the street. She tried to capture and preserve this temporary, coveted sense of freedom in her heart.
Not far from where she stood, a red-breasted robin trilled from a leafless branch.
No, not leafless.
Several brown leaves swung in the breeze, waiting for a gust strong enough to untether them from the only source of life they’d ever known.
Expectantly, she watched, hoping to catch the moment one fell.
Finally, a sudden breeze sent a single leaf—shriveled, dry, nearly gray—spiraling towards the ground.
The leaf moved, not with the pleasant, meandering drift Millie associated with yellowing October foliage, but in a weary, dispirited drop.
Millie wrapped herself with her arms, both to hold in heat and to stave off the cold. Her formerly cheerful anticipation gave way to a creeping sense of melancholy.
How could she seize the opportunity?
Much like that leaf, she felt cold and alone and on her way to a solitary end.
Would there ever be any place she actually belonged?
*
Neville paced the length of Harbury’s London library, following a light blue line in Harbury’s red-patterned carpet. Paying an uninvited call was unlike him, even though this visit was urgent and necessary.
Harbury, Neville’s maternal cousin, had recently offered Neville’s paternal uncle Farnsworth the much-coveted living at St. Margaret’s, the largest church on the Harbury estate.
This morning, however, Neville had received a letter from his uncle Farnsworth informing him Farnsworth intended to refuse the gift—unless Neville warned Harbury that Neville had secretly placed John under Farnsworth’s care.
Farnsworth also insisted Neville explain the reasons why.
In other words, he had to tell Harbury all about the accusations against John.
As Neville continued to wear a groove in the carpet, he weighed how much of Willard’s involvement in John’s situation he should reveal.
Apart from Willard possessing John’s ring, he had no proof of Willard’s involvement.
And, he hadn’t yet had the chance to ask Asquith’s permission to reveal Willard’s past misdeeds.
Nor had he yet been able to arrange an opportunity for the witness he’d found to identify Willard, though he hoped to that would change tonight.
Perhaps he should just leave his card and request a later audience?
Good Lord, he’d grown indecisive.
For most of his life, the “right thing” to do had been readily apparent. But ever since he’d met the Wainwright ladies, his clarity had muddied.
“If you’d just come this way, Miss.”
Miss? Neville stopped short as a footman’s directive startled him out of his reverie.
“I think,” the servant continued, “you’ll find the yellow parlor the most comfortable place to wait.”
“Thank you, but no—”
Oh, for God’s sake! Neville recognized Millicent’s voice and shuddered. What crime had he committed to deserve this?
“—I prefer to wait for my sister in the library.”
No. No. No. Frantically, he glanced about. But, unless he threw himself through the window, the library had only one egress.
“Now, if you would just be so kind as to—”
Millicent rounded the staircase’s corner and stopped short, her wide-eyed gaze fixed on him. His heartbeat raced, but his expression involuntarily softened.
Keep your mind on the problems at hand, man!
But how could he? The winter air had rosed her cheeks. The hue was unearthly, making her look like the subject from the Italian painter Guercino’s The Guardian Angel.
“It’s alright,” Millicent said. “Lord Neville and I will wait together.”
Without a by-your-leave, she walked right into the library.
The footman’s hesitancy emphasized the impropriety. With neither the duke nor the duchess at home, two unrelated, unmarried people of opposite sexes should not be left unchaperoned.
Yet another rule Millie chose to ignore.
She had no real awareness of the many dangers she blithely courted, and, apparently, no awareness at all of the nature and depth of Neville’s passion. She thought him dull, uninteresting and completely incapable of ravishing her in his cousin’s library.
The latter of which he was, of course.
He hoped.
“I’ll have that hot drink you offered before,” she told the footman. “Tea, please. And one for Lord Neville as well, may I assume?”
“Yes,” he answered without thinking.