Chapter 16
“There she is. The future Mrs. Langley.”
Eleanor said it quietly enough that only Louisa could hear.
“Do not call me that,” Louisa said with a scoff.
“I am not calling you that. Lady Caldwell called you that. Twice. Once in the carriage and once to Mrs. Fenton while you were pretending to adjust your bonnet.”
“I was adjusting my bonnet.”
“You were hiding.”
Louisa opened her mouth to argue and found she could not, because Eleanor was correct.
She had been hiding. Lady Caldwell had leaned across the carriage seat somewhere past Basingstoke and declared, with the satisfied authority she had earned through thirty years of marriage, that Frederick Langley’s attentions were unmistakable and that a proposal before the end of the Season was virtually assured.
Louisa had smiled politely and turned to face the window and spent the remaining hour watching the Wiltshire countryside roll past with her pulse beating too fast in her throat.
“Miss Fairchild.”
Frederick appeared at the foot of the staircase, his smile wide, his waistcoat immaculate, his hand already extended. She took it and curtsied.
“Mr. Langley. You arrived early.”
“I arrived yesterday. Lord Ashton wished to discuss improvements to the south meadow, and I was eager to see the grounds.” He kept her hand a beat longer than necessary. “I trust your journey was comfortable?”
“Very. The roads were excellent.”
“They are, are they not? Lord Ashton resurfaced the approach last spring. You must allow me to show you the grounds tomorrow morning, before the others are awake. I have already spoken to Lady Ashton about it.” His hand moved to the small of her back, steering her toward the drawing room.
“I also took the liberty of requesting seats together at dinner. I hope you do not mind.”
“Oh…”
“I wanted to be sure we had time to talk properly. There is a great deal I wish to discuss with you this week.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder, his smile broadening. “A great deal.”
Eleanor fell into step behind them. Her eyes found Louisa’s over Frederick’s shoulder. One brow rose, fractionally.
The drawing room was already full. Lady Ashton stood beside the fireplace, greeting guests with the calm efficiency of a general receiving troops.
Lord Caldwell occupied a wing chair near the window, asleep before tea had been poured.
His wife was deep in conversation with Mrs. Fenton, their heads bent together with the conspiratorial closeness of two women exchanging information they considered vital.
Frederick guided Louisa to a settee near the tea table. He sat beside her. The cushion shifted under his weight, drawing them closer together.
“Lady Ashton has planned a musical evening on Thursday,” he said. “Several of the ladies have agreed to perform. I told her you played beautifully.”
“I play adequately.”
“I am certain it is far more than adequate.” Frederick smiled brightly, and Louisa found herself smiling in return. He reached for her teacup and filled it without asking whether she wanted more, adding sugar and milk.
She sipped the tea. He had remembered the sugar correctly. He did not know that she preferred her tea without milk.
“I should tell you,” Frederick said, lowering his voice, “that Lady Caldwell has been speaking rather freely about us.”
“I am aware.”
“Does it trouble you?”
“I have never been bothered by people’s gossip.”
Before Frederick could reply, a ripple of movement passed through the drawing room.
Voices shifted register. Lady Caldwell looked up from her conversation.
Mrs. Fenton turned toward the door. Even Lord Caldwell stirred in his wing chair, roused by the subtle alteration in the atmosphere that accompanied a title entering a room.
Oliver stood in the doorway.
He wore a dark blue coat and his hair was slightly disordered from the ride, curling against his collar in a manner his valet would have corrected had he been given the opportunity.
Sebastian stood behind him, surveying the drawing room with the amused resignation of someone who had learned long ago that his friend’s arrivals rearranged every room they entered.
“Your Grace.” Lady Ashton crossed to greet him with the warmth of an old acquaintance. “How delightful. Lord Ashton wagered you would not arrive until Thursday.”
“And disappoint Lady Ashton’s hospitality? I would sooner renounce the title.” Oliver took her hand and bowed over it with practiced grace. “Your home is magnificent. I noticed a rather spectacular copper beech on the approach.”
“It has been here longer than the house. My husband threatens to cut it down every autumn. I threaten to cut him down in return.”
Oliver’s laugh was easy, genuine, the kind that made other people want to laugh along.
He greeted Lord Caldwell, exchanged a few words with Mrs. Fenton, accepted a cup of tea from a footman.
His progress through the room was unhurried, natural, the practiced ease of someone who understood that social gatherings were performances and had perfected his.
Louisa watched him move. She could not help it. Beside her, Frederick was telling her about the lake, about a rowing boat Lord Ashton kept moored at the eastern bank. She heard the words as though from a great distance.
Oliver’s gaze found hers across the room. He inclined his head. The gesture was brief, correct, the greeting of a duke to a young lady in a crowded drawing room.
“Miss Fairchild.”
“Your Grace.”
His eyes held hers for a fraction longer than the greeting required. Then he turned to Sebastian and murmured a remark that made his friend bark a laugh, and the moment dissolved.
Frederick’s hand touched her elbow. “Shall I show you the grounds before dinner? The light is still good.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, that would be lovely.”
They walked the south terrace as the afternoon softened into early evening. Frederick pointed out the formal gardens, the ornamental lake, the folly on the distant hill that Lord Ashton’s grandfather had built to impress a mistress he never managed to secure.
“He spent three thousand pounds on it,” Frederick said. “She married a naval captain instead.”
He offered his arm when the path narrowed. He stopped to pick a spray of jasmine from the border and tucked it into the ribbon of her bonnet with a flourish that drew an approving glance from Lady Caldwell, who was watching from the terrace with Mrs. Fenton.
“They are watching us,” Louisa said.
“Let them.” Frederick’s voice carried a quiet confidence that was new, or perhaps had always been there and was only now emerging. “I have nothing to hide, Miss Fairchild. I rather enjoy your company.” He turned to face her. “I hope that does not alarm you.”
“It does not alarm me.”
“Good.” He smiled. “I should hate to think I had been too forward.”
The declaration hung between them, warm and sincere. Louisa looked at the jasmine in her bonnet ribbon. She thought about the years she had spent dreaming of a moment like this: Frederick Langley choosing her, pursuing her, making his admiration plain in front of witnesses.
“You are very kind,” she said.
His brow creased, briefly. “Kind” was evidently not the response he had been hoping for.
They returned to the house. The dressing gong sounded. Louisa went upstairs and sat at the vanity in her borrowed room while her maid unpinned her hair. The jasmine sprig lay on the table beside her gloves, already wilting.
At dinner she sat between Frederick and Lord Dalton.
Frederick claimed her attention throughout the first course, leaning toward her to share observations about the wine, the roast, Lord Caldwell’s remarkable ability to sleep through an entire meal.
He asked about her family. He asked about Surrey.
He told her about his estate in Kent, assembling the details of a future with careful precision.
“The morning room faces east,” he said, as the second course was laid. “My mother always said it was the finest room in the house. The light in the mornings is quite extraordinary. I have kept everything exactly as she arranged it.”
“It sounds beautiful.”
“It rather is. Perhaps you shall see it soon.”
Across the table, Oliver was making Lady Ashton laugh.
Louisa could not hear what he was saying, but Lady Ashton’s shoulders shook with deep, unconstrained laughter, the kind that came from being genuinely surprised rather than merely polite.
Sebastian sat beside him, adding a dry remark that made Oliver grin and shake his head.
Oliver caught her watching. He did not smile. He simply looked at her, steady, and the warmth of it moved through her ribs like a note struck on a piano in a quiet room.
Frederick was still speaking.
“Do you enjoy roses?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Excellent. There is a rather fine collection. I should like to show them to you one day.”
“I would like that very much,” she said, and smiled. Frederick refilled her glass.
“There is also a lake,” he said. “Smaller than Lord Ashton’s, but the fishing is superior. My father stocked it with trout in seventy-eight, and they have thrived.”
“How lovely.”
“I thought so. I shall have to take you.”
After dinner, the ladies withdrew. Louisa had barely settled into a chair near the window before Lady Caldwell crossed the drawing room and sat beside her.
“Mr. Langley is entirely devoted, my dear.”
“He has been very attentive.”
“Attentive.” Lady Caldwell repeated the word as though testing its temperature.
“He chose the seat beside you at dinner. He walked with you on the terrace. He placed a flower in your bonnet.” She lowered her voice.
“Mrs. Fenton and I agree that an engagement is all but certain. Perhaps even before the week is out.”
Louisa’s stomach turned over. She pressed her hands together in her lap.
“It is early days, Lady Caldwell.”
“Nonsense. You would be wise to encourage him.” She patted Louisa’s knee with maternal authority. “Your mother must be beside herself with joy.”
Louisa could only smile, speechless. All was happening too fast, and she couldn’t help the feelings of overwhelm rise in her.
And yet… There was a large part of her that was overjoyed at the thought.
She had loved Frederick from a distance for so long; she could hardly believe that any of this was true.
She was still caught up in her thoughts when the gentlemen entered the room, and it was Frederick who crossed the room to claim the chair beside Louisa.
Oliver did not. He settled near the fireplace with Sebastian, accepted a glass of port, and fell into easy conversation with Lord Ashton about horses.
Yet throughout the evening, Louisa found her gaze drifting toward the fireplace where Oliver sat with his port in his hand, his face lit by the fire. She watched him laugh at a remark from Sebastian.
And then, suddenly, he looked up. Their eyes met across the crowded drawing room, across the heads of Lady Caldwell and Mrs. Fenton and Lord Dalton and the dozen other guests who filled the space between them.
He held her gaze for a few seconds, then Frederick leaned toward her to point out a passage in his book, and when she looked up again, Oliver had turned back to Sebastian, and the cord went slack.
Frederick touched her arm. “You seem distracted.”
“Forgive me. I am merely tired from the journey.”
“Of course.” He was gracious about it, instantly solicitous. “You must rest. We have a long week ahead, and I have plans.” He smiled. “Many plans.”
She nodded slowly, and he leaned closer than propriety would allow, seemed to rethink it, and leaned back again.
“I am glad that I am finally fortunate enough to get to know the real you, Miss Fairchild,” he said and flashed her that smile that made her go weak at the knees.
“Thank you, my lord,” she muttered and rose to her feet. “If you will excuse me…”
She practically ran out of the room, made her way to her allocated chamber, closed the door and leaned against it, her back pressed to the painted wood.
Frederick had been everything she had once wanted him to be. Attentive, warm, deliberate. He had spent the entire evening at her side. He had tucked jasmine in her bonnet. He had described his home in Kent as though she already belonged in it.
She had wanted this for years, and his smile still made her knees weak. This did not explain why catching Oliver’s eye meant anything to her at all, especially when he’d been nothing but sullen—keeping his distance from her pointedly all night.
She crossed to the vanity. The jasmine sprig lay where she had left it, its petals curled and browning at the edges. She picked it up and held it for a long moment before she set it down.
Below, she could hear the murmur of guests retiring, doors opening and closing along the corridor.
Frederick’s voice drifted up from the hall, warm and easy, bidding someone goodnight.
Threaded beneath it, lower, closer, Oliver’s voice answering, the two of them passing on the staircase, the sounds so near she could almost distinguish the words.
She closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to arrive. But all that came was incessant questions.