Chapter Twelve

Worthington Hall, Comerford's estate and his father's seat, was in Yorkshire, and Louisa set off in style with Caroline—another potential ally, if occasion demanded. Louisa was not in the habit of offering her secrets fully, but she knew if she confessed the whole to Caroline, she at least would find it uproariously funny and not think the worse of her.

There was a lot to be said for friendships like that.

"Do you know," Caroline said conversationally, "this is the first house party I've attended since my husband's death, the Lord dispose of his soul."

"The first in eight years?"

"I'm practically a recluse, darling."

That wasn't true, but it was true that Caroline hadn't been so lucky as to inherit her husband's fortune; a distant relative had swooped in to claim it, and in addition to being a little tinged by scandal, she was frequently strapped for funds. "Well, you may thank me, if you like," Louisa said.

"Will it be scandalous, do you suppose?"

"By your standards? Unlikely. Half the ladies invited are unmarried."

"Oh, that means nothing. I remember when I was an unmarried lady." Caroline glanced out of the windows at the countryside slowly folding by, grey after a dreary winter. "What of the gentlemen? Who else is invited besides Mr Comerford and your Lord Eynsham?"

"He is not my anything," Louisa said, and levelled a finger at Caroline. "And you leave George Comerford alone. He's looking for a wife."

"As it happens, I made an exceedingly good wife."

"A young wife."

"Oh, you're no fun." Caroline pouted. "What of your young man? Still as sober and strict as ever?"

She thought of the way he had pressed her against the wall, breath hot against her skin. The way he'd had some ludicrous intention of confronting Knight in his own home.

The way he had blushed in the tavern.

Her own reaction had been that of a girl unused to intimacy, at once alarmed and compelled. In that moment, she had wanted to kiss him again, to see if he would kiss her back. Wanted to be his undoing, the reason he forgot his morals, the reason he yielded his iron control.

It was a dangerous urge, toeing that line between love and hate with such precision that she hardly knew which side she fell on.

"I imagine he is much as he once was," she said, reminding herself that he had been a man who'd abandoned her when she had needed him the most. Whatever his reasons, however noble, the end result had been the same. She would be a fool to trust him again, no matter what he claimed his intentions were.

Worthington Hall finally came into view after two full days of travelling, the afternoon sun bathing the pale walls in gold.

"Well, if you take my advice, you'll get him out of your system or forget about him for good," Caroline said as they came to a stop before the front door. A footman hurried out to greet them. "It's unseemly to be pining over a man for this long, darling."

Knowing it would be fruitless to explain she was not pining over him, she maintained a dignified silence until they were escorted inside the house. Then, as they made their way to the drawing room, she said, "I hope you fall in love one day, Caro."

Her friend shuddered. "Heaven forbid. What a frightful fate."

George was the first to see them, leaving the group he had been entertaining and coming to greet them at the doorway. Most if not all of the guests had arrived already, and were gathered in picturesque groups around the large room. In the end, the invitation list numbered an equal amount of ladies and gentlemen.

"Lady Bolton," George said, mindful of his audience. He lifted her gloved hand to his mouth, and over his shoulder, she saw Knight, finally, his veneer of charm worn away to reveal the malevolence that lay underneath. His grey eyes burned with anger.

Magnificent. He truly had been taken off-guard by her arrival.

"George," she said affectionately. "Thank you for the last-minute invitation."

He turned his attention to Caroline, whose smile was secretive and flirtatious in equal measure. Evidently their meeting in the park had gone well, because his eyes lingered on her pretty mouth and then dropped lower to her generous bosom.

Well. They would be occupied for quite some time.

George tore his attention away from Caroline long enough to say, "Henry is here somewhere. Don't go wandering anywhere without him." The emphasis on wandering told her that he was referring to Knight's chambers.

"Fear not," she said, seeing an acquaintance at the other end of the room and lifting her hand in greeting. "I won't do anything stupid. Enjoy yourself, you two. Don't do anything I wouldn't."

"Oh," Caroline said in a low purr, "we absolutely shall."

Henry had often been called cold by his fellow soldiers. Untouched, so they said, by the bloodshed and the death. When faced with adversity, cool calm swallowed his panic and cleared his senses. It was only afterwards that he felt the effects, and never to the degree that he was found vomiting in a ditch. He endured, because that was the only way to survive and keep his men alive. For it, he was called cruel, and he had not minded. If he had ice in his chest instead of a heart, all the better to lead his men with. To fulfil his duty with.

But like all men, he had an Achilles' heel. A source of weakness.

Louisa laughed lightly from across the room, the centre of a large group the way the earth circled the sun—and just as bright.

An odd burning ache suffused him. This was the first time he had heard that sound in nine years, and it transported him to a different time—an easier, better one, when he had felt as though he could look forward to the future with something other than white-knuckled determination.

According to George, she had accepted his help, reluctantly, but nothing about their interactions had implied that she welcomed his presence in her life again. If anything, she resented him. He understood it, but he never thought he would be able to look on that fact with equanimity.

Across the other side of the room, Knight watched her with a similar intensity. Of course, he pretended he wasn't, flirting easily with the two girls in front of him, but his attention was always on Louisa; if she shifted, he did too.

There was no chance that he would leave her alone now she had arrived, too. Perhaps he even suspected she had orchestrated the entire event—which, as he understood it, she had—in order to lure him away from his house.

Either way, Henry suspected that he would fight like a cornered rat if it came to it, and he resolved to never let it come to it. Not on his watch. If Knight dared try anything to Louisa, he would find himself with broken bones to contend with.

"My lord?" Miss Winton said at his side. He started, so lost in his observation of potential danger—Knight—that he had been unaware of her presence. A rueful smile tugged at his lips. At his request, George had invited her so he might have a chance to better get to know her, and he should be making the most of that.

"Miss Winton." He bowed. "I apologise, I was lost in thought."

"Not at all." Her smile was the brisk, efficient thing she always brought out in front of him. "I'm happy to see you arrived safely."

"Yes, indeed. Would you like to sit?" A party had recently vacated the seats by the fire, and he led the way to them, doing his best to ignore the low, smoky way Louisa chuckled now. This movement had brought them closer together, and he was starting to suspect it was a mistake.

In the streets of London at night, when the only recourse was to be together, their proximity made rational sense. He could justify it to himself, a need to be by her side to protect her. But in a room filled with people, she was in no danger. The only person in danger was himself—in danger of remembering too much of how it felt to be on the receiving end of that laughter.

Miss Winton sat opposite him and smoothed her skirts over her lap placidly. "Shall we skip the necessary small talk?" she asked in that disconcertingly blunt way of hers. "I know most ladies are more than happy to discuss the state of the roads and the weather and the latest fashions, but I confess it bores me."

He raised his brows. "What would you rather talk about?"

"Mama believes that my being here will secure you as a husband." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "If you're amenable, once we return to London, you would be free to ask my father's permission at any time, and he would be certain to grant it to you."

"I see," Henry said. Two weeks of courtship in these close quarters was evidently enough. He thought of Oliver and his father, their hopeless mismanagement of their finances. Just that morning, his mother had written to complain that their modiste would not make any more new gowns until the outstanding payments had been addressed. Theo and Nathanial had stepped in, but this could not continue, and Henry's stomach gave an angry twist at the thought. The sooner he married, the better. "That seems satisfactory," he said.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement. "Good."

"Does that arrangement work for you?"

"It will please my mother," she said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "And I suppose that is my primary objective in marrying."

Well, he had already known this would not be a joining of passion.

She tilted her head, watching him with that same unnerving stare as before. "How long have you been in love with her?" she asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, is it a secret?" She frowned. "If I know it's a secret, I assure you I can keep it."

He pinched his nose. "About whom are you referring?"

"Oh!" She looked surprised, as though this ought to have been obvious. "Lady Bolton, of course."

"Of course?"

"You were looking at her as though you wanted to sweep her up and carry her out of the room," Miss Winton said. "But perhaps I misread the signs. I do that sometimes, you know. Misread signs and think people mean something they don't." She lapsed back into silence as he stared at her, attempting to marshal his thoughts into some sort of order. The attack had come out of nowhere, and to think that she had observed him for a handful of minutes and come to that conclusion was mortifying.

"Miss Winton," he began, then stopped, unsure how to continue.

She gave him the most gentle smile she had bestowed on him yet. "It's quite all right if you are. I won't be offended."

"That's not the—" He was not sure how the conversation had come to this. "I was not . . ." Confound it all. "I'm not in love with anyone, Miss Winton."

"No? Well then." She seemed a little surprised, but not overly shocked either way. "If we are to be married, I would like us to be frank with one another."

Henry had the feeling someone had dunked his head in ice water. "About whether I am in love with someone else?"

"It seems quite unavoidable at some point or other, seeing as you won't be in love with me," she said practically. "I suspected either your feelings were already accounted for, or they would be at some point in the future. After all, how can one contrive to only love the person they will marry when there are so many others? The chances of that seem singularly low."

"I see," Henry said, hardly knowing what he was saying at all. "And you? Are your affections engaged elsewhere?"

"I am not capable of the tenderer feelings." She said the words bluntly, without affectation. "And I have no wish for them. I understand this is unusual, but no matter how I try, I simply cannot persuade myself to want it."

"Ah," he said, and glanced across to where Knight was still watching Louisa. And Louisa, face wreathed in smiles, seemed utterly oblivious to either of their existences. "Is it likely that in the future . . ." He cleared his throat, looking back at Miss Winton. "That you might, in the future, discover that you are fond of . . . affection?"

"I think it unlikely," she said, with no trace of embarrassment. "Although I do hope we will be good friends."

This was precisely the kind of marriage he had been searching for. A wife whose heart would not be broken by his lack of interest in her. An arrangement that was based on mutual convenience and respect.

At some point, he would be grateful that the process had been so easy.

"If I may be frank," he said, "the situation between Lady Bolton and me is not as you assume it to be."

"Oh?"

"We are not—there is no affection between us."

Venetia's grey eyes were shrewd as they rested on him. "Is that so?"

"She hates me," he explained. "The situation is untenable."

"So I had presumed, given your intention to marry me."

"Therefore there is no further reason to discuss it—it does not pertain to us or our future."

Her face was alive with interest, the most animated he had ever seen it. "Does she know? Of your feelings for her?"

"There's nothing to know," he said, and caught sight of Knight moving across the room towards Louisa. "Excuse me." He rose from the chair and strode across the room, just catching Miss Winton's murmured "Of course there is not" as he reached Louisa at the same time as Mr Knight.