His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(26)

“Perhaps you ladies might finish that discussion in the garden?” his lordship suggested.

“Or in the nursery,” Lily said. “The weather is becoming threatening.”

“So it is,” the earl said. “We’ll send a tea tray up to the nursery, then. Be off with you, and mind the breakables.”

Daisy shot him a curious look as Bronwyn snatched her hand and dragged her toward the door.

Leaving Lily alone with a man whom she must neither encourage nor alienate.

“I had thought to leave Bronwyn with you for a short time,” she said. “My cousin Oscar was to have accompanied us here, but woke with a megrim. I can return for Bronwyn later, or you can send her home with a nursery maid or footman.”

Lily should have marched smartly for the door, but his lordship put a hand on her arm. “You walked here, did you not? With rain threatening, I insist on having the coach brought around. Allow me that small courtesy, for I’ve a favor to ask of you.”

His blue eyes held no guile, no subtle, improper meaning. Had he leered at her, Lily’s decision would have been so much easier.

“I like to stretch my legs.” In truth, Lily had learned not to take Uncle Walter’s coach when Oscar’s gentlemanly excesses rendered him incapable of moving about on foot during daylight hours.

“Then perhaps you’ll agree to walk in the park with me and Daisy on Wednesday?”

Say no … feign another obligation, fabricate some appointment you must keep. Except, feigning and fabrication were the genteel relations of deceit, and Lily had promised herself to be as honest with Grampion as possible.

“Your lordship’s invitation extends to Bronwyn too, I presume?”

“I have the sense that every expedition benefits from Captain Bronwyn’s leadership. Shall we sit?”

No, no, no. He hadn’t yet ordered his team put to. A tea tray was doubtless being prepared for the library in addition to one for the nursery, and Grampion had mentioned a favor. Nobody asked Lily for favors, and she preferred it that way.

“I cannot stay long, my lord. My companion should have accompanied me in Oscar’s absence, but she is inclined to colds when the weather is changeable.” Miss Fotheringham also detested small children, hence Lily’s choice of Rosecroft for her earlier call on Grampion.

Grampion patted the back of a wing chair. “You see before you a man wrestling with a dilemma, Miss Ferguson, and you are uniquely positioned to aid me in resolving it. Please, won’t you tarry a moment?”

He invited, he flattered, he honestly requested. Lily had no defenses against these tactics. Had Grampion been imperious or improper, her arsenal would have been adequate to repel his advances, but he was simply gentlemanly.

She took a seat in a chair so comfortable, it practically begged her to toe off her slippers and curl up with a book. The faint scent of cedar came to her, suggesting this was his lordship’s preferred reading perch.

“I was ambushed earlier today,” Grampion said, taking the near end of the sofa. “Daisy’s aunt presented herself on my doorstep, bold as you please, demanding that I hand Daisy over to her.”

Oh dear. “You were tempted to comply?”

“I am a bachelor and a peer. In Mrs. Braithwaite’s opinion, both sad attributes disqualify me from supervising the upbringing of one little girl. She is Daisy’s only female relation, and thus I must uproot the child and surrender her posthaste, for I lack a wife, auntie, or other handy female to protect Daisy from my male ineptitude.”

He was angry at the aunt’s presumption, but Lily suspected he also felt honor-bound to consider the woman’s request. “What was Daisy’s reaction to her aunt?”

Grampion crossed his legs, a Continental pose most Englishmen eschewed, and twitched a seam straight on his breeches.

“Mrs. Braithwaite did not ask to see the child, did not seem to know that Daisy was under this very roof.”

Or she had not cared. “Where else might Daisy be, if not here with you?”

“In Cumberland, in the care of the staff she’s known her entire life. I’ve made arrangements for the remaining nursery maids from the Evers household to join my household at Grampion Hall when I return north.”

When his wife-hunting was successfully concluded. “In the weeks since Lady Evers’s death, Mrs. Braithwaite hasn’t troubled to find out where Daisy is?”

A lordly nose wrinkled. “Either she hasn’t troubled to find out where Daisy is, or she knew Daisy was here and anticipated that I’d refuse a request to meet with the girl.”

“Would you have?”

“You should have been a barrister.” He rose and used the cast-iron poker to move coals about on the hearth. “I took Mrs. Braithwaite into dislike when I met her several years ago at one of Lady Evers’s dinner parties. I could not tell if Mrs. Braithwaite was flirting with me, or if she was nervous to be in titled company. Some people are. Or perhaps she’d had too much wine. She tittered and batted her lashes and found rather too many opportunities to lay her hand on my arm, which behavior I expect from nervous debutantes.”

Lily expected the equivalent from presuming lords and knew exactly why Grampion had formed such a bad impression of Mrs. Braithwaite. The widow was Lord Stemberger in a dress, regarding everybody in her ambit as either an opportunity or an obstacle.