A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet #2)(46)

He had not seen her since.
Not at supper, which she’d been required to take in the nursery with Elizabeth and Frances, and not at breakfast, which . . . Well, he didn’t know why she hadn’t come down to breakfast. All he knew was that it was well past noon and he was still uncomfortably full from having lingered at the table for two hours, hoping for a glimpse of her.
He’d been on his second complete breakfast by the time Sarah had seen fit to inform him that Lady Pleinsworth had given Miss Wynter much of the day off. It was a bonus, apparently, for all the extra work she had been performing. First the musicale, and now her double duty as governess and nanny. Miss Wynter had mentioned that she wanted to go to the village, Sarah had told him, and with the sun once again peeking through the clouds, it seemed an ideal day for her outing.
And so Daniel had set out to do all those things the lord of a manor was supposed to do when he wasn’t wildly infatuated with the governess. He met with the butler. He looked over the account books from the last three years, belatedly remembering that he did not particularly like adding sums, and he’d never been good at it, anyway.
There ought to have been a thousand things to do, and he was sure there were, but every time he sat down to complete a task, his mind wandered to her. Her smile. Her mouth when it was laughing, her eyes when they were sad.
Anne.
He liked her name. It suited her, simple and direct. Loyal to the bone. Those who did not know her well might think that her beauty required something more dramatic—perhaps Esmerelda, or Melissande.
But he knew her. He did not know her past, and he did not know her secrets, but he knew her. And she was an Anne through and through.
An Anne who was currently someplace he was not.
Good heavens, this was ridiculous. He was a grown man, and here he was moping about his (albeit large) house, all because he missed the company of the governess. He could not sit still, he could not even seem to sit straight. He even had to change chairs in the south salon because he was facing a mirror, and when he spied his reflection, he looked so hangdog and pathetic he could not tolerate it.
Finally he went off to find someone who might be up for a game of cards. Honoria liked to play; Sarah, too. And if misery did not love company, at least it could be distracted by it. But when he arrived in the blue drawing room, all of his female relations (even the children), were huddled around a table, deep in discussions about Honoria’s upcoming wedding.
Daniel began his very quiet retreat to the door.
“Oh, Daniel,” his mother exclaimed, catching him before he could make his escape, “do come join us. We’re trying to decide if Honoria should be married in lavender-blue or blue-lavender.”
He opened his mouth to ask the difference, then decided against it. “Blue-lavender,” he said firmly, not having a clue as to what he was talking about.
“Do you think so?” his mother responded, frowning. “I really think lavender-blue would be better.”
The obvious question would have been why she’d asked his opinion in the first place, but once again, he decided that the wise man did not make such queries. Instead he gave the ladies a polite bow and informed them that he was going to go off and catalogue the recent additions to the library.
“The library?” Honoria asked. “Really?”
“I like to read,” he said.
“So do I, but what has that to do with cataloguing?”
He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Is this where I am supposed to say aloud that I am trying to escape a gaggle of women?”
She smiled, waited until he straightened, and replied, “I believe this is where you say that it has been far too long since you have read a book in English.”
“Indeed.” And off he went.
But after five minutes in the library, he could not bear it any longer. He was not a man who liked to mope, and so finally, after he realized that he had been resting his forehead on the table for at least a minute, he sat up, considered all the reasons why he might need to head down to the village (this took about half a second), and decided to head on out.
He was the Earl of Winstead. This was his home, and he’d been gone for three years. He had a moral duty to visit the village. These were his people.
He reminded himself never to utter those words aloud, lest Honoria and Sarah expire from laughter, and he donned his coat and walked out to the stables. The weather was not quite so fine as the day before, with more clouds above than sky. Daniel did not think it would rain, at least not in the immediate future, so he had his curricle readied for the two-mile journey. A coach was far too ostentatious for a trip to the village, and there seemed no reason not to drive himself. Besides, he rather liked the touch of the wind on his face.
And he’d missed driving his curricle. It was a fast little carriage, not as dashing as a phaeton, but also not as unstable. And he’d had it for only two months when he’d been forced to leave the country. Needless to say, smart little curricles had not been thick on the ground for exiled young Englishmen on the run.
When he reached the village, he handed off his reins to a boy at the posting inn and set off to make his calls. He would need to visit every establishment, lest someone feel slighted, so he started at the bottom of the high street at the chandler and worked his way up. News of his appearance in town spread quickly, and by the time Daniel entered Percy’s Fine Hats and Bonnets (only his third call of the day), Mr. and Mrs. Percy were waiting at the front of their store with identically wide smiles on their faces.
“My lord,” Mrs. Percy said, dropping into as deep a curtsy as her largish frame would allow. “May I be one of the first to welcome you home? We are both so honored to see you again.”