Marquesses at the Masquerade(107)
“I’ll tell Papa that Lady Hig didn’t like Mrs. Holymere at all. Start on the count of three.”
Amanda counted with Sylvie, in the age-old nursery tradition, and then they let their tops fly.
Even though Sylvie was only a little girl, her complicity with Amanda’s plan was a comfort. They would talk to Papa and to Miss Fletcher. Exactly how they’d go about that task without being able to consult either source of wisdom first was a puzzle.
Amanda enjoyed puzzles. She loved her papa and Miss Fletcher, thus she would find a way to give them the benefit of her guidance—and Sylvie’s and even Lady Higginbottom’s, if that was what she had to do to bring Papa and Miss Fletcher together.
Chapter Five
* * *
Giles Throckmorton had been handsome as a youth, and the years had only improved his looks. A young soldier had matured into a man with some character to his features, a subtle dash to his attire, and gravity in his gaze.
Lucy noted those developments impersonally, for Mr. Throckmorton’s arrival had interrupted some sort of declaration from Lord Tyne—a declaration or a disclaimer. Lucy hadn’t been sure if his lordship had been about to confess a tendresse for her or to warn her not to develop one for him.
A bit late for the warning. Any other employer would have blamed the governess when a child went missing. Lord Tyne had solved the problem, taken responsibility for it, and reassured Lucy most kindly afterward.
“Mr. Throckmorton.” Lucy curtseyed. “Your call is unexpected.”
He bowed. “You are ever tactful. I think what you mean is, my calling upon you is a great presumption. I had to come nonetheless.”
“Lord Tyne will not turn me off for receiving an acquaintance from long ago,” Lucy said. “Shall we be seated?”
Giles took the only wing chair—he’d been shown to the formal sitting room—and he looked quite at home there. The Portuguese sun had burnished his blond hair to gold, and the effect of the elements on his complexion was to make the blue of his eyes more vivid.
He wasn’t as tall as Lord Tyne, not as muscular either.
“You look the same,” Giles said, studying Lucy as if she were a portrait. “As pretty as ever.”
He was up to something. Lucy had brothers, and those brothers had wives, and those wives kept her informed of every scrap of gossip from home. Giles regularly came back to England, and not once had he brought his children or his wife, not once had he called upon or asked about Lucy.
“Mr. Throckmorton, please don’t take this as rudeness on my part, but your opinion of my appearance is of no interest to me. I am happily employed in a very respectable house, and I hope to remain in that blessed state for some time.”
He smiled, and heavens, that smile had matured in Portugal as well. Giles had always had more charm than was fair, and he’d learned to add a dash of regret to his gaze, a soup?on of self-mockery that blended humility with amusement.
“You won’t believe me, Lucy, but more than your affection, more than your lovely appearance, more than your humor, I’ve missed your common sense, and you are right: My opinion of your good looks is of no moment. I merely remark the obvious. How have you been keeping?”
A friend could ask that.
“I do very well, thank you. My work matters to me and allows me to use my gifts for the benefit of others.” Flinging the reality of Lucy’s situation at Giles’s feet felt good. She hadn’t married, hadn’t taken any other lovers, but she’d made a good life for herself. “I trust your family thrives?”
“John is a natural-born diplomat. He sends you his regards, as do my sisters. They’ve kept me apprised of your situation, though I gather they haven’t done the same for you in my case.”
His sisters had never so much as sent Lucy a note after she’d removed to London.
“I did not feel I had the right to inquire after you.” Lucy hadn’t, in fact, spared Giles more than a passing thought since she’d come to Lord Tyne’s household. “You wrote me the once, years and years ago, and I took your letter for a polite admonition not to spin fancies where you are concerned.”
He rose and studied the portrait of the late marchioness that hung over the sideboard. “My children are all in good health, but perhaps you had not heard that I was widowed more than a year ago.”
That explained the sadness in his gaze, the gravity where a high-spirited young man had been. “I am sorry for your loss, and I know your children must miss their mama terribly.”
The thought of those children tugged at Lucy’s heartstrings, and she even felt some genuine compassion for Giles. He’d been a young man going off to war, and Lucy’s choices where he was concerned were her own responsibility.
“The children and I are a little lost.” He sent Lucy an unreadable look. “Sometimes more than a little. I can be honest with you, Lucy. My marriage was not a bed of rose petals, and I know my wife had her frustrations where I was concerned, but we muddled along, and we loved our children.”
“Of course you did. Tell me their names.”
He resumed his place in the wing chair and spoke with fond exasperation about four small children clearly bereft of their mother’s love. Somewhere in the discussion of the children, Lucy recalled that Giles had been her first love, if a very young woman’s foolish fancies could be called love. He was a good man, and according him that honor allowed Lucy more compassion for her younger self too.