Marquesses at the Masquerade(113)
“Where are you going?” Sylvie asked.
“Don’t be rude, Syl.”
“I’m not being rude. I’m being curious. Miss Fletcher says a curious mind is a gift from God.”
Miss Fletcher is sometimes an idiot. “Sylvie, I have a few errands to see to, and that’s what half days are for. If you truly wanted to impress me, the two of you might consider working on your duet.”
Older and younger sister wore identical expressions of distaste.
“I’m off,” Lucy said. “Behave, please.”
“Yes, Miss Fletcher.” They spoke in unison, and Lucy hurried through the garden gate. She turned to drape the latch string over the top and saw two girls, holding hands, regarding her departure with forlorn gazes.
A movement in an upstairs window caught her eye. Lord Tyne had pulled back the curtains in his study and stood at the window watching the tableau in the garden. Lucy waved to him—he’d been excruciatingly proper since Sunday night—and he nodded in response.
Lucy took that nod as acknowledgment that she and the marquess had unfinished business. He was having dinner with his sister’s family tonight—thank heavens—and Lucy had matters to tidy up with Giles and with a certain Norse god. Then, by heaven, she and Lord Tyne would finish the discussion they’d begun in the garden on Saturday.
And—if she was brave and he was willing—they’d resume the kiss that had haunted her dreams since Monday morning.
As she made her way to Berkeley Square, Lucy gave up wondering what his lordship had been about to say and embarked on the fraught exercise of determining what she wanted to say. Instead, a list grew of admissions she was reluctant to make:
I have become that pathetic cliché, the governess in love with her employer.
I am still young enough to give him sons, truly I am. I hope.
One can be lonely in a house full of people.
I desire Lord Tyne. I want a future as his wife and as step-mother to Sylvie and Amanda.
All too soon, she was in front of Gunter’s and approaching Giles, who lounged on a shaded bench across the street. He rose and tipped his hat as Lucy came up the walkway.
“My dear, lovely to see you.”
She was not his dear. “Good day, Giles. Shall we order our ices?”
He offered his arm. “I suppose the proprieties require it.”
Lucy’s predilection for barberry-flavored treats required it. “What is your favorite flavor?”
“The offerings here are all so much cold sweetness,” Giles said, patting her fingers. “Gunter’s is an excuse to profit from a clientele that seeks to mingle with members of the opposite sex. Lemon will do for me.”
Giles could be blunt. Lucy had forgotten that. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but neither was he correct. “I bring the children here often, and I dearly hope amatory matters have not yet caught their fancy.”
“So you’re a nursemaid as well as a governess?”
Good gracious, he’d left his manners in Portugal. “Lord Tyne accompanied us on our last outing. Is he also a nursemaid?”
“He’s something of a bore, if you ask me. Does he interrogate every person who calls upon you?”
“He did not interrogate you. Perhaps you’d best place our orders, Giles.”
Except Giles hadn’t asked her what flavor she wanted. He came back from the counter with two lemon ices and carried both across the street, then settled himself beside Lucy on a bench.
The moment put Lucy in mind of their youthful encounters. Giles had strutted about, making pronouncements that were supposed to paint him as a worldly, sophisticated man-about-town, while Lucy had wondered if her company meant anything to him. Then he’d turn up flirtatious just as she was about to leave him to his self-importance, and she’d—
“I have missed you, Lucy Fletcher.” He drew his spoon from his mouth slowly, his lashes lowered.
Lucy used her spoon to swirl the letter T into the top of her ice. “Thank you. I have also thought of you over the years. Is there something in particular you want to discuss with me, Giles?”
A few people loitered around the square or strolled beneath the maples, but the conversation would not be overheard. Lucy wanted this appointment concluded, and she wanted her late-evening appointment with Thor over with as well…
If she even kept it. She was under no obligation to appear. What would be the point? She did still have his cloak—a beautiful article of clothing—and should return it to him. She didn’t anticipate another kiss from a stranger with any joy, though, and she ought not to be haring about after dark on her own.
“You thought of me from time to time?” Giles replied. “I will content myself with that admission, because I know you were raised in a proper household. I also know that you’ve strayed, Lucy.”
Lucy set aside her ice, which was too sour by half. “I beg your pardon?”
“Come now,” Giles said, holding a spoonful of ice before Lucy’s mouth, as if she required feeding like an infant. “We have a past, you and I. An intimate past. Surely that means something to a woman who in all these years has never married.”
Lucy gently pushed his wrist aside. “It means we were very foolish, very long ago, also very lucky that our foolishness didn’t have unfortunate repercussions. Giles, are you thinking to offer me a post as governess to your children?”