Marquesses at the Masquerade(114)
The lemon ice slipped from his spoon onto his thigh. “What? As governess?”
“Of course, as governess. I am a governess and a very good one. I’m particularly skilled with children who’ve lost a parent, and yours fit that sad description.”
He tossed the remains of his ice to the grass beside the bench. “Lucy, you cannot think that I’d travel the ocean, call on you personally, and regale you with the details of my situation simply to offer you employment?”
“Of course not. You travel back to England to see your family, not to see me, but why else would you bother to call on me after sending me exactly one letter since the day you left for Spain?”
He regarded her with a pained expression, as if she’d made a weak jest. “I am attempting to embark on a proper courtship of you, Lucy. I know you regard yourself as in possession of experience no blushing bride ought to have, but of all men, I am the last to judge you for that. You’ll like Portugal, and I know you love children, else you’d never have consigned yourself to a career caring for them.”
Lucy had the sense she’d been thrust into some other woman’s life, a poor creature expected to flatter and fawn over any male buffoon who made calf’s eyes at her.
“Giles, at the regimental ball, you encouraged me to drink from your glass of punch, and you kept that glass refilled. I had never before, and have never since, been tipsy. I hold myself entirely responsible for my actions, but you are very fortunate that my brothers didn’t get wind of your behavior. I can assure you, no gentleman has since doubted my good name.”
He stared at the empty walkway. “Has any other gentleman paid you his addresses?”
This conversation had all the earmarks of one of Sylvie’s grand dramas involving Her Grace of Dumpwhistle and Lady Higginbottom.
“I have attracted the respectful attention of the occasional gentleman. More than that is no concern of yours. I consider you a friend from my girlhood, Giles, one who became a passing fancy on his way to war. I am unwilling to leave my present post to join you in Portugal on any terms.”
Lucy refused to give him the comfort of the you-do-me-great-honor speech, because he hadn’t done her any honor whatsoever. The nerve of him, showing up after years of silence, and all but proposing…
Giles used a handkerchief to dab at the damp spot on his breeches. “I will try to change your mind, Lucy. You must allow me that. I’ve been hasty, leaping to conclusions, making assumptions. We were fast friends when we were young, passionate lovers for too brief a time. I have four motherless children, including twins, and you love children.”
As if twins were some sort of parental prize? As if he’d been the one to carry those twins or bring them forth into the world? “Giles, you must put this notion aside. I am content with my present post.”
“But you are very nearly in service,” he retorted, balling up his handkerchief after he’d succeeded only in spreading the stain. “Don’t you long to have a household of your own? Children of your own? You once assured me you yearned to see foreign lands, sail the sea, and sample exotic cultures. You told me you longed to follow the drum because you were so infernally bored with England. Don’t you long for those things still?”
Well, no. Once upon a time, what Giles offered would have been all Lucy had ever dreamed of. Once upon a time was for fairy tales.
“Giles, I have sufficient funds of my own. My parents saw to that, and my brothers have managed that money very competently. If I want to travel, I needn’t marry to do so.”
“You have money? And still you spend your days wiping the noses of other people’s brats?”
Lucy got to her feet lest she start laughing at his version of a governess’s responsibilities. “I love children. Surely that concept isn’t unheard of?”
“No,” he said, rising. “Not at all unheard of. I see I have been precipitous and that your situation is not what I thought it to be. I refuse to give up, though, Lucy. What you need, what you deserve, is the proper wooing you should have had years ago. If I should call on you again, you will receive me, won’t you? For the sake of old friendship?”
She ought not. She ought to send him packing with a flea in his presumptuous ear, but widowers could be a desperate lot, and their dignity should never be avoidably slighted.
“Lord Tyne told you himself that I’m welcome to see old friends, but you mustn’t entertain false hopes, Giles.”
“No false hopes,” he said, bowing. “But perhaps a few new hopes.”
Lucy left the square with a new hope of her own: that Giles would sail back to Portugal with some other blushing bride at his side, and make that journey soon. His four children doubtless missed him desperately, though in recent years, Lucy had stopped missing him at all.
*
“We want to talk to you,” Sylvie said.
Her expression was solemn, making her look much like her mother. Josephine had had an inherent gravity that Tyne hoped would not entirely overtake her daughters, not so soon.
“Do I mistake the matter,” he asked, “or are we not in conversation already? Whose turn is it to select my cravat pin?”
“You are grown up,” Sylvie said, advancing three more steps into Tyne’s bedroom, all but dragging Amanda by the hand. “You can choose your own cravat pin, like I choose what dress to wear every day.”