The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (Smythe-Smith Quartet #4)(11)

“Which one?”

“Pride and Prejudice,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m sure you haven’t read it.”

“I have, as a matter of fact. It is a favorite of my sister, and I thought it prudent to acquaint myself with her reading choices.”

“Do you always take such a paternal view with respect to your siblings?” she asked archly.

“I am her guardian.”

Her lips parted, and she hesitated a moment before saying, “I am sorry. That was rude of me. I did not know.”

He accepted her apology with a gracious nod. “Fleur is eighteen and a bit of a romantic. If she had her way, she’d read nothing but melodramas.”

“Pride and Prejudice is not a melodrama,” Iris protested.

“No,” he said with a laugh, “but I have no doubt that Fleur has managed to turn it into one in her head.”

She smiled at that. “Have you had her guardianship for very long?”

“Seven years.”

“Oh!” Her hand came to her mouth, and she stopped walking. “I’m so sorry. That is an unimaginable burden on such a young man.”

“I regret to say that I did consider it a burden at the time. I have two younger sisters, in fact, and after my father died, I sent both of them away to live with our aunt.”

“You could hardly have done otherwise. You must have still been in school.”

“University,” he confirmed. “I am not so harsh on myself that I think I should have tended to them myself at that point, but I should have been a more involved guardian.”

She placed her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. “I am sure you did your best.”

Richard was sure he had not, but he said, “Thank you.”

“How old is your other sister?”

“Marie-Claire is almost fifteen.”

“Fleur and Marie-Claire,” Iris murmured. “How very French.”

“My mother was a fanciful woman.” He flashed her a smile, then added a little half-shrug. “And she was also half-French.”

“Are your sisters now at home?”

He gave a nod. “Yes. In Yorkshire.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I have never been so far north.”

This surprised him. “Have you not?”

“I live year-round in London,” she explained. “My father is the fourth of five sons. He did not inherit land.”

Richard wondered if she was issuing a warning. If he was a fortune hunter, he should look elsewhere.

“I visit with my cousins, of course,” she continued lightly, “but they are all in the south of England. I don’t believe I have ever traveled past Norfolk.”

“It’s a very different landscape in the north,” he told her. “It can be quite desolate and bleak.”

“You are not proving yourself an enthusiastic ambassador for your county,” she chided.

He chuckled at that. “It’s not all desolate and bleak. And the parts that are are beautiful in their own way.”

She smiled at the description.

“At any rate,” he continued, “Maycliffe sits in a rather pleasant valley. It’s quite tame compared to the rest of the county.”

“Is that a good thing?” she asked with an arch of her brow.

He laughed. “We’re actually not too far from Darlington, and the railway that is being built there.”

Her blue eyes lit up in wonder. “Are you? I should love to see that. I read that when it is completed, one might be able to travel at fifteen miles per hour, but I cannot credit such a speed. It sounds frightfully dangerous.”

He nodded absently, glancing over at Daisy, who was still interrogating poor Winston about the Russian prince. “I suppose your sister thought that Miss Elizabeth should not have refused Darcy’s first proposal.”

Iris stared at him blankly before blinking, and saying, “Oh, yes, the book. Yes, you’re correct. Daisy found Lizzy to be most foolish.”

“What do you think?” he asked, and he realized that he truly wished to know her opinion.

She paused, taking the time to choose her words. Richard did not mind the silence; it gave him the opportunity to watch her as she thought. She was prettier than he’d supposed at first sight. There was a pleasing symmetry to her features, and her lips were far rosier than one might guess, given how pale the rest of her was.

“Given what she knew at the time,” Iris finally said, “I don’t see how she could possibly have accepted him. Would you wish to marry someone you could not respect?”

“Certainly not.”

She nodded officiously, then frowned as she regarded Winston and Daisy again. Somehow, they had managed to get quite a bit ahead. Richard couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Winston had the look of a man in trouble.

“We will have to save him again,” Iris said with a sigh. “But this time you must do it. I’ve exhausted my knowledge of Russian politics.”

Richard allowed himself to lean toward her, close enough so that he could murmur in her ear. “The Treaty of St. Petersburg defined the boundary between Russian America and the North Western Territory.”

She caught her lip between her teeth, clearly trying not to smile.