Why didn’t he feel elated?
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t realize Matthew had been talking to him until he saw the hand waving in front of his face.
“What?Beg pardon, I must have been woolgathering.What did you say?”
Matthew chuckled.“I was merely wondering aloud where Miss Ebrington is, and speculating how we might arrange to run into her again.I’ve been enjoying our unconventional courtship and would like to spend more time with my bride-to-be.”
Vincent froze in mid-step.“Your what?”
“My fiancée.I inherited her along with the title.Didn’t I tell you?”
Vincent closed his jaw with a snap.
“Sorry about that.Must have slipped my mind.”
He struggled to keep his voice quiet.“How does it slip your mind that you’re betrothed?”
Matthew resumed walking and plowed his fingers through his hair, a familiar habit when he was thinking.“In my defense, there has been a lot going on since we arrived for our visit.Ghosts.Smugglers.Revenuers.Aunt Gert’s charming amanuensis…”
Vincent froze again.
In the distance, Aunt Gert and Marshall turned the first corner on the path climbing up the bluff, and disappeared from sight.
“Yes.She’s charming.”Vincent’s stomach clenched.If he left for Italy tomorrow, he might never see Miss Walden again.Surely they’d complete Gert’s memoir project long before he returned from Naples.
Miss Walden exhibited personality traits that Vincent admired and appreciated.He shuddered to think what it would have been like trapped in the cave last night had she been prone to fits of the vapors, or otherwise been hysterical.Yes, she had let her guard down and trembled in his arms, even shed a few silent tears, but barely allowed him to offer her comfort before she got up and started working to free them without a thought for her manicure or gown.
He still didn’t know why she had followed him into the tunnel.
Nor did she take advantage of the opportunity to trap a viscount in marriage.In fact, perhaps he should take insult at the lengths she had gone to in order to avoid even the appearance of him compromising her.
That tickled a memory.What had she meant when she said she was protecting a foolish former student?Miss Ebrington was the only former student Vincent knew.
Why, and in what way, was Miss Walden protecting her?“Does anyone besides you know that you’re engaged to Miss Ebrington?”
Matthew ran his fingers through his hair again.“Well, there are our men of business who drew up the agreements, of course.I’m still undecided if it was carelessness or a deliberate choice that they only used the title in the agreement, and not my cousin’s given name.It was he who met with the girl’s father, about a month before my cousin died.I’ve never met Mr.Ebrington, or anyone else in her family for that matter.”
“And you didn’t think to mention the betrothal to her when you were introduced on the beach and realized who she was?”
“Well…” Matthew tilted his head from side to side.“At first I was too surprised at running into her like that.I thought we’d be formally introduced in London at a ball, not bump into her on the beach here in the wilds of Dorset.What were the odds?”
“Your cousin could have calculated them.”
Matthew shuddered.“It might take until my son or grandson inherits to cleanse what my wastrel cousin did to the title.”He kicked a rock far out into the waves.“Wicked Wingfield, indeed.”
* * *
Struggling to keep her eyes open, Sophia pinched her thigh, hard enough to bruise.Some of what she had written this morning was barely legible, even to her.She needed to correct it before she forgot what was supposed to be there.Perhaps she should ring for Kendrick to bring her more coffee, despite her distaste for the bitter brew.Staring at the ceiling, she longed to collapse on her big, soft bed upstairs.She envied Mrs.Digby the freedom to have a lie-down whenever she wished, as her employer was doing just now.
Sophia must have dozed off, as the next thing she knew, something tickled her cheek.She blinked as she raised her head, which she had pillowed on her crossed arms on the desk, and tried to bring into focus what turned out to be Lord Fairfax.He had hitched one hip on the far side of the big desk and held one corner of her paisley shawl.As she blinked again, he tickled her cheek with it once more before letting it drop to her chest.
Her spectacles had settled crooked on her nose while she slept.That’s why she was having so much trouble bringing his face—hisgrinningface—into focus.Before she could adjust them, he reached across with both hands and gently removed them from her face.
As she watched, trying not to let her mouth fall open in shock, he brought the wire frames up to his face, opened his mouth and gently exhaled on one lens until it fogged over, then slowly polished it with the end of his neckcloth, without breaking eye contact with her.
She gulped.
No one but her optician had ever polished the lenses for her.
