But no. He should not admire her. Not like that. She was taking care of him and probably not very open to his advances.
“You really have never met me?”
“Not before a few nights ago. If we have met before, I don’t remember you.”
“But I feel like… that is, social rank matters, does it not?”
“In some circles it does.”
“And if you are the daughter of an earl, I may rank beneath you.”
“Perhaps. I honestly do not know. I don’t believe it matters.”
He nodded slowly. “Would it be inappropriate to tell you I find you very pretty?”
She laughed softly and bowed her head. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate, but I liked hearing it. And you are quite handsome, my lord.”
That felt encouraging. He smiled at her, his dizziness forgotten. “You live here with just the countess and her staff, so I assume you are not married. How can that be?”
She shot him a startled look that he couldn’t quite interpret.
“Oh,” he said. “I apologize. Was that a rude question?”
“No. Well, yes, the question was a bit forward. I imagine had we met at a ball, you would have asked in a more delicate way.”
“I was merely wondering, because you are pretty and compassionate, how it could be that you do not have a husband.”
She sighed. “Well, if you must know, I was betrothed to a man whom I loved very much, but he died two weeks before the wedding.”
That took him aback. “My deepest condolences. What happened? No, that is also too forward. I merely wish to inquire—”
“It is all right. He was sick. He never told me.” Her voice sounded a little watery. She blinked a few times and shrugged it off. “Well, anyway. He became very ill about a month before the wedding, The doctor didn’t know what was causing it, but suspected it was a weak heart. He’d been sickly as a child, but had never mentioned it to me. He may have thought he was healthy. But I wish he would have warned me. I could have prepared myself.”
This was clearly something that still sat with her. He wanted to comfort her, but something told him touching her would be inappropriate. But then he did it anyway, touching her arm lightly. “You must miss him.”
“I do sometimes. However, the point of this story is that I mourned him and stayed away from society for a while, and by the time I returned for a Season, there was a new crop ofdebutantes who were younger and prettier than me and no man of quality even looked in my direction. So now that I am on the shelf, I take care of gentlewomen in their dotage.”
That seemed puzzling. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood that this was how things were done, but still he said, “So if you get to whatever advanced age you’ve arrived at… which is…?”
“Six and twenty.”
“That is not even… that is, can it be true that women reach a certain age, and they are just… out of chances?”
“I am not out of chances. Life is just going in a different direction than I expected. I am setting aside funds so that I might purchase a home for myself. Then who knows? I may write or paint or garden. I imagine I will find things to fill my day.”
“Do you not want a family?”
She looked wistfully toward a row of flowers in the garden. He took that to mean she did want a family. She let out a long sigh. “I love children. I always enjoy when the earl brings his family to visit the countess. But this is the hand I was dealt.”
“It seems unfair.”
“Maybe it is, but at this point, I believe I must make my own happiness.”
“Are you happy here?”
She made that startled face again and clasped her hands together. “My, you ask a great many questions.”
“I know… nothing. Well, that is not true. I know some things. I have this vague recollection of the rhythms of conversation. I suspect that if we were a couple courting that you’d also pepper me with questions so that we might get to know each other. But I cannot tell you much about myself. Or about conversational niceties like the weather.”
