“I was . . .” I searched for a logical explanation besides the truth.
“You were daydreaming,” Augusta said. “I have caught you a time or two staring off at nothing inparticular.”
“Me?” I scoffed. “I do not daydream.” I turned, and we began our descent down the stairs.
“You were mumbling too. What do you think about that is so dreadfully serious?”
I wondered at the other times she had witnessed my wool gathering. Had I been thinking of my stranger, or worrying about my brother and his schemes? If it had been in the last several hours, then there was only one answer: my mortification over her brother. “Perhaps I am reciting poems in Italian or solving complex mathematical equations.”
“Hardly,” Augusta gave me a knowing look. “I am not so very daft as all that. You know, my brother sometimes stares at nothing when he is deep in thought, and it drives Mother mad.”
Oh, dear. Not more talk of Lord Camden.
Augusta pointed at my face. “You have a different sort of look about you than he does. I cannot say about this time particularly, but the other incidents, you wore had a wistful expression. One does not look like that when concentrating on recitations or solving mathematics.”
“Never mind my long looks.” I shook my head with a laugh, turning toward the dining room. “You don’t want to know my thoughts, I assure you.”
Augusta wrinkled her nose. “Of course I do. It is Estelle, is it not? Might I call you Estelle?”
I almost said no, but it seemed silly to do so when we were practically the same age. “When it’s the two of us, you may call me Estelle. However, for the sake of my position, you might defer to Miss Lewis when around your mother and brother.”
“That is a sensible answer, and one I cannot argue with.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
We were just outside the dining room when Augusta stopped. “Well, Estelle, you do not have to tell me the source of your daydreams. I will figure it out on my own. We will have plenty of time in each other’s company, and soon we will know everything about each other.”
Not everything, I hoped. Though, I supposed no harm would come in her trying at least. I smiled at her. “Then I will look forward to your guesses. I have no doubt that they will prove entertaining.”
“What entertainment is this?” Lord Camden asked, coming from behind us. He stopped when he reached the drawing room door and casually leaned against the frame.
We did not cross paths with Lord Camden regularly, since he was often out of the house on business, and it was unfortunate that we had to add a pre-dinner conversation before the inevitable one we would have during dinner. My cheeks flushed hot the moment our eyes met, and I averted my face from his. “Nothing that would amuse you, Lord Camden.”
“You might be surprised,” he said. “Try me.”
Augusta supplied the answer for me. “I am to guess the source of Miss Lewis’s wistful thoughts.”
“Wistful?”
I made the mistake of meeting his eyes again—gray-green under the gas lamp’s dull light. I didn’t like the curious way he watched me, no doubt eager to find fault after theboatincident. “I expect you have plenty of fanciful hopes of your own. Mine are nothing special.”
“Fanciful hopes, you say?” He stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “If there is something I want, I prefer not to waste time hoping for it. I like to execute my goals in the present, if I can.”
“How fortunate for you,” I said, growing annoyed. If he had no experience with large bodies of water and was faced with drowning, I daresayhe would simply will himself to swim and be gifted with instinctual knowledge to save himself. “Some of us see hope as a great comfort when all other choices have been removed.”
He lifted one brow. “Have your choices been removed, Miss Lewis?”
His tone was decidedly suspicious.
I sputtered. How dare he ask such a direct question and then look at me like I was some criminal. “We are practically strangers, Lord Camden. I have not the faintest idea what you would do with that knowledge.”
I turned my head to find Augusta watching us with rapt attention. I was the one who thought her guessing the source of my daydreams would prove entertaining, so it seemed unfair that she was the one being entertained. And at my expense, no less.
“Oh,” Augusta started. “Do not mind me. I’ll wait at the table.” She slipped by us, and for the first time all day, I wanted to flee inside the dining room and hurry on dinner.
I glanced up at Lord Camden, awaiting his response. His jaw was already showing a hint of caramel-colored scruff along the sharp edges, which I could have stared at for several more minutes, but I dragged my gaze up to meet his eyes again. He was watching me. Or studying me. I was not certain if there was a difference.
“Well?” I asked. My patience for my own discomfort was rather thin.
