“I would not wish to put you again out of your way, my lord,” she protested.
“Miss Whitchurch,” he argued, “you must be several miles from your home. Too far for a respectable female to walk alone.”
“And how do you know where I reside, my lord?” she questioned with a lift of her brows in disapproval.
“I do not know where you reside, miss, but I have made the presumption it would be close to your place of employment, for you were on foot in the rain when we last met.”
“What if I had taken a hackney to the closest street possible?” she challenged.
Orson settled it for them. He removed Benjamin’s hand from the lady’s elbow and placed her hand on his own arm. “My ‘lesser’ brother has one of those minds that never stops churning. Too many ‘what ifs.’” Orson turned her steps towards the carriage. “Which means our friend Mr. Hartley will be late for his meeting with the head of the Home Office, and both Beaufort and I have arrangements to make regarding a hunting lodge.”
“We do?” Beaufort asked in confusion.
“I will explain in a bit,” Orson responded. To Miss Whitchurch, he said, “So we will forgo haggling about your place of residence. You will be escorted by four gentlemen, at least as far as the Home Office.”
“Then what happens?” she asked as she fell into step with Orson.
Beaufort elbowed Benjamin. “Follow our elder brother.” Benjamin frowned deeply, but there was little he could say.
Hartley was waiting for them beside the coach’s still open door.
“Place our package in the boot for safe keeping,” Orson instructed. “Thompson has offered the lady passage home. We will leave you at the Home Office, and…”
“It will be too crowded,” Miss Whitchurch protested.
“I assure you, Miss Whitchurch, when one has lived in a house with five young boys and one sister, one becomes accustomed to fitting himself into tight spaces to make a lady comfortable, while not disturbing said lady.” Orson steadied Miss Whitchurch on the steps. “Moreover, it is not far to the Home Office. Hartley will attend his meeting, and Beaufort and I are to meet another brother, Lord Graham, regarding a journey into the countryside for some shooting.”
Although Benjamin was confident Beaufort held not an inkling as to the nature of the journey of which Orson spoke, Beaufort made no protest, even though they all knew “shooting” would not be a part of the journey: It was not the hunting season for grouse or pheasant or any other birds, for that matter.
Once they were settled, Benjamin made the only remaining introduction. “Mr. Justin Hartley of the Home Office, Miss Whitchurch,” he said with a nod to Hartley.
“Mr. Robert Hartley’s son?” Miss Whitchurch unexpectedly asked, while Benjamin frowned. “I have read your name before.”
“Do you know my father?” Hartley asked.
“No, sir,” the lady was quick to say, “but my father and yours studied together at Oxford. My father spoke of how excited he was to learn of your father’s ascent to the barony. He has spoken quite extensively about your father’s godliness.”
“Does your father currently have a living?” Hartley asked politely.
Benjamin noted the lady’s slight reluctance to respond, but, with a lift of her chin, she said, “Not at this time. There was a crisis in the family, and he has stepped away until it might all be settled.”
There was no time to say more, for the coach rolled to a stop before the Home Office. Hartley said, “I will tell my father I have metthe daughter of one of his former classmates. The baron adores such gossip.”
Benjamin was not happy to think that Hartley and Miss Whitchurch might find common ground with their fathers’ interference.
“And I shall write something similar to my father when we next exchange letters,” the lady said with a small smile and a gracious nod of her head.
Hartley followed Orson’s and Beaufort’s nods of farewell, with Beaufort adding, “I will inform Duncan of what we learned today.”
Orson leaned in to ask, “Did you tell Miss Whitchurch that your late father was also a vicar, Thompson?”
The lady looked to Benjamin with a bit of surprise, but she graciously said, “Our companionship is not so long standing for us to speak of families, though I suppose we covered that topic today, but his lordship and I both have agreed on the utility of a proper umbrella.”
Orson’s eyebrow rose in a question he did not speak aloud. “Then I will leave you to discuss umbrellas and clergymen. Farewell, Miss Whitchurch. A pleasure, miss. Thompson, we will speak soon.”
With that, Orson closed the carriage door, but they did not pull away immediately. “I will require your directions, Miss Whitchurch,” Benjamin said as he studied the perfection of her features.
“Anywhere near the drapery shop will prove beneficial,” she instructed without making eye contact.
