Maddy didn’t know if she could risk it. Trust had come with a perilous price that she’d paid for with her self-respect and nearly her life. What could she make of a man like Beau da Silva? His smooth charm threatened to lower her defences even though the very first thing he’d done was misrepresent his intent with her. He’d batted his eyes at her one moment, and then when her back was turned, told his aunt the only reason for his attention was pity. Trusting him was the very last thing she would do.
She walked toward the carriage, a small crowd of Scandalous Spinsters and Wayward Women in her wake. Squaring her shoulders, she strode past Beau da Silva, who stood at the carriage door clad in a brown traveling suit that was no doubt tailored to emphasize his best features, which, Maddy had to concede, were all of them. Only a faint shadow of unease darkened what seemed to be a carefully constructed display of nonchalance about the very real threat he was under.
He held out his hand to assist her into the carriage, which she ignored. Instead, she had her foot firmly planted on the running panel when Ivy Webber, Jeremy and Gemma’s daughter, marched up to her with the same aristocratic bearing as her father. She stood alongside Mr. da Silva, giving him an appraising once over that made him chuckle. The low, warm sound slid down Maddy’s back and settled in her belly like a generous swallow of brandy.
“Miss Murray, do not fret about your gardens,” Ivy said with such earnestness Maddy couldn’t help but smile. “Sylvie has volunteered to help Miss Jones with the blackspot. And I have decided to do a watercolour study of your plants so that you will not miss any of their beautiful blooms.”
Ivy was a talented artist, like her father. Between Jeremy and Phillipa, who was an artist in her own right, Ivy’s natural talents were sharpening a little more each day.
“That is very kind of you,” Maddy said, nodding in appreciation. “I look forward to seeing them.”
“And we will save your birthday party for when you return,” Ivy called.
Maddy stifled a groan and schooled her features, which was no easy feat given the undisguised amusement that lit up Mr. da Silva’s face as he watched this exchange with far too much interest.
“How did you discover that?” she asked the girl.
“Lady Em told me,” Ivy said. “She knows everyone’s birthdays.”
Maddy didn’t like celebrating her birthday. It had never been a particular cause for celebration, according to her mother. But Lady Em made a particular point out of fussing over everyone’s birthday.
“She does,” Gemma said, approaching them and taking her stepdaughter by the shoulders. “And everyone’s favourite cake. Though Maddy doesn’t have a favourite. At least none she’s ever told us.”
“We shall have to guess,” Ivy said, then turned to Mr. da Silva. “Or perhaps you can solve the mystery while you are gone.”
“I will do my very best,” he replied with a conviction that felt entirely too real, even though it was no doubt that same look he gave everyone he wanted to ingratiate himself to before insulting them the moment they were out of earshot.
“Right then,” Phillipa called out, glancing down at her watch with that look that told Maddy the time for dawdling was over. “There is a train to catch.”
At Phillipa’s signal, Maddy scrambled into the carriage before Mr. da Silva could resume his offer of assistance. The carriage ride would be the most uncomfortable part of this awkward situation, she reasoned. As he took his seat opposite her, the carriage, which would comfortably hold four and a little less comfortably, six, felt suddenly claustrophobic.
Maddy waved to the small band of spinsters as they pulled away. All the while, she felt the weight of Beau da Silva’s attention resting on her. Something in her hardened, and she pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and clasped her hands in front of her.
“You have a someone who misses you,” he said as the carriage rumbled toward the road. “A bunch of someones. It must be nice to be so well thought of. After all, you were the one nearly making us late by having a throng of people seeing you off, promising to look after your gardens and books and whatever else. And promise to make you cake.”
“Well, we miserable old spinsters have to take our pleasures where we can.”
His eyes widened ever so slightly, betraying his surprise, before he schooled his features and flashed her a smile.
“I apologize for that,” he said, with an earnestness that took her off guard. “I didn’t wish to draw my aunt’s attention to you. She is lovely but can be quite the overbearing sort when she thinks a woman is trying to take advantage of me. It was rude in the extreme to speak of you in such a way.”
Maddy swallowed her surprise at what seemed to be a heartfelt apology.
“You don’t strike me as the type of man who is particularly lonely,” she said. “I’ve read about you.”
One of his eyebrows shot up in a look of utter amusement. “You have?”
Maddy bristled at the unspoken response that was so plain in the sly smile on his perfect face, or the perfect arch of his brow. That she would read the papers, his life a glamorous mirror into a life she was never be granted. That she could only dream about.
Except she didn’t.
“I wanted to be prepared. I need to know who amongst your friends and associates seemed most willing to want to see you hang, or at least sell you out for a rather modest reward.”
If her answer meant to sting, but Mr. da Silva seemed impervious.
“I don’t have friends,” he said so casually that it might have struck Maddy as sad if she wasn’t so prepared to dislike him. “And as for my associates, I would say at this juncture, it might be all of them.”
* * *
