Page 41 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

She resented the necessity of his presence, and for that, he could not blame her. She was smart enough, he knew, to be afraid of what it meant. She understood the danger her family could be in.

But at the same time, he suspected that she liked having him there. In part, yes, because he had given her a way to thwart Dulsworthy’s authority, at least temporarily.

That wasn’t all, though.

Her kiss at the ball, her words last night, her sharp, surreptitious glances at him throughout the meal, all suggested she was as fascinated—reluctantly fascinated—with him as he was with her.

Perhaps it was that fact she resented most of all.

The present bout in their strange little skirmish came to a draw when the first course was laid before them. Sounds of silver scraping across china filled the room.

As he ate, he thought again of her peremptory reply to his earlier refusal: Dinner, then. In his mind, the weight of those words shifted, and with it, their meaning.

Dinner. Then…

Who would make the next move?

“I find that your sons have been under most excellent tutelage, Lady Kingston,” he said, breaking into the boys’ minute detailing of their day for their mother.

“They are bright boys,” she demurred, smiling at both of them in turn before correcting herself. “Bright young gentlemen, I should say. Promising scholars.” Then she directed her attention to her plate once more, prodding with her fork at an untasted mound of creamed turnips. “Ready, I suppose, for school?”

The fear behind her question was unmistakable. Both boys echoed the word school with varied degrees of surprise and incredulity, the younger looking less enthused than Langley would have expected, and the elder less alarmed.

“Harrow, do you mean? Like Papa?” asked young Kingston.

“And Lord Dulsworthy,” Philip reminded him.

“Your guardian and I have had some discussion of the matter, yes,” Amanda was forced to admit. “It’s expected of boys in your position. But I worry that your poor mother’s instruction will prove to have been inadequate to the purpose.” At that she sent Langley a beseeching look.

“It will require much more than a day’s acquaintance to determine their level of preparation, your ladyship,” he reassured her. “But as to the quality of your instruction, I confess I find myself surprised at the depth and breadth of knowledge you have been able to impart. Your own education must have been quite—”

“She attended Mrs. Plinkton’s Academy for Girls, in Bath,” said Mrs. West, as if that settled the matter.

“A fine institution,” he agreed, though he’d never heard of it. No girls’ school was entirely responsible for teaching Amanda what she knew, in any case. Of that he felt certain.

But Amanda, still focused on her sons’ future, showed no inclination to solve the mystery and said nothing more.

The meal was very nearly over. He fished about for some change of subject, something that would cast off the gloom that now hung over Amanda and restore the charmingly defiant spark to her eyes.

Then Mrs. West dabbed her lips, set her napkin aside, and said, “Stanhope.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“No, no. I beg your pardon. I was only thinking of the name. There’s something familiar about it.” A footman replaced her empty plate with a crystal dish of custard, and Mrs. West took up her spoon. “Are you by any chance related to Sir Langley Stanhope?”

Silver clattered onto china, and for just a moment, he feared he had been the one to drop his fork. But no, the noise had come from the end of the table, from Amanda, who was looking at him now with an expression for which he had no name.

Following a sidelong glance at the commotion, Mrs. West continued, “I remember reading about it in the papers when he was knighted…something he’d done…” She waved a spoonful of custard through the air. “Oh, what was it?”

A man did not rise to his level in the intelligence service without having run the risk of exposure. But the situation in which he found himself now was somehow worse. Damn that knighthood and damn every mention of. He would not be addressed as Sir Langley by anyone, least of all the Countess of Kingston.

“I could not say, ma’am,” he replied, mustering a tone of utter boredom. “No relation, I’m afraid.”

“Then who are your people?”

Langley hesitated. “I have no family, Mrs. West.”

Mrs. West made a noise of mild disappointment, or perhaps sympathy. The boys, knuckle-deep in their custard cups, appeared to have heard none of the exchange.