Page 70 of The Lady Knows Best

Perhaps Miles hadn’t spoken under his breath after all. “If it weren’t for Stalbridge, Miss Burke wouldn’t even be here,” Alistair reminded him. “It’s not every gentleman who would leave Town in a rush to fetch his wife’s friend’s sister into the country.”

“You don’t believe the story about business at Ferncliffe, then?”

Alistair shot him a skeptical glance. “Do you?”

No. Stalbridge was dedicated landowner; if some urgent matter had called him home, he would have been there already.

“Why, then?” asked Miles.

“Can’t say, really.” Alistair watched the ladies chattering merrily amongst themselves. “Lady Stalbridge seems quite interested in her charge’s happiness—more than one might expect of a mere acquaintance.”

“Which is your excruciatingly polite way of telling me that she doesn’t trust me and she’d sooner tell me to kick rocks than encourage Daphne to marry me.”

One of Alistair’s shoulders rose and fell. “I’m not sure what she wants—or rather, I would have agreed with you until dinner last night. Palmer’s story about the ram had her in tears of laughter—”

“Don’t you mean your story? And thanks for that, by the way. . . .”

“Well, if it softened up at least one of the women at that table, it did what it was intended to do.”

“I had no idea humiliation was the way to a woman’s heart,” Miles scoffed.

“Oh, I hardly believe that—I’ve seen you play the fool for some female too often,” he teased, though there was an edge to the words. But when he spoke again, his voice had softened. “I’ve also seen the hardworking landowner, the caring master, the dutiful grandson. Once in a while, it might be nice to let someone other than your tenants at Lyneham see that Lord Deveraux.”

“Even if the rest of the world is content with the vacuous, pleasure-seeking rake?”

Alistair shot him another look but didn’t argue.

They traveled the next half mile in silence. Miles considered whether to confess what he’d done. But Alistair wasn’t the one who needed to hear it—hear his explanations, his excuses, his apologies.

He had to talk to Daphne. And soon.

Lyneham was an unassuming village, a hamlet really, as the name implied, with the River Lyne dividing the ancient settlement from the thousand or so acres of Lyneham Park. When they rattled over the little stone bridge, hardly wide enough to accommodate the barouche, Miles could see that Daphne was craning her neck—unnecessarily, truth be told—to see the extent of it: a blacksmith, a butcher shop, a dry goods emporium, two pubs, and the church.

The two carriages stopped outside the second pub, the Ram and Rooster. Stalbridge and Miles dismounted and helped the driver with the horses, while Alistair went to help the ladies down from the barouche. By the time Miles joined them, plans had already been formed. Lady Stalbridge had agreed to accompany Bellis to the emporium, to see what might be found there, while Stalbridge and Alistair had decided to duck into the pub for a pint. Miles tucked his grandmother’s arm around his elbow, preparing to lead her toward the church, as she had requested.

Only Daphne stood apart.

“Come to the shop with us,” her sister pleaded.

Daphne shook her head. “I’d like to see the church.”

“I was married here,” said Grandmama as they approached, leaning heavily on both Miles and her cane. “Sixty-two years ago. Don’t believe it’s changed one bit.”

“Barring the new roof I had put on the year before last,” Miles pointed out; both women ignored him.

“I saw your sketch of it this morning, in the library,” Daphne said. “And the other picture you drew—was that your husband?”

A glow suffused her wrinkled face. “Aye. Handsomest man I’d ever seen. Miles favors him.”

Daphne, rather than accept that blatant invitation to look at Miles, glanced down at her feet. He tried not to recall the way her gaze had raked over him as he’d stripped off his shirt last night.

Had he somehow managed, instead of improving matters between them, to ruin everything with his too-bold kisses?

“Now, where is Yearsley?” Grandmama cried, as they stepped into the church. It was a quaint old building, made of stone like the bridge, with pointed windows on one side overlooking the river as it wound past the village, and rows of wooden pews polished by the backsides of generations.

Mr. Yearsley, the vicar, bustled from the vestry. “My lord, my lady. How good to see you.”

His jolly aspect—smiling face; round belly; bald, shining pate—were in sharp contrast to his frequently stern words from the pulpit. Miles had always considered him rather hard on the petty misdeeds of his flock, whose lives were not easy, despite Miles’s best efforts. If the clergyman had had any notion of what Miles got up to in Town, it might have given him an apoplexy.