Page 11 of Scandal’s Daughter

Silence stretched between them while he found himself lost in deciding exactly what colour her eyes were. She coughed and looked discomforted by his scrutiny and he pulled himself up, startled to discover he’d been staring like a fool.

“It’s nice to finally have a little sun, isn’t it?” he said, hurrying to fill the gap.

One, delicate, red tinted eyebrow quirked upward. “Oh dear. Really? The weather?” She tutted at him and began to pack her pencils and pad back into the basket.

“I’m sorry, that was shocking wasn’t it?” he said, his expression rueful. “But I suspect if I’d told you the truth, you’d be even more disgusted.”

“Oh?” He was delighted to see curiosity in her expression, a slight frown over her eyes, and she paused with Mrs Radcliff’s novel suspended over the basket.

“I can’t stop looking at your eyes,” he admitted, quite truthfully this time. “I can’t decide if they’re green or brown.”

She snorted in amusement and dropped her novel into the basket. “Neither,” she said, a prosaic tone to her voice. “They’re hazel, and please, I beg of you. Don’t go writing an ode or some such nonsense.”

“Why ever not?” he retorted, taking the basket from her hands and placing it behind him so she couldn’t reach it. “No, don’t go, not yet,” he begged, giving her his most charming smile. “Tell me why I shouldn’t write you a poem. You deserve a poem, I think.”

She flushed and shook her head. “I will go if you keep speaking in such a ridiculous manner. You have no business flirting with me and well you know it, so please stop.”

He sighed and stretched out on his side, looking up at her. “Very well. If I promise not to flirt will you stay and talk to me?”

She hesitated, but for such a short time he was relieved of the idea that she still found him as obnoxious as she’d first thought. “For just a little while then,” she said, and he saw the first real glimmer of the smile he had been hoping for. His breath caught and he let out a huff of laughter.

“My God,” he whispered, staring at her. Frowning, she began to get to her feet. “No!” he exclaimed. “That was involuntary, I swear. I didn’t mean to,” he said, half laughing, half pleading as he discovered he would be bitterly disappointed if she ran now.

“Last chance,” she said, her tone fierce as she wagged a finger at him.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he replied, making the cross over his heart as he spoke.

Apparently satisfied, she sat down again, and he began to draw her out. He didn’t ask her all the usual inane questions about her family and where she was born, but they spoke about books and poetry and music and horses - she loved to ride, he discovered, and had ambitions to drive a phaeton which he secretly hoped to help her with.

They talked through lunch and the remainder of the afternoon. She insisted on sharing her picnic with him and made encouraging noises as he climbed an apple tree in the hedgerow after she discovered the biggest and shiniest red one was right at the top. So, it was with an exclamation of alarm that she looked up some hours later to discover the sky was growing dim.

“Oh, my word!” she said, gathering up her belongings as she got to her feet. “It’s so late, wherever has the afternoon gone?”

“It has been spent in the most delightful fashion,” he said, with complete sincerity, finding himself truly disappointed that it had come to an end. He reached out and took her hand, enclosing it within his much larger ones. “Say you’ll come back again tomorrow.” She opened her mouth and began to shake her head. “Please?” he said, quite alarmed to hear the pleading note in his voice.

“I-I shouldn’t. You know I shouldn’t,” she said, avoiding his eyes and trying to pull her hand free.

“I’ll be here,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll wait all day, and all day the next and the day after ...”

“Oh, stop, you absurd creature!” she said, laughing, though her expression was troubled. “I-I don’t know if ... if ...”

“Yes, you can, I know you can, if you try.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be here,” he repeated. “Until tomorrow, Miss Bomford.”

She gave a little huff of exasperation and curtsied to him. “Your grace,” she said, with a smirk as Sebastian jolted in shock. Had she guessed who he was?

Then he remembered. He’d been cast as the Duke of Luovo

He dashed his hand to his heart with a wounded cry. “Oh, infamy! After all we have been to each other.”

He watched as she scurried away, her cheeks flushed and her red hair escaping her bonnet as she ran, laughing at him with the dog gambolling at her feet.

He let out a breath, feeling that he had been holding it all afternoon in case she decided to change her mind and run away from him. But she hadn’t run, she had stayed, and he had never been gladder of anything in all his life.

He made his way back to the castle, quite unable to shake the ridiculous smile from his face, a fact that was remarked on by Jeffries as he handed his horse back into his care.

“A good day, I take it, your grace?” he asked, a quizzical expression fixed on his master from under his thick, grizzled eyebrows.

“I should say so,” Sebastian replied, grinning at him.

His smile dimmed a little as he remembered that Lord Gower’s entertainments awaited him for the night. He wondered if he could find a way to excuse himself without being thought inexcusably dull. He had a reasonable idea that the truth, that he had a pressing urge to go to bed early with a copy of Mrs Radcliffe’s - A Sicilian Romance, would not be met with approval. The idea amused him so much that he couldn’t help but grin and it was with a contented air he entered the castle, whistling as he went.