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‘May I get down, Papa?’
‘Ask Mrs Jordan’s permission.’
‘Certainly. Go and play, Alice.’ Inevitably the door banged behind her. Then they were alone and she could say the thing her conscience was prodding her to say. ‘I apologise.’
‘Whatever for?’ Avery was leaning back in his chair, but he sat up at that.
‘I thought you arrogant and I made judgements about how well a single man could raise a child. It was wrong of me. Prejudiced.’
‘And I apologise for making assumptions about how a widow might wish to flirt.’
‘That is what it was? You must forgive me if I am a trifle innocent about these things.’ She was not, of course, but she wanted to maintain the fiction that her world was not that of the haut ton. Bu
t while he was being so frank, she could seize the opportunity to remove a small worry about Alice’s welfare. ‘Do you not keep a mistress?’
The look he gave her was forbidding, but he answered without hesitation. ‘I have done. Not very recently and not in this country. And I would never allow a future mistress anywhere near Alice, if that is what is worrying you.’
‘So, when you were hinting just now that I might take the position of governess, that negated any chance you might offer me a very different position?’
‘That is frankness if ever I heard it!’ That question jolted him out of his composure, which was interesting. When he recovered his countenance, with a speed that spoke volumes for his self-control, she thought he might be faintly amused under the surprise. ‘Allow me to be equally frank in return. I thought about that for a moment. And I am ashamed of myself, I own it, so you have no cause to look at me like that from those wide brown eyes.’
‘Like what?’ She had thought her emotions were well hidden.
‘As though you are disappointed in me. Although perhaps I should welcome some heat in your regard after your usual Arctic chill.’
‘You talk nonsense, my lord. I must leave now.’ Before this becomes any more complicated.
‘You will come tomorrow?’ he asked as she retrieved her bonnet, reticule and shawl from the hall stand.
The servants had made themselves scarce. Perhaps they know better than to intrude when their master is with a woman. No, that is unfair, I trust him when he says he would never expose Alice to one of his chères amies.
‘No,’ Laura said crisply. ‘It is not convenient tomorrow. Please say goodbye to Alice for me.’
Avery opened the door for her without speaking and she walked briskly down the drive, feeling his eyes on her back for every step. That had been remarkably like a tantrum, she told herself as she turned left into the lane in the direction of the village. Or a lovers’ quarrel. Only we are not lovers and he did no quarrelling.
It was not difficult to work out what was upsetting her, only to know how to cope with it. The situation with Alice was clear enough, if painful. At least she had a clear conscience and the comfort of knowing she was doing what was best for her daughter, however much it hurt.
But Avery Falconer was tying her in knots. They had shockingly frank conversations about desire and yet she could be open with him about nothing else. She wanted him with a directness that was unmistakable, but she did not know why. Was it because he looked so much like Piers, but mature and reliable? Or was it that he was a devastatingly attractive man who was open about his attraction to her? Perhaps it was simply that she could not forgive him for stealing Alice, however well meant his actions, and therefore everything about him, good and bad, was exaggerated.
Whatever she thought of him, and however much he loved Alice now, she could not forget that love and concern for an unknown baby could not have motivated him to buy the child. Pride, arrogance and the certainty that he knew best for anyone who might be connected with the lofty Earl of Wykeham was what had driven him then and it was pure chance that good had come of it.
Oh, but she ached for him.
*
‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face, are you?’ Mab demanded over the breakfast table the next morning.
‘Probably.’ Laura bit into a slice of toast, chewed, thought, swallowed. ‘Do sit down, Mab, you make my head ache stomping about. I have so few days left with Alice and I’m a fool to allow one mystifying man to stop me spending them with her.’
‘Mystifying, is he?’ Mab poured herself some tea and planted herself on the chair across the kitchen table. ‘Not the word I’d use, myself. Downright—’ She broke off and was lost in thought, searching for the word. ‘Edible. I could think of other ways to describe him, but none of them decent.’ She buttered a slice of toast and applied plum preserve with a lavish hand. ‘Saw him riding past yesterday morning, first thing. Got a handsome pair of shoulders on him. And thighs,’ she added. ‘You’d know you’d got something in your bed with that one, right enough.’
‘Mab!’
‘Well, I’m female with eyes in my head and I’ve got a pulse, haven’t I? Good-sized nose and feet…’
‘Mab!’ Piers had big feet, too… Oh, stop it, you are as bad as she is. ‘All right, I am not dead either. Avery Falconer is very attractive. And intelligent. And he is good to Alice. And I like him. I just cannot forgive him.’
‘Worse things to forgive a man for than giving a child a loving home.’ Mab demolished the toast and picked up her tea. ‘You and Mr Piers made a right hash of things between you, thinking with your…well, not thinking at all, if you ask me. You should have insisted he marry you before you got into bed with him and he ought to have cared enough about you not to have risked it. And don’t look at me like that, you know it is true.’
