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Laurence felt his heart throb with sympathy. He reached out a hand to her in consolation and began to say, “No, I wasn’t—”
But before he could get out another word Alicia sniffed and lifted her own small, delicate hand with a request to halt. “Please. I would just like to say this before I lose my nerve.”
Why would she lose her nerve?Laurence’s imagination churned with questions.Has she been crying just over running out of the room as she did? Did she do something truly wrong that I was too oafish to recognize? Did I?
Yet good sense won out and Laurence held his tongue. Giving Alicia a slight nod of agreement, she continued in a firm voice that shook at the edges of her words.
“I…have not been away from home like this before,” she explained. “At least, not in the home of someone I do not know. It has been a difficult time for me of late—with my sister, with my parents’ passing, travelling to Portsmouth, and confusion in my own life in London. I fear all I wanted was to return home and hide in my bed for ages. Really, that is still all that I want.”
Alicia paused, and a single hot tear rolled down her flushed cheek. Laurence felt a surge of protectiveness roll up within him—though it contradicted the reality of their situation, with every beat of his heart he was filled with an impulse to comfort Alicia, to wrap her in his arms and keep her safe. Instead, respecting her request, he simply looked on in sombre silence.
Having collected herself, any further tears beaten back for the moment, Alicia took another breath and continued. “You and your sister are being so kind by taking me in for a short time. I feel like such an intruder in your house, and I fear I have given such a terrible account of myself already. Between how I first treated you when we met on the road yesterday, despite how kind and generous you were…and now, cutting our conversation in the library so terribly short…well, I hate the thought of you thinking me cold, or ungrateful, yet all I find I can do now is to beg your pardon for treating you so brusquely.”
Seeing her look to him expectantly, Laurence allowed the words to leave his mouth at last. “It’s nothing, Miss Ramsbury. I insist you have given no offence, and you are as welcome here as you ever were.”
Seeing the relieved smile spread across Alicia’s face gave Laurence a shiver down his spine that he could not explain, one that put an equal smile on his own lips.
“Perhaps, if it’s not too much to ask…” she began coyly.
Nothing would be too much to ask, for you.
“Yes?” Laurence asked.
Alicia rocked back and forth on her toes in a playfully girlish posture. “Could we begin our acquaintance again? From the beginning? Only if that isn’t too large or too silly a request.”
Laurence grinned. “A chance to acquit myself as a bit less of a bumpkin? What man would turn down such an offer?”
They shared a relieved laugh, then Laurence gave his deepest, most exaggerated imitation of a high society bow as he could manage. “Mister Laurence Gillingham. At your service, my lady.”
Alicia matched this greeting with a curtsy, delicately lifting her skirts and dipping low to the ground. “Miss Alicia Ramsbury.Enchanté.”
Laurence gestured to the open doorway that led to the dining room, realizing suddenly that Margaret’s summons had gone unanswered for several long minutes now. “May I escort Miss Ramsbury in to supper?” He stifled a gasp when she stepped right next to him and wrapped her arm delicately around his, and side by side they walked into the dining room.
Though Laurence had been taken by surprise by Alicia’s request to renew their relationship from the beginning, it was immediately apparent that this was a wise way to proceed. The conversation they shared with Mary-Anne and Jenny over their hearty meal was downright dazzling. Over the course of three hours that passed like minutes, Laurence learned a great many things about Alicia Ramsbury and laughed harder than he could remember having done in a great while.
Whatever sorcery Alicia had brought about, it seemed to extend beyond the words they shared, as well. Her maid Jenny opened up about her own life in a very welcome manner, and Mary-Anne and Alicia seemed to connect most agreeably over their mutual impressions of London life.
Though, Laurence could not help noting Mary-Anne casting strange, meaningful glances his way every so often.Surely just one of her usual games, he told himself before his gaze would fly back to Alicia’s beautiful green eyes, the colour of iridescent mossy stones.
By the time he retired to bed, exhausted from the day’s work and all his emotional turmoil, Laurence felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Sleep was a long while in coming, as every time he recalled Alicia’s shining face relating some anecdote or another at the table, he felt himself unable to stop smiling. Eventually, he dropped off into a warm and pleasant slumber, his cares left in the past where they belonged.
Yet somehow, even in sleep, he felt a gentle tug at his ankle. That intangible chain was still clamped onto him, he sensed it from within his dreams. What this portended he could not begin to guess.
