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Lord Farleigh ignored him. He turned instead to Louisa and bowed over the hand she extended to him. “Lady Louisa, you are a vision of loveliness.”
At some point during the introductions, she had risen to her feet, although she couldn’t remember doing so, anxious as she’d been about how her brothers would behave.
“Much better than the other night when she had looked a portent of foul weather,” Alex murmured.
Louisa watched Lord Farleigh’s eyebrows come together in confusion, and Anthony and Alex shared a look that said they thought they’d been fairly prophetic in their comments about her dress.
“One would think we’d reared our sons to have no decorum at all, Ashworth,” Mama said in a tone intended to be taken seriously.
“Thank you for the compliment, Lord Farleigh,” Louisa added quickly, shooting a warning glance at Alex, unsure exactly how to move the conversation along to a topic that her brothers wouldn’t take down an undesirable path.
Gibbs entered the room—none too soon, in Louisa’s estimation. “Dinner is served,” he announced.
Louisa let out a breath. Perhaps chewing food would keep her brothers’ mouths too busy to speak. One could always hope.
Lord Farleigh offered her his arm. “May I have the honor?”
She laid her hand on his arm as lightly as she could, and they proceeded to the dining room. Her father took his normal place at the head of the table, but because they were eating informally, Louisa’s mother sat to his right, with Alex next to her. Lord Farleigh sat to her father’s left, and Louisa was next, with Anthony seated on her other side. At least if Alex offered veiled insults to their guest, she could kick him under the table.
“Ah, Eton,” Alex said as he draped his lap with his napkin while the soup was being served. “Jolly times they were, eh, Farleigh?”
“Yes,” Lord Farleigh answered in a noncommittal tone.
“Hmm.” Alex drummed his fingers on the table, which earned another look of consternation from Mama. “I’m trying to recollect who your mates were at the time. I must confess I avoided the older boys as much as possible—it was safer for my physical well-being that way.”
“I’m sure your mother and sister don’t wish to hear about the antics young men get into while at school, Halford,” Papa said.
“I doubt anything I say will be a surprise to either of them, but I take your point, Father.”
As Louisa had observed or been included in plenty of boyhood antics during her lifetime, she had to agree with Alex on this one, but she said nothing and concentrated on her soup.
“Alex and I went to Cambridge when our Eton years concluded, but I don’t recall seeing you there,” Anthony said, changing the subject. “Excellent soup, by the way, Mama.”
Anthony, Louisa’s more subtle brother, was fishing for information from Lord Farleigh about how he’d spent the past few years, without coming right out and asking. Louisa hoped Lord Farleigh would take the bait. She wanted to learn as much as she could about him before she was married to him. It would be dreadful to learn he was of low character after they were married, when it was too late to do anything about it.
“Thank you, Anthony,” Mama said. “I shall pass that along to Cook.”
“I was at Oxford,” Lord Farleigh said. “The soup is indeed excellent, Lady Ashworth.”
Mama smiled politely.
“I’m an Oxford man, myself,” Papa said. “Couldn’t convince my sons to follow suit, however.”
“Too close to home, Father,” Alex said with a wink. “A young man needs to learn, ah . . . independence . . . in a way that is best accomplished by distance from his parents.”
“Agreed,” Anthony said with a smile before taking a spoonful of soup.
Lord Farleigh said nothing.
Throughout the remainder of supper, Louisa was more silent than was her usual tendency. She was too busy observing her parents observing Lord Farleigh, and she was too busy observing Lord Farleigh as well. Louisa’s brothers continued to attempt to engage the viscount in conversation about their years at Eton and mutual friends and acquaintances from that time. Her parents allowed them to take the lead, only offering the occasional comment during the ebb and flow of conversation.
Lord Farleigh was similar to her brothers in many ways, Louisa noted. He was congenial enough and was intelligent and well-spoken, albeit his responses were brief and seemed intended to give the least amount of information possible. Was he simply a quiet man, or did he have something to hide?
As the dessert dishes were cleared away, Lord Farleigh set his napkin down. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Ashworth, Lady Ashworth. Would you mind if I invited Lady Louisa for a walk in your gardens? Lady Louisa, would you care for a stroll?”
Since they were dining informally, Louisa had fully expected she and Mama would retire to the sitting room, allowing her father and brothers the freedom to enjoy a glass of port and interrogate Lord Farleigh to their hearts’ content, as they would no longer be in mixed company. She looked at him in surprise, unsure quite how to respond.
“I suppose we did monopolize the conversation at supper, did we not, Alex?” Anthony said before she could articulate a reply. “But, Farleigh, you must be warned. On most occasions, Louisa is more verbal than we two brothers combined. Once our baby sister begins talking, there are few ways to get her to stop.”
