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“Lady Louisa,” he said gently, “I promised you a stroll in the garden, and yet here we are, still on the terrace, when we could be enjoying the moonlight and the fragrance of the flowers.” He offered her his arm. “May we?”
She felt so helpless, so vulnerable. But what was she to do? She’d already given her word regarding marriage to him. “Very well,” she said.
* * *
They descended the stairs into the garden, Lady Louisa’s hand tucked tentatively in the crook of William’s arm, and walked along the path that led to a lush bed of roses. And all the while, William felt an aching constriction at the back of his throat. Her words had struck at him like knives.
“What of me? What of my hopes and dreams? What of love?” she had cried.
He recalled his mother’s words—words flung at his father. William had been but a young lad at the time, standing outside the door of her room, eager to show her his latest drawing. “What of me? And what of your son? Have you no love for us?” Even at William’s tender age, he’d recognized the desperation in her voice.
He pushed the thought away. “Your brothers are devoted to you,” he said to Lady Louisa. He had to say something to break the silence.
“There have been plenty of times over the years when I would have called them pestilential rather than devoted,” she replied in a slightly nasally voice as a result of her tears. “Including today.”
William knew what a truly pestilential person was like, and her brothers didn’t qualify. “They love you.”
She heaved a sighed. “I know they do, and I feel the same about them. If anything were to happen to either of them—well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I worry about them, you see. I spent my childhood chasing after them; I know the kinds of mischief they got into back then. It actually served me well a time or two, as I was able to blackmail them into including me in some of their less dangerous escapades.” She sniffled and wiped her nose again.
William had the sudden urge to kiss that nose, swollen and red though it was at present—for, truly, her nature was so opposite his own that he found her captivating. His eyes dropped from her nose to her lips . . .
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” she muttered. “I suppose it’s because they’re right.”
He pulled his attention back to the train of the conversation. “About?” he asked.
“About how once I begin to speak, I can’t seem to stop.”
“I haven’t found that to be the case. Your brothers were only teasing.” William didn’t think he’d ever met anyone so ingenuous, so guileless and open as Lady Louisa Hargreaves. Did she know that every nuance of her emotions was apparent in her expressions and in her words? He doubted it.
He snapped a bloom from a rosebush with his free hand, briefly held it to his nose to breathe in its scent, and then handed it to her. “For you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But don’t try to make me like you, as I still feel inclined not to at present. Oh, but it does smell lovely, does it not?”
“Indeed.”
They walked along in silence again. William thought carefully about what to say next. He wanted to discuss their wedding plans further, but he didn’t want to broach the subject until he was certain she was of a frame of mind to do so. Considering how upset she’d been on the terrace, now was not the time—at least, not yet.
“I remember you from a visit you and your parents made to Eton,” he said finally.
“Do you?” she said, looking up at him in surprise.
The moon broke through the clouds then and illuminated her face—and her eyes, still slightly swollen from her earlier tears, glowed with curiosity. If he were a true artist and not a plodding amateur, he’d paint her just as she looked right now, he thought to himself, drinking in the sight of her. She was Diana, goddess of the moon—pure and youthful and, oh, so lovely. Unattainable. His studies of Roman and Greek mythology, along with the classics, while at university were infinitely more gratifying to him at this particular moment than they had been before. And then the clouds shielded the moon once again.
“You were wearing a blue dress,” he replied in answer to her query. “I remember because it matched your eyes quite remarkably. Of course, you were only a little girl and, therefore, of no interest to a houseful of sophisticated young gentlemen, including myself.”
“I was always envious of Alex and Anthony,” she said in a thoughtful tone. “Going off to Eton seemed such an adventure. I felt sorry for myself, stuck at home with my governess, Miss Leggett. She was wonderful company—we had a grand time together and became fast friends. We still correspond, and I miss her dreadfully. But Eton seemed vast and exciting and scholarly and . . . oh, I don’t know. Mysterious.”
“Let me assure you, there is nothing mysterious about a school full of boys.”
She actually laughed for the briefest moment, a soft, musical sound that plucked at William’s heartstrings. “With two brothers to my name, I must agree.” She looked off into the distance, although there wasn’t much to see in the nighttime darkness. “But I was referring to the exclusivity of the school, the subjects boys—not girls—were allowed to study.”
“Most boys would have used the term required rather than allowed,” he said.
“I wouldn’t. My father let me join Alex and Anthony with their tutor for part of each day until they went off to Eton. Quite forward thinking of him. I was better at Latin and Greek than either of my brothers—at least, I was before they left. They’ve surpassed me by quite a bit now, sadly; however, my French is much better than theirs.”
“Had you been allowed to attend Eton, then, you would have continued with your Greek and Latin studies?” he asked, surprised and pleased to find her so interested in academics—something he enjoyed as well.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I would have studied mathematics—I’m fairly good with numbers too—or astronomy or architecture or philosophy or, oh, I don’t know. There are so many things one can be curious about, you know? Perhaps I would not like any of the subjects once I began, but I would know that for a fact afterward, would I not? At any rate, I have certainly learned it to be true when it comes to ladies’ arts.”
