AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why would she see you as a threat?”
“Think about it, Drew. We’re here together in public. It looks to her as though you’re showing a preference for me.”
“Oh, I see. I suppose it could appear that way.” Because he’d invited her to Vauxhall with his family. Because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
He liked the way she made his sister’s eyes shine and brought her out of her shell.
When his mother looked at Mina, he could practically see the visions of plump infants parading across her mind, chubby little fingers grasping her finger, a babyish voice calling her “Grandmama.”
When Mina was nearby he couldn’t look at anything else. He found himself smiling for no reason. He’d caught himself in the glass before he left this evening with an unfamiliar curve to his lips.
How had she circumvented his defenses so easily, and so swiftly?
He was accustomed to control in all things. Control over his body, particularly his lips. He decided when to smile—and it wasn’t a decision made often.
She forced him to smile, to see the joy and absurdity in life. It was her boisterousness, her unpredictability. It should have set him on guard but instead it made him smile.
There was magic left in London. Full-bodied French wine on the tongue. A symphony carried on a summer’s breeze.
Mina’s eyes filled with wonder as she drank in the sights.
“I’m rash and impulsive,” she said. “My uncle was always trying to force me to be more circumspect. Oh, I wish I didn’t care what people thought of me. You don’t give a damn, do you?”
“I wouldn’t say that. When they call me half mad, it stings, even though there’s some truth there. I’m not whole, Mina. I haven’t been since the kidnapping. When I was a rake, London approved. They understood me then, they were able to classify me. I was fulfilling the right role. But now that I live in seclusion they think I’m mad for giving everything up—everything that they aspire to. They don’t understand something so they vilify it. London craves villains.”
They couldn’t comprehend why someone would give up the things that everyone else wanted in life—the easy access to opulence, the sycophancy, the power.
It wasn’t a true power. He’d given up trying to change things through Parliament.
Now he worked from within the agricultural system, one cottager at a time.
“Lady Millicent chose her words carefully, to wound me, but I allowed her barbs to reach their target.”
“You’re not impervious, you’re sensitive and you feel things deeply. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I want to say the right things, to make the right impression, but awkward speech just flies from my lips sometimes. You have a laconic way of speaking, almost as if you think your words aren’t that important. That whatever you say will be the right thing to say. But then titled gentlemen are born with an innate sense of worth, of their right to be in the world, and to occupy a large space in the world.”
“I try to always say exactly what I mean. My words may be sparse but they’ll never be false.”
Her gaze moved to the treetops. “You’ll probably hear my new nickname soon. Everyone will call me the Dueling Debutante. I may have insinuated that I wanted to challenge Lady Millicent to a duel.”
Drew snorted. “Oh Lord. Mina. You do know how to make an impression.”
She grinned ruefully. “I’m not denying the suitability of the moniker. But I feel stupid for playing into her hands. I must learn to be more controlled and detached.”
“Please don’t.” He touched her chin. “Don’t ever change. You have such an expressive face. Your every emotion scrolls across it like a magic lantern show.”
“Lantern show,” she repeated.
“You’re lit from within, Mina.” He traced the line of one of her eyebrows.
He wanted to kiss her so badly. Wasn’t that what dimly lit, unchaperoned garden paths were for?
A loud whistle sounded in the distance. They were alone.
“They’re lighting the lamps,” he said.
A thousand oil lamps, touched by cotton-wool fuses, the flame passing from one lamp to the next, illuminating the trees.
