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Daniel placed the book to one side. “I am thankful it was on my feet I did land and not my arms or my head.” They gripped hands, and he insisted on Musgrave taking a seat.
“So, how goes things?” Musgrave glanced at the stack of books with a wrinkled nose.
Theodosia quietly made her exit.
As he watched her leave, a trace of disappointment crept through his gut that she barely spared him a glance.
“Balfour?”
“Forgive me.” Daniel returned his attention to his friend.
“Who would’ve thought the great Balfour would have his head turned at last?” Musgrave laughed. “She’s not unattractive, though cannot hold a candle to her sister, of course. Still, she’d be quite a picture if it weren’t for that mark on her face.”
“I do not notice it.” He noticed other things, like the velvety caress of her voice and the way her laughter tinkled like a mountain stream. Although—he frowned—he had heard neither as much as he would like recently. Was her sister’s presence still draining?
“She is Major Stapleton’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I recall talk about him. They say he was a brave ’un.”
“I rather think courage runs in her veins too.” The look of enquiry shown him made him elaborate. “Have you met the general?”
“General Contrary. Indeed, I have, just now.”
Daniel smiled wryly. “I’m given to understand most people in these parts stand in awe or fear of the master of the house.”
“That does not surprise me. You know what he said to me when I said it a pleasure to meet him? He told me no, it wasn’t. That my foisting myself upon you was a matter of infernal impudence and inconvenience, and that any introduction between us was a matter of social obligation, not anything else.”
Oh no.
“When I tried to plead the opposite, he cut me off. If it hadn’t been for Miss Stapleton’s intervention, and assurance that matters being what they were I simply had to stay here at Stapleton, then I would have departed right then and there. Indeed, I’m in half a mind to do so still.”
“If anyone can make him see reason, it’s Miss Stapleton. My interactions with her grandfather show he requires tact and sense, qualities Miss Stapleton seems to possess in abundance.”
Perhaps he’d spoken more warmly than he meant, for he surprised a look of calculation in his friend’s eye. “She seems a veritable paragon.”
“She is.”
His friend released a low whistle. “I certainly did not expect a lass from this part of England to be the one to steal your heart.”
“Steal my—? Really, Musgrave. I did not suspect you to lack such finesse.”
“So, there isn’t interest in that quarter?” The lieutenant studied Daniel’s splinted leg with pursed lip and puckered brow.
“I cannot afford for there to be.”
“Hmm.” Again, that look of speculation. “Well, I met a dragon in the drawing room. Some Bellingham woman. A local nabob’s wife, it seems. Appeared rather interested in you.”
“It seems most strange, when she deigned to not recognize me upon our first and only meeting.”
“You met her?”
“Many weeks ago now, it appears. Before this.” Daniel gestured to his leg. “She did not seem to hold the opinion that a supposed hero could possess looks like mine.”
“Such vanity,” murmured Musgrave.
Daniel chuckled. “I could not crush her expectations that a man more befitting your appearance should be welcomed into the area with a hundred turtle dinners and the like.”
