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In the meantime, though, she had agreed to take tea with Lady Carling in the afternoon. She could have walked or taken the carriage to Curzon Street, as she had pointed out to the earl last evening. But he had insisted that he would come and escort her there himself. He arrived earlier than she expected. "I am under orders to woo you in public, Miss Huxtable," he said after they had stepped out of the house, leaving Stephen standing in the hallway like a concerned and brooding parent. "We will walk to my mother's house by a circuitous route, then, and go through the park. It is a lovely day and there are bound to be crowds there even this early in the afternoon." "I daresay there will," she agreed, taking his offered arm. "I would have brought a curricle in which to convey you," he said, "except that I do not have a curricle, I am afraid. I really am quite impoverished, you see." "Walking is better exercise anyway," she said. "But am I now intended to feel so sorry for you, Lord Sheringford, that I will agree to marry you tomorrow if not sooner in order to restore your funds?" "/Do/ you?" he asked. "And /will/ you?" "No," she said. "Then I did not intend any such thing," he said.
Margaret smiled. "Had you seen Mr. Turner before last evening?" she asked as they walked in the direction of Hyde Park. "Since your elopement with his wife, I mean?" "No," he said. "Nor his sister either, since the evening before my pla
Turner and Mr. and Mrs. Pe
What they saw was the Earl of Sheringford leaning his head closer to hers and looking very directly into her eyes as his free hand came up to cover hers on his arm. A deliberately intimate gesture? Well, she had asked for it. "Things are not always what they seem, Miss Huxtable," the earl said.
No, indeed. She half smiled. "Meaning that you are not wicked after all?" she said. "You did not really abandon the bride you professed to love? You did not really run off with another man's wife and live in sin with her for five years? We all know that gossip can err, but can it err to quite such a degree?" "I did not love Caroline by the time I abandoned her," he said, "though that fact in itself did not excuse me for doing so. I daresay nothing did. And Laura Turner was very willing to run away with me, a fact that did not at all excuse me for taking her, I suppose. I daresay nothing did. Yes, Miss Huxtable, I must concede that by your definition of wickedness I am doubtless very evil indeed." He curled his fingers about hers as an open barouche of ladies bowled past, and moved his head a fraction closer. "By /anyone's/ definition," she said. "If you will." Constantine was cantering toward them with a few other gentlemen, all of whom Margaret knew. They reined in and stopped for a few moments to exchange greetings. All of them called the earl /Sherry/. Gentlemen, it occurred to Margaret, forgave far more easily than ladies did. Perhaps they envied a man who did as he pleased and thumbed his nose at society – and hurt other people in the process. "Margaret," Constantine said, fixing her with a very direct look. "Your fame grows with every morning paper. May I join you and Sherry on your walk?" "Thank you, Constantine," she said, "but we are on our way to take tea with Lady Carling." "And I promise most faithfully, Con," Lord Sheringford said, "to chase away any wolves who take it into their heads to try to devour Miss Huxtable on the way." Constantine gave him a hard look before riding off with the other gentlemen. "It must be gratifying," the earl said, "to have so many people willing to champion your person against any and all villains." "It is," she agreed. "But I warned you it would happen." "Is it," he asked her, "why you decided to receive me yesterday instead of having Merton send me packing? Is it why you did not dismiss my offer out of hand when you /did/ see me? And why you invited me to the theater last evening and agreed to take tea with my mother this afternoon? Is it simply /because/ all your champions are set against your allying yourself with me? Are you a secret rebel, Miss Huxtable?" She was begi
And that is the whole point of these two weeks of courtship – getting to know who you really are, that is." "I believe," he said, "you are attracted to me, Miss Huxtable, and are looking for a way to rationalize a desire to marry me." "You may believe what you choose, Lord Sheringford," she said sharply. "But neither a reluctance to take unsolicited advice from the rest of the world nor any personal attraction I may or may not feel toward your person would impel me into doing something against my character or principles. Marrying you would seem an extremely … /unprincipled/ thing to do. And you have said nothing so far that would make it seem less so.
You have made no attempt to excuse your past behavior, and you have made no effort to show me how… reformed you are now." He had turned them while she spoke onto a narrower path, one that led toward a grove of ancient oak trees. It was less crowded than the main path they had just left. "Enough public wooing for now," he said, dropping his free hand to his side again and lifting his head to the vertical. "The past ca