“That would be excessively wicked of you.” Alice looked down at their joined hands, not pulling away, but not offering any encouragement either. “You could at least think them something more pleasant. Rabbits, perhaps. Or hedgehogs.”
He drew slightly nearer, studying her eyes beneath the glass of her spectacles. “And what classification would I put you beneath, Alice?”
Her gaze met his, and her lips parted. “I haven’t any idea, sir. Something small. Inconsequential.”
He shook his head, the movement slight. He leaned closer. “Never that. Perhaps the Polyommatus coridon. They are butterflies, with soft, white-tipped wings, though they are a bright blue at the center. They flutter above the low-growing flowers, bringing notice to themselves and the beauty people too often ignore.”
She tipped her head upward, her lovely eyes studying his. “They sound enchanting.”
“As are you, Alice.”
Before he could breathe another word, a door down the hall clicked open.
Alice sprang backward, making him realize they had stood near enough to kiss.
He took a step back, too, before looking over his shoulder. It was Miss Felton, backing out of the room where her charges likely slept. She turned around and raised both eyebrows, seeing them together in the hall.
“Thank you for bringing Lord James back, Mr. Gardiner,” Alice said, her voice firm and impersonal. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Rupert turned his attention back to her and bowed. “Good evening, Miss Sharpe.” Then he had no choice but to leave, nodding at Miss Felton as he went. He said nothing to her, and he schooled his features into the mask of a proper gentleman.
But for the rest of the evening, all he could do was debate whether or not it had been a good thing that someone had interrupted the moment between Alice and him.
Because he was fairly certain he had been about to kiss his beautiful blue butterfly...
Chapter 15
Alice didn’t so much as glimpse Rupert for a week after the children’s performance. He sent flowers, sketches, and an impersonal note wishing her well. She returned the sketches to his valet when she completed them.
The duke’s guests left after the ball, which Alice heard about from Lady Josephine and Emma when they came for tea in the schoolroom.
They had both danced with Rupert, they informed her, and found superb entertainment when he told them he had been categorizing the ladies at the event into different insect families.
Otherwise, the routine went back to what it had been before the guests’ arrival, but the reprieve was brief. June arrived, and with it more preparations for the duke to receive visitors.
“Simon is coming home,” Lord James announced one morning after his return from his father’s study. With the guests gone, the duke made time every morning for his youngest child. “Papa has had a letter from him, and he is bringing his friends.”
Talk of the duke’s eldest son returning home had come up nearly every day since Alice’s arrival.
Lady Isabelle and Lady Rosalind exchanged enthusiastic smiles. “Simon’s friends are always attractive,” Lady Isabelle said.
“You are both far too young to worry over such things,” Alice said without even looking up from her inspection of Lady Isabelle’s drawing of a Spanish mosque. She had copied the building from a book on the subject of the Moors in Spain. Alice had hopes that Lady Isabelle’s interest in religions would lead to some interest in architecture, or at least provide the girl with more understanding of the subject dear to her mother’s heart.
Lady Rosalind emitted a dramatic sigh, putting her chin in her hand and her elbow upon the table. “Someday we must pay attention to gentlemen. We will have to marry. Eventually.”
“Papa has said he will give us at least a little freedom to choose.” Lady Isabelle fiddled with the pencil in her grasp, twisting and turning it. “I think I should study gentlemen now so I will know what I like before I am made to wed.”
Alice looked up at the young woman. “Will your parents play a part in arranging your marriages?” She had not heard the girls speak of such a thing, though she knew that the highest ranks of the nobility were mostly populated through arrangement rather than affection.
“To an extent,” Lady Isabelle answered with a shrug. “Josephine is expected to make an advantageous match before she is five and twenty.”
“Oh.” Given that Josephine was only eighteen years of age, that gave her lots of time to settle on her choice. “What constitutes an advantageous match for the daughters of a duke? One would think you outrank every gentleman in the kingdom, excepting any princes.”
Lady Rosalind flipped a page in the book before her. “Money. Land. Any other title, I think, if Papa found the nobleman suitable.”
Lady Isabelle nodded her agreement. “Especially if the man was from another kingdom entirely. Papa is always saying that after the business with Napoleon that England must befriend more nations.”
“I do suppose that all makes sense.” Alice pointed to a spot on the sketch. “Here, I think you have curved this spire in too dramatically, Lady Isabelle.”
The girl set about correcting the mistake without complaint. She intended to paint her drawing, guided only by description of the building in the text.
“I don’t see why you are more excited about Simon’s friends than the fact that Simon is coming home.” Lord James dropped into a chair with a scowl. “We haven’t seen him in an entire year.”
The duke’s eldest son and heir, holding the honorary title of the Earl of Farleigh, had been on a tour of Greece and Italy, from what Alice had gathered. He had visited Spain, France, and Prussia in the last year, too.
Lady Rosalind poked her younger brother with a finger. “Oh, hush. You know we are excited to see Simon. But we have had more than enough letters from him.”
“You’re only hoping he brings you presents,” Lady Isabelle added with a knowing grin at her brother.
Lord James folded his arms. “I know he will, and you want presents as much as I do.”
The girls laughed, but before they could tease their little brother into a foul mood, Alice pronounced a break in their work. “I think we ought to go for a walk in the gardens before dinner. I have had quite enough of this room for the day. Do you agree, children?”
Their response was immediate approval, and they all rushed from the room to gather hats and parasols, and whatever things they wished to bring to the gardens with them.
Alice tidied the things upon the table and left the rest of the room for the maids. The servants would not touch their school things but could be depended upon to set the rest of the room to rights before the next morning. That left Alice more time to see to her own tasks, thankfully.
She had been with the family for an entire month, and each day made her feel more at ease in her position. Never had she belonged in a place all her own, independent of her family’s charity. Work was a far sight better than dependence.
Alice fixed her bonnet atop her head, tugged her gloves into place, and took her sketchbook with her to the corridor where the children waited. Lord James led the way down the steps and out into the sunshine. The girls talked excitedly between them, mostly about their brother’s friends who might accompany him home, and their younger brother skipped rope ahead of them, all the way down the path to the rose garden.