He’d stopped speaking, and she glanced up and found him watching her. Watching her watching him. Her cheeks warmed. Amusement glimmered in his eyes. And then she realized it wasn’t just him—everyone in the room was looking at her. Expectantly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, addressing the ladies. “Were you talking to me? I’m afraid I was woolgathering.”
“Quite all right, my dear,” the older lady said, with a knowing sidelong glance at her companion. “I was just wondering whether you and your goddaughter are planning to attend the Peplowe masquerade ball next week.”
“Yes, indeed, we’re looking forward to it, aren’t we, Lucy?” Alice said, willing her blush to fade. “Lady Peplowe and her daughter called here earlier.” Lady Peplowe had very kindly sent a note the previous day adding Lucy to Alice’s invitation, and assuring Alice that had she known Lucy was visiting, she would have been included in the original invitation. Alice was delighted. Penny Peplowe was a thoroughly nice girl, the kind that she hoped Lucy would become friends with.
The talk then turned to costumes, but as nobody wanted to reveal their costume plans in advance, the conversation soon dwindled. The two ladies rose to take their leave. Lord Tarrant rose also and bid them a courteous goodbye but made no move to follow them out.
The two ladies exchanged glances once more, and Alice, hoping Lord Tarrant would take the hint, took Lucy with her as she escorted them to the front door, leaving Lord Tarrant alone in the drawing room.
* * *
* * *
James leaned back in the very comfortable chair, crossed his legs and settled down to await her return. He was perfectly aware she wanted him to leave, but he had something to say to her first.
He’d learned a few things about her in the time between dancing with her at the party the other night and calling on her this afternoon. From what he could gather, she’d had a number of men sniffing around her skirts and had given every one of them short shrift.
From the prickly way she’d reacted to him on the previous two occasions, she was expecting more of the same from him. Even though he suspected she was feeling much the same attraction to him that he felt to her.
Which was interesting. For a woman who’d been married for eighteen years and was now widowed, there was a strange kind of innocence about her.
He needed to get to know her better. But first he had to get her to relax around him. He had a plan for that.
“Still here, Lord Tarrant?” she said as she entered the drawing room. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, a pointed reminder that he’d stayed nearly three quarters of an hour. And most enlightening he’d found it. The old tabbies were trying to match her off, trying to foist some spineless nonentity onto her. And she was trying to match her goddaughter up with whoever she could.
The goddaughter—now, she was a bit of a mystery. A minx, he thought, and sharp enough to cut herself. She’d lead some man a merry dance.
He’d risen to his feet as she entered. “Thank goodness. I thought they’d never leave.” He also thanked goodness—silently—that the goddaughter hadn’t yet returned. He had Alice all to himself. He couldn’t think of her as Lady Charlton, not when that harpy, Gerald’s mother, had the same title. But convention had to be observed.
“It is polite to stay for no more than twenty minutes,” she said crisply. He sat down again, but this time took the chair next to hers. Alice gave him a startled look and edged slightly away, smoothing her skirt.
“I know, but I wanted to ask you something. In private.”
She stiffened, took a deep breath, then said in a rush, “Thank you for your interest, Lord Tarrant, but I must—I wish to make it clear that—” She broke off, her cheeks delightfully rosy. She took another deep breath and continued, “I must tell you that I am not interested in any, um . . . in any kind of liaison—respectable or . . . or otherwise.” She met his eye. It was some kind of gauntlet then.
He raised a brow, and she added firmly, “In other words, I have no interest in marrying again, or in pursuing any, um . . . anything else.”
“I see.” James kept his voice solemn. She was adorable. And charmingly flustered. “You’ve made your position very clear,” he assured her. “No ‘um’ or anything of that nature. Understood. What about friendship?”
She blinked. “Friendship?”
“It can happen between consenting adults of the opposite sex, I believe.”
“You don’t mean . . .”
“I’m talking about simple, everyday, out-in-the-open friendship. Of the completely respectable kind.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “It’s not a euphemism?”
“For ‘um’? Definitely not.”
“Oh.” Was that disappointment he heard in her voice? Or relief?
She still appeared wary of his motives. Time to play his three little aces. “The thing is, I have three small daughters who I haven’t seen for four years—I’ve never even seen the youngest. I’m planning to bring them to London to live with me. They’re living with their maternal grandparents at the moment, but I want them with me.”
“Daughters? You have three young daughters? You’re married, then?”
“Widowed these four years.”
“Oh.” Quite a different kind of oh from the previous one.
“I’ve sent for my old nanny, and I suppose I’ll hire a governess eventually, but”—he gave her a frank, manly look—“I’m a man, a former soldier, and out of my depth with young females. It would be good to have a friend—a female friend—to talk things over with and to advise me from time to time.”
“Ohhh. You want a friend to advise you about your daughters? A female friend.”
“Exactly.” He leaned across and placed his hand over hers. “So, Lady Charlton, would you consent to be that friend?”
She looked at his hand and hesitated. “Of course I would be glad to advise you about your daughters but—” She broke off as Miss Bamber came skipping into the room.
“Sorry, I— Oops. Have I interrupted something?”
Alice snatched her hand away. “Not at all. Lord Tarrant was just leaving.”
James, who had risen to his feet after Miss Bamber entered, said. “Not quite yet. I have something to ask you first.”
Lucy immediately turned to leave. “I’ll go.”
“Stay right where you are, Lucy,” Alice said. The girl glanced at her godmother in surprise.
“Yes, stay, Miss Bamber,” James said easily. “This concerns you as well.”