“Shall I tell you, my dear, dear heart, that I think he will, for if I tell you that, you will say I am not thinking clearly. Instead, I will say that I mean to do what I have to do and the future is the future. I can handle the outcome.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Donna said, eyeing her.
Bess laughed. “Come on—I have no doubt that by now Robby and Thomas are looking for something to eat!”
* * *
Restless, Bess pushed away her dinner plate and played with the pretty pearl ring her mother had given her when she had turned sixteen.
Earlier, in the late afternoon, when high tea came and went and the earl had not returned, she had begun to pace. This did not satisfy her, so she took a long walk alone to sort out her thoughts. When she returned to the house and discovered he had not yet returned, she was aware that both her lips and her shoulders drooped.
She told herself it was because she was so anxious to know the outcome of the earl’s travels, but she felt the weight of the truth.
She had become far too attached to the Earl of Dunkirk and was fairly certain she would never feel this way again. This was not the discomfort of infatuation. Infatuation, she knew, would fade for a woman when she began to see the object of her affection lose his glow and become human. She, however, saw the earl with all his foibles. She saw his dark side as well as his good side and had weighed each in her mind. She knew she could not change him, did not in fact, wish to change him. She wanted him just the way he was.
She was also aware that the earl, for her, always stood out like a glorious god, capable of deep, undivided love.
Could he love her? Had he begun to love her?
He saw her as an innocent. He saw himself as jaded. She had to do something to change that vision he had.
She had to place herself in a position that would make him confront what he felt—and her instincts told her he did feel for her.
She sensed that he believed he had been too much a libertine to offer for an innocent. So, she had made up her mind and conceived a plan. What if she were not an innocent? What if she were as naughty as he? As saucy as he? What then?
Dinner had been served late, as she had told Anna they wanted to wait for the earl, but when eight o’clock came and went she finally gave in to Robby’s whining, and they sat to a quiet meal.
Maddy had taken Thomas up soon after he finished his dessert, while she had still been playing with her food, unable to swallow very much.
Robby eyed her and asked, “Not going to eat that?”
“No, not really hungry,” she said on a half smile.
He reached for it, and his wife slapped his hand. He turned to her and exclaimed, “No sense it going to waste.”
“Robby!” Bess laughed and shook her head. “Where do you put it all?”
He sat up straight and grinned. “Muscle.”
His wife roared with laughter and then sat back to look at Bess, who sat across from her. She said soothingly, “When the earl left, Bess, I did have the impression he thought it might take all day.”
“Yes, but it is quite late,” Bess said on a frown.
Donna said nothing to this, and Bess sighed and got to her feet to do a tour around the room while Robby gobbled up the contents of her dinner dish.
“You will choke if you eat so fast,” his wife said to him.
He simply grinned and continued to stuff himself. The women exchanged glances as Donna rolled her eyes and laughed.
Robby was done soon after this, and Bess followed them to the library, where a fire was waiting for them. Robby poured the ladies some sherry and a glass of brandy for himself.
Anxious, Bess downed her glass and handed it to Robby to refill. He raised a brow but did just that, and once again Bess downed it.
They sat in comfortable silence for a time, and then Bess got to her feet and refilled her glass. Robby barked a laugh. “You’ll end foxed, m’dear.”
“Oh, let her—it is just what she needs,” said Donna, who stretched out her hand with her own glass and said, “Another, Bess, for me as well.”
“Well, if you are serving, then I shall have another brandy.” Robby grinned widely.