She smiled, still a bit weakly. “Scott.”
“If your butler upsets your ward so much, why do you keep him on?”
“Again, Scott, that is not my story to tell.”
Not at all the response he would have expected. What “story” was she not telling him?
Gillian had drawn closer in her circuit of the garden. She turned down the short path that led directly to the gazebo. Scott rose as she approached.
“Mrs. Millard told me you abducted Mrs. Brownlow.” Gillian had a lovely smile, though she didn’t allow it to show very often.
“You’ve sorted our plans, Gillian. Mrs. Brownlow and I are running off together. The gazebo was our first destination.”
She lifted an eyebrow in a show of saucy amusement. “You’re off to Gretna Green and didn’t even give your traveling companion any flowers?”
Scott stepped closer to her. “How do you know I didn’t?”
“I don’t see any.” Even her eyes were smiling, a nice change from the distance he’d felt from her the evening before. She liked a bit of banter; he was discovering that about her.
“It seems you are unfamiliar with the new variety of invisible flowers.”
Mrs. Brownlow laughed. And though the effort caused a bit of coughing, she didn’t seem overset.
Gillian moved to her side the moment the coughing began. “Do you need some water?”
“I’m fine.”
With a shake of her head, Gillian looked back at Scott. “I fear she may have a lung sensitivity to your invisible flowers. This is not a particularly good beginning to your elopement.”
“Has she always been this funny?” he asked Mrs. Brownlow.
“Was she not funny at the house party?”
“No.” He crossed to where Gillian stood. “If you had been, every gentleman there would have been clamoring to be the one to accompany you here.”
Her gaze and her voice dropped. “Don’t mock me.”
He slipped his hand around hers. “I’m not. I like funny Gillian. And I find myself wondering how many other versions of you I haven’t met yet.”
“You haven’t met fencing Gillian. She’s really sharp.”
With a grin he couldn’t hide, Scott said, “And now a pun. Where was all this during the house party?”
A hint of embarrassment touched her features. “I am not always comfortable around other people.”
He raised her hand to his lips and pressed the lightest of gentlemanly kisses there. “I am honored that you are comfortable enough with me to be more fully yourself.”
“And I am honored that you didn’t see fit to give me any of your putrid invisible flowers.”
How had he seen so little of this humorous and lighthearted aspect of her before? Why would she keep that hidden?
She pulled her hand free of his as she sat on the bench. Scott sat beside her, surprised to realize how much he missed her touch.
“I was in London with Gillian this Season,” Mrs. Brownlow said. “I don’t remember you being there, Scott.”
“I was not in London for the Season. I did not, in fact, journey to London for the previous Season either. And before that, I was in America.”
“Ah.” Mrs. Brownlow nodded. “That explains why we’ve never met.”