Page 72 of My Fair Lord

“I shall put it bluntly, as you seem determined to be obstinate in your understanding. I worry you are becoming romantically attached to him.”

Florence burst out laughing. “Oh my goodness, how ridiculous! You know well enough I have no romantic intentions towards anybody. When have I ever done so?”

“You haven’t. Perhaps that’s the problem. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you spending so much time with someone male. Watching you dance together last night, it was…”

Cordelia gazed out of the window, a wistful expression on her face. “It made me feel almost envious of the days when Twemlow and I were first courting. You seem to breathe life into each other.”

“What a lovely thing to say.” Florence smiled. The image filled her mind with flowers budding and blooming in spring sunshine and warmth began to spread through her. It had been a lovely moment. She could have danced throughout the night if she’d had the chance.

“Yes, I suppose we do get on very well. It’s invigorating having someone I can really talk to. Do you know, I feel as if he is almost a friend. I shouldn’t tell you, but I have asked him to call me Florence, and I call him Ned.”

Cordelia reached across the seat and took Florence’s hand, squeezing her fingers tighter than Florence thought warranted.

“Oh my dear, you do understand he can never be anything more than a friend, and a distant one at that, don’t you? Even if you succeed in persuading father that a husband with a title is not the only possibility, he will never agree to you marrying somebody without connections who hires himself out the way Mr Blake does. You might as well marry a greengrocer.”

Florence pulled her hand free of her sister’s.

“This is exactly why the whole matter of marriage and status offends me. Mr Blake has proven he can be just as gentlemanly as anyone. He is loyal to his friends and kind. He has ambition and is not above working hard. Just look at what a fine man he has become in the past few weeks.”

She paused for breath. Cordelia eyed her seriously.

“Do you hear yourself? Is it any wonder I’m concerned when you speak of him in such glowing terms?”

Florence crossed her arms angrily. “So what if I do? Can’t I admire someone without you sniffing out gossip? I have no desire to get married and I’m certainly not romantically attached to Mr Blake,” she snapped. “He wouldn’t want me to be, in any case.”

Cordelia’s brow knotted. “Are you sure? The more I think about it, the more I think Mrs Glenarris is right. Mr Blake has his eye on you. I’d like to think it was because he is in love with you, but what if he’s just after a rich wife?”

“What if he isn’t? What if he genuinely loves me? Isn’t that a possibility? I’m loveable, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are, darling,” Cordelia said, attempting to give Florence a hug.

Florence shrugged her off. She pressed her hands together, feeling each fingertip against its opposite. She sat in silence until they arrived at the hotel, barely bidding Cordelia good day as the porters showed them to their accommodation.

The Wakechild party occupied a suite on the tenth floor of the hotel, with a private sitting room, two bathrooms, and an office for Clayton’s personal use. A note was waiting for Florence telling her to come to the sitting room at four. She presumed the Griggses would have one also.

She had an hour to spare so instructed Dottie to draw her a bath. The luxury of heated rooms and hot water plumbed straight into the bathroom was something she decided she would never take for granted again. All the same, there was something lacking in the newness of the rooms that made her think kindly of the old solidity of Goreswarth Chase.

She wallowed in the lavender-scented water for almost twenty minutes, hoping it would allow her to release some of the annoyance that had built up inside her.

The bath failed to rid herself of her tension, so she gave up and dressed in a smart outfit of powder-blue skirt and short jacket with a ruffled white blouse beneath it. As she buttoned the cuffs of the sleeves, she realised her hand was trembling with nerves at the thought of what Clayton was about to tell her.

Was the business in ruins? That would be dreadful, though there was a small disloyal part of her that thought that if they no longer had a fortune, then no English lord would want her. If she was suddenly, miraculously, financially unattractive as a bride and her father could no longer make use of her, would Ned want her? She thought enviously of the eloping newspaper heir and his countess. How brave must they be, and how much in love.

She pressed her hand to her belly, feeling it dipping as if she were still on the sea as she imagined a life with Ned. She wouldn’t need much: three or four rooms at most. Cordelia and Twemlow might even have a cottage on the estate they could make use of, for example.

Cordelia’s warning came back to her. What if Cordelia was correct and he only wanted her as a rich wife? Well, she’d rather know if that was the case. With dreams and possibilities spinning in her head, she made her way into the sitting room.

Her father was already there and had started on the spread of coffee and cakes that were piled high on silver stands. Florence threw herself into her father’s arms and hugged him tightly.

“Daddy, it’s so lovely to see you. Oh I wish we could have done this in England though. I have so much to tell you. We met the most interesting person on the ship.”

“Florence dearest, I’m so sorry we had to spoil your plans by returning, but don’t worry, not all the news I have is bleak.”

Not all.

So some of it was bleak. Florence pulled away, searching his face for signs of illness or trouble.

“You look well,” she said. “Are you really though? Appearances can so easily deceive. Are you ill? We’ve been so worried ever since we got your letter. What brought you back? Why have you brought us back? You must tell us at once what has happened.”