Page 87 of My Fair Lord

When it was confirmed, he shook his head, laughing gently. If he hadn’t bumped into Van Hoon on the dockside, his whereabouts would have still been a mystery, buying him more time. Then again, Stretford would still have revealed his identity at the ball.

Stuffy and Florence.

His stomach clenched.

“Do you plan on staying long in New York, my lord?” Sturges-Lake asked. “I’ll send a telegram back to our London offices to inform them we have located you but they would appreciate learning when you’ll return to Yorkshire.”

“I can’t answer that at present,” Ned replied. “I’m not being contrary, but I have matters to attend to and I don’t know how long they will take me. I will contact you again when I have a better idea.”

Sturges-Lake didn’t enquire what the matters were and Ned wouldn’t have told him anyway. Florence had said the engagement hadn’t been announced. She was unwilling in any case. Was that tiny flicker of hope enough to become a beacon? Disrupting an engagement was far from the conduct an earl should display, but Ned was going to do his best regardless of propriety.

* * *

Florence couldn’t exactly remember how she got back to the hotel, but she must have because she found herself back in her bedroom, being addressed by Dottie the moment she walked through the door.

“Your father wants to see you as soon as possible. I told him you had gone to church.”

“Dottie, you are worth your weight in gold,” Florence said, hugging her maid. “Please tell him I’m back. I’ll go freshen up and go straight to see him.”

Dottie hurried out. Florence absentmindedly removed her coat and hat, barely seeing herself in the mirror.

Ned loved her, just as she loved him. Her heart soared then plummeted. So what if he did? So what if she did? She was already engaged.

With a sense of dread in her belly, she made her way into her father’s office. Clayton was sitting at his desk with a pile of ledgers. He turned and faced her, looking grim-faced.

“Now Florence, I demand that you tell me everything. Who is this man whose appearance made an absolute farce of last night’s events and with whom you danced so closely? Is he an earl or a viscount, or perhaps he’s the Grand Old Duke of York?”

“He is an earl,” Florence said. “I didn’t know it when we met. I thought he was just a normal person.”

“Indeed?” Clayton looked at her sternly. “Then what is your connection with him?”

Florence sucked her teeth. There was no way to explain how they had met that wouldn’t cause her father even more consternation.

“We met in Liverpool at the ball,” she said almost truthfully.

A knock at the door interrupted her before she had to go into more detail. The door opened and Cordelia and Twemlow walked in.

“I asked for privacy, Cordelia,” Clayton said sharply. It was a measure of his anger that he would ever consider speaking so sharply to his daughter in front of her husband.

Cordelia kissed her father’s cheek, ignoring the snappishness as if he hadn’t even spoken. “We don’t believe Florence should face you alone. The wager was partly our idea too.”

“A wager?”

“I hadn’t got to that part,” Florence said, wincing. “It’s the truth though. I bet Twemlow that I could pass a commoner off as a viscount’. He thought I couldn’t.”

Clayton leaned against the table, his expression one of astonishment. “This is worse than I even realised. Lord Griggs, I can scarcely bring myself to believe that you are involved.”

“But that’s my point,” Florence snapped. “You think that because Twemlow was born into wealth and family, he must be a cut above everyone else. You put him on a pedestal because he was born into wealth and family but he’s just a human, with flaws the same as the rest of us. No offence meant, Twemlow,” she added.

“None taken,” he said with a wave of his hand, looking quite unconcerned at the affront to his character. There was a knock on the door and he strolled off to answer it then left the room.

“But why?” Clayton asked.

“I wanted to show you that your absolute obsession with aristocracy is stupid,” Florence said. She put her hands to her head. “I wanted to prove that what you consider good breeding can be taught. We would have waited until you were convinced then revealed the truth.”

“Again, I ask why?” Clayton said, a touch more irritability in his voice.

“So you would stop your ridiculous determination to marry me off to anyone with a title.”