Page 42 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

“Is the poetry not to your liking?” Lord Lynden asked.

She looked up with a start. He was watching her from beneath furrowed brows, his newspaper folded on the seat beside him. “What? Oh, no, my lord. It’s very diverting.”

“You haven’t turned the page for the past hour,” he observed.

Her cheeks colored. “Haven’t I?”

“I trust you’re not fretting over meeting Lady Hermione.”

She smoothed a nonexistent crease in her skirts. For the journey, she’d worn one of the new dresses Tristan had bought her in York. It had a tight woolen jacket bodice and matching woolen skirts, swelled out to a magnificent size over her petticoats and crinoline. Made in a rich shade of mink brown and trimmed sparingly with military-style frogging and braid, it was really more of an afternoon dress than a carriage gown. Still, Valentine thought it more than sufficed for the journey. With her hair rolled up in a hairnet and a new hat perched atop her head, she looked neat as a pin. There would be nothing to criticize in her appearance, at least. Nothing by which Lady Hermione Caddington could outwardly judge her.

“Yes,” she confessed. “I am rather.”

“There’s no need.” Lord Lynden lifted his newspaper again and straightened the rumpled pages with a shake of his hands. She waited for him to say something more, but he seemed to consider the conversation at an end.

She looked out the window for a while, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, before turning her gaze back to Lord Lynden. He wasn’t very like his son. He didn’t laugh or tease or flash a wolfish grin. Nor did he exhibit Tristan’s penchant for brooding. He was, in short, not a temperamental man. He was stern and steady. Some might say cold-blooded.

But he’d been inordinately kind to her. Granted, it might well be that he was only being kind in order to get her away from his son—as far and as fast as possible. Whatever Tristan believed about his father’s motives, Lord Lynden surely recognized that she was ineligible. She was a woman of no birth and no breeding. A bastard. A notorious one at that. He must be appalled at the very suggestion that such a person could one day ascend to the title of Countess of Lynden.

“My lord,” she began in a small, hesitant voice.

The earl cast her a distracted glance from over the top of his newspaper. “What’s that, Miss March?”

“Did Lord St. Ashton indicate… That is to say…did he happen to mention when he might join us in London?”

“If he’s indeed gone to Northumberland, it will take him several months to assess the state of things at Blackburn Priory and begin repairs. I don’t expect we’ll see him until after the New Year.”

Valentine fidgeted with one of her gloves. His answer wasn’t quite the one she’d been hoping for.

And what in heaven did he mean, if Tristan had indeed gone to Northumberland? Where else in the world would he have gone?

“Won’t he come back for Christmas?” she asked.

“Can’t say he shared many of his plans with me. It was early hours and he was in a black mood. St. Ashton doesn’t normally rise before noon—not in my experience.” Lord Lynden shook his newspaper again and resumed reading. And then he frowned. “Blast,” he muttered. The newspaper was cast aside and he began to rummage through the interior pockets of his capacious travelling coat. In a moment, he withdrew a folded piece of notepaper. “Forgive me, Miss March. I should have given this to you at the station. In all that commotion with the porter, it entirely slipped my mind.”

Valentine took the note from his extended hand. She didn’t ask from whom it came. It was obvious to both her and her rapidly skipping pulse. She held the note in her lap until Lord Lynden returned to his newspaper. When he was well and truly occupied, she unfolded the sheet of paper and began to read.

My Dear Miss March,

I’ve been exiled to Northumberland for the next several months. I’m told I must give you time to look about you. Pray do so. But know this: while you’re confronting a bevy of over-proud Caddingtons, I’ll be embarking on a far more perilous mission. I’ll be alone, serious and sober, laboring to restore Blackburn Priory and endeavoring to justify your faith in me. When we meet again in the months to come, I hope you’ll find me a better and worthier man. Until then, I remain your flawed, but still very much devoted,

St. Ashton

Valentine’s cheeks warmed as she read Tristan’s message a second time. She might have read it a third time, but she sensed that Lord Lynden was once again observing her from over the top of his newspaper. She carefully folded the sheet of notepaper and slipped it into her reticule.

“I assume that all is now right with the world?” Lord Lynden said.

Her blush deepened at the earl’s dry tone. “Yes, I feel much better now, thank you.”

He regarded her with a thoughtful expression. “Take care, my dear. Many a lady has fancied she would be the making of my son and many a lady has been disappointed.”

Valentine wished people would stop warning her about Tristan’s unreliability. It was fast becoming exasperating. “Lord St. Ashton shall be the making of himself. I have nothing at all to do with it.”

“No? Well, I commend you on your good sense. It’s a commodity that’s been in short supply of late.” He paused. “I expect your father, the vicar, was a sensible fellow.”

“He was, sir.”

“Sensible enough to marry your mother.”