Page 7 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

The next words he read only confirmed his suspicions about her.

Lovers: none (rumored understanding w. Duls.).

He smirked at the abbreviation of the man’s title. So, she was going to marry her sons’ guardian, the dullard who’d tried to have him thrown out on his ear? How thoroughly conventional.

Nevertheless, a waste, in his not-so-humble estimation. Even blurry, the countess had struck him as attractive enough to do better. Then he shrugged off the thought.

Her love life—or lack thereof—wasn’t his concern.

After reading through the note twice more, memorizing its details, he dipped a corner of the paper into the chimney of the lamp. When the flame caught, he watched it devour Millrose’s precise penmanship, let it run up almost to his fingertips before dropping the blazing sheet of parchment. The charred remnants landed on a plate that still bore crumbs from the sandwich he’d scarfed down sometime late last night. Or early this morning.

This morning…

Given the time Hopkins’s message had arrived, Lady Kingston must have been already leaving the bookshop while other ladies of her ilk were still studying their invitations and refusing their breakfast. An early riser, then. Or motivated.

Motivated by a French geometry book? He tipped his head to one side. Possibly it had meant something special to her, or to someone else. A gift, then…but for whom? Not Dulsworthy, surely. Perhaps one of her sons?

A curl of smoke rose from the ashes of the dossier, forming itself into a plan.

Though he was more night owl than early bird, he’d call again first thing tomorrow, before anyone went in or out of Bartlett House. His future in Scott’s service rested on his safe recovery of the priceless intelligence in Lady Kingston’s possession. Nothing else mattered.

But he could not shake his awareness that, as long as the codebook remained in her hands, she and her family could be in danger.

* * * *

Lord Dulsworthy had timed the conclusion of their ride through Hyde Park so that it would be difficult for her to avoid inviting him to tea. Amanda knew it, though she could not prove it. And of course, if she did not issue an invitation, her mother more than likely would.

So, while he stepped down from the carriage and gave the reins to a groomsman, she forced herself to brighten the rather strained smile she had been sporting since setting out. And when he reached up to hand her down, she managed to ask him in with enthusiasm that was not obviously feigned. George, pretending to be surprised, attempted to look flustered for a moment before accepting the invitation for which he had angled. Amanda tried hard not to laugh.

It was not that she disliked Lord Dulsworthy. He was the epitome of a decent fellow. Not handsome, to be sure, but not displeasing in looks, either. And always careful to treat her with the utmost propriety and respect. She would not, for example, have imagined it possible for anyone to drive a high-perch phaeton so sedately.

A woman could do worse, yes. But why, oh why, did so few ever consider whether a woman in her position might not want to do better? Might not want to remarry at all?

Still, whenever she grew annoyed by his attentions, she generally found it prudent to remind herself that George cared for her boys and wanted only what he believed was best for them. That her husband had trusted the man. That no matter how many times her mother might caution Amanda to mind her step, she no longer had the power to direct her daughter’s steps down the aisle.

“Mrs. West is expecting you in the drawing room,” Lewis told her as he accepted her bonnet and spencer and Lord Dulsworthy’s greatcoat and hat.

Upstairs, her mother crossed to them as soon as the footman had opened the door. “There you are, my dear.”

Lord Dulsworthy evidently heard a reproving note in her voice. When he spoke, he sounded sheepish. “I will gladly accept responsibility for the delay, ma’am.”

“I do believe the weather bears no small share of the blame, Lord Dulsworthy,” Amanda insisted, accepting her mother’s kiss of greeting before choosing the green and gold striped chair her mother had vacated, rather than the settee closest to the tea table. “Was there a soul in London within doors this afternoon?”

“Quite a number of them, I should think,” was George’s too-serious reply. “Clerks and servants, unless their masters are shockingly lenient. The infirm. People who—”

“Shall I ring for tea, Amanda?” asked her mother, stepping to the bell as if determined to head off Lord Dulsworthy’s prosy instincts. “I’ve already sent for the boys. They would be sorry to miss a visit from their uncle.”

“An excellent notion, Mrs. West. I have already spoken with Jacobs about this morning’s fencing lesson,” he explained, turning toward Amanda as he arranged himself on one side of the settee, brushing a hand over the empty space beside him as a silent indictment of her choice to sit elsewhere, “but I should like to hear young Kingston’s and Master Philip’s assessment of their progress.”

“Speaking of,” Amanda ventured, “I did wonder why—”

“They’ll make great strides, with a master coming twice weekly now.”

“Twice weekly? Oh, I see.”

She knew of no harm in increasing the frequency of the boys’ fencing lessons. Still, Amanda narrowly kept herself from bristling at the intrusion on both her privacy and her parental prerogative. George might at least have consulted her on the matter.

He nodded sagely, oblivious to her displeasure. “Kingston will thank me, come September.”