Page 7 of Nice Earls Do

Both Beth and Mr. Oliver turned toward him, as if the clatter of his heart were audible from across the room.

“I—I am...astonished that you can be done with your work so quickly.”

“Mrs. Goode will write to you if any questions arise,” the secretary explained, “and I will order the necessary materials and furniture to be delivered. Everything will be completed before the children arrive.”

Kit managed a nod. “I hope you will use local workmen whenever possible.”

Mr. Oliver looked down at his papers, but Beth continued to study Kit carefully. “Certainly, if you wish it, my lord,” she promised.

With a few words, Kit sent Mrs. Rushworth on her way to arrange for rooms for their guests. When he turned back, Beth had tipped her head close to Mr. Oliver’s to read some notes the latter had made.

It was a pose that spoke of their familiarity, to be sure. Once more, Kit tried to reason away his jealousy at the sight of it. Two people who worked together as closely as “Mrs. Goode” and her secretary must, of necessity, develop a degree of intimacy, and Kit was pleased Beth had at last found something fulfilling—if a bit puzzled by her uncharacteristic choice.

But he was still envious. Envious of one who spent his days in her company, one who was making better decisions at five and twenty than Kit had, to be sure.

“Lord Stalbridge?”

At the sound of his name, he came to himself with a start and discovered Beth watching him again, spots of color on her cheeks. Mr. Oliver had looked up too, and his dark brows were knitted together in a scowl. Kit must have been staring, like some besotted fool.

After twenty years apart, what hope had they of being what they had once been to one another? To say nothing of more....

“Excuse me.” His bow was even stiffer than usual. “I’m clearly in the way here. I’ll leave you to it.”

Chapter 3

To his credit, Oliver waited until the sound of Kit’s footsteps had faded before skewering her with a glance. “I take it you and Lord Stalbridge have some prior acquaintance?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” She moved to the nearest window. A misty rain blanketed the scenery. Her thoughts were no clearer. “He and I were...friends, long ago. When we were children.”

Not only children.

He’d been four and twenty the last time she had seen him, and she on the cusp of her twentieth year, soon to be a wife. A man and a woman, each absorbed by their individual griefs—the death of his father, the death of her innocence—but reaching out to offer the other comfort.

But how was it possible, after all this time, for her body to call up the memory of his embrace? How hard and lean he’d been after a summer’s walking tour, how she’d clung to him a moment longer than was wise and let herself wonder what it might be like to marry him instead....

She tipped her forehead against the glass, grateful for its chill.

“He was the elder son of my father’s steward. Papa told me once that Mr. Killigrew belonged to a branch of an old, noble family, but I never dreamed Kit stood to inherit all this....” She peered down onto what might have been a terrace, its stone walls and urns shrouded in gray. “I don’t think Kit knew, either. His brother Edmund and I were the same age, and endless trouble to him. Then I married. And now, Edmund’s...gone.”

Oliver’s hand settled on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mamabet.”

Tabetha’s breath huffed from her lungs, part sigh, part knowing laugh. “My mama once scolded me for asking what a scoundrel was, and when she wanted to know how I had even heard such a word, I had to confess I’d been listening to two of the housemaids discussing Edmund. He couldn’t have been more than seven at the time. Oh, Edmund... And poor Kit, always left to see things put right.” She glanced around the freshly scrubbed nursery. “I’ve been thinking about all that’s changed, but I guess some things never do.”

“No,” Oliver agreed. “They don’t.” His observant gaze was still focused on her, rather than the room, and she had the strangest sensation his words referred to something other than Edmund Killigrew’s peccadillos.

“So.” She levered herself away from the glass and forced a briskness into her voice. “What are Mrs. Goode’s plans for this place?”

One dark brow curved fractionally higher, but Oliver’s answering nod was similarly brisk. Pointing with the end of his pencil, he launched into a dissertation on light and color, the best use of space, and current theories about children’s need for active play and opportunities to exercise their imaginations.

Fascinating and impressive though it was, Tabetha’s mind began to drift and eddy like the fog outside, swirling into the other neglected corners of the house, and wondering why Kit had never...

“I’m sorry,” she said, jerking herself back to the present place and time. “Did you—did you say you were thinking of painting a mural of the fall of the Bastille along this wall and framing the doorway to resemble a guillotine?”

“The blade would be rubber, of course,” Oliver explained earnestly. Then his lips quirked. “I wanted to see if you were paying attention.”

Chagrined, she nevertheless pressed her mouth into what she hoped would pass for a maternal scold.

“Perhaps you should go rest,” he suggested. “Recover from your...what was it again? Carriage sickness?”