Page 50 of The Lady Knows Best

The maid reluctantly stepped between him and the door. She held up a hand, palm outward, her body leaning away. “I’m sorry, my lord, but her ladyship did insist that you stay away, at least until the physician has paid his call.”

“Right. Of course. I’ll just—” He stepped nimbly around the girl and headed for the door. “When he’s finished with Lady Ashborough, send him straight to me.”

The maid darted a wide-eyed glance between his escaping form and Daphne, sketched a curtsy, and hurried after him.

An impish smile twitched about Lady Stalbridge’s mouth, as she tucked the book once more against her breast. “I’d say that couldn’t have worked out better.”

“That isn’t my sister’s book, is it?”

“No, dear.”

“And does Lord Stalbridge have business to attend to in Hertfordshire?”

Her smile deepened. “He does now.”

“But—Lord Manwaring and the children! He’ll be fit to be tied when you tell him.”

“Oh,” she dismissed the concern with a wave of her hand, “he’ll have Mrs. Goode’s invaluable guidance, as you know. Besides, it’s only a few days. Just until you finish your essay, I presume.”

Daphne nodded to disguise a nervous swallow. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go and tell Bellis about the change in plans, shall I?”

“And I shall order our coach ’round and have your things transferred into it. We will leave in an hour.”

“So soon, ma’am?”

Lady Stalbridge tilted her head to one side and pinned Daphne with an assessing look. “Is not Lord Deveraux expecting an eager bride?”

Eager.

The great winged creature in Daphne’s chest, briefly pinioned by the news of Cami’s illness, resumed its flapping. “He is.”

“Well, then.” She turned and strode toward the door. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

CHAPTER 16

Though Miles never let many weeks pass between visits to Lyneham Park, every time it came in view, he found himself wondering why he had stayed away so long.

The house itself, constructed of red brick, had been some four hundred years in the making, though the oldest portions of it had been relegated to offices and storerooms in Miles’s great-grandfather’s day, in favor of what had then been newly built in the Palladian style. Its position on rising ground, backed by lush woodland, made it appear even larger than it was, impressive, but not imposing.

It looked . . . well, it looked like home.

Which was a rather silly way of phrasing things. Lyneham Park was his home, after all—one of them, anyway.

He’d been born here, twenty-eight years ago, to parents who had doted on him—or so he’d been told. They had been killed in a carriage accident when he was two. As far as he could remember, he had been Viscount Deveraux all his life. Had they lived, he surely would have shared this home with siblings, as many or more than Daphne’s, he supposed. Instead, he knew his mother and father’s faces only in portraits.

Lyneham Park was full of portraits.

“Do you think they’ll come?” he asked Alistair, turning away from the carriage window.

Alistair looked up from his book. “Hm?”

How the man could read in a jostling coach had always been a mystery to Miles. Then again, Miles didn’t particularly enjoy reading even when he was still—or didn’t enjoy being still long enough to resort to cracking a book.

“The Burkes,” he explained. “Do you think they’ll come?” He wanted, suddenly, to show off his home, not as some ostentatious display of wealth, but because . . . well, he hardly knew why.

Alistair closed his book around his finger to mark his place. “All of them?”

“Any of them.” His mouth felt suddenly dry, the words difficult to speak.