Page 44 of A Sham Engagement

“We are going to Portland Place, to visit Lord Broxbourne,” Elenora told Agatha when she’d responded to the urgent tug Elenora had given the bell pull. “I need my warmest pelisse as it’s so cold outside. And you are to come with me as Aunt Penelope is out. I suppose I had better leave her a note of explanation or she’ll think I’ve done something improper. I’ll tell her you’re with me, then she’ll know everything is perfectly above board.”

While Agatha sorted out the necessary warm clothing, Elenora wrote the note to her aunt.

Dear Aunt Penelope, I have gone to visit Lord Broxbourne and taken Agatha with me so you have no need to worry about the Propriety of my visit. We are to take tea together and no doubt he will escort me home. As I have Agatha with me, you may rest Assured that I will come to no harm. And besides, he is my Betrothed so that makes this acceptable. Mama will not object, I am certain.

Your obedient Elenora

Possibly a little longer and more convoluted than necessary, but she wanted to be clear so her aunt would understand she was safe. With it clutched in her hand, and with a warmly wrapped Agatha trailing behind her, she descended to the drawing room again, passing the music room from which the sound of Petunia’s rather aggressive piano playing emanated. She found Jack pacing up and down by the window. “I’m ready,” she called from the door.

He turned toward her, a slightly worried frown on his forehead. Had he changed his mind? Her heart, which had been doing a bit of pounding that had nothing to do with rushing about to get ready, sank a little.

But when he saw her, his worried expression dissipated and he strode over, as happy as he’d seemed, or so she thought, when she’d raced off upstairs. The small worry that her racing off had bothered him, rather than decorously walking as advised by Mama and Aunt Penelope, arose. Did he think her terribly fast? Was that even what being fast was? So literal? She had no idea.

They went downstairs together with Agatha following behind, and Elenora gave her hastily scribbled note to Hemmings before he opened the front door for them. Beside her, Jack paused, seeming to be skimming his gaze over the people on the street. As if he’d set his mind at rest about something, he held out his arm to her. She took a deep breath and slipped her hand into the crook of it, feeling his muscles beneath the good wool cloth of his coat and noting how touching him no longer felt so scratchy and off-putting. How strong he must be. Her treacherous heart gave another lurch at the thought as she remembered his arms around her at the ball. Whatever was it doing that for? He was only a man, after all.

The walk to Portland Place didn’t take long, as Elenora liked to walk briskly due to the cold, and Jack seemed happy to measure his longer stride to match hers. She did catch him once or twice looking back over his shoulder. After the third time he did it, she decided to ask him about it. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Peering back over your shoulder. Do you think Agatha might fall behind or get lost? She’s used to walking at Penworthy. I walk a lot down there and she’s usually with me.”

“I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

“Oh.” She peered over her own shoulder at Agatha, whose rosy cheeks had blossomed even redder in the cold.

“I’m sorry. I’ll stop doing it.”

She smiled. “It’s quite all right. I’m sure she’s flattered that you’re worrying about her.” Or was he? She took another look over her shoulder, peering past Agatha’s sturdy form, but nothing untoward caught her eye.

At the house in Portland Place, Elenora dispatched Agatha to the servants’ hall with a haughty wave of her hand. “I shall be perfectly all right by myself now we are here and no one can see what I’m doing.” The import of these words sank in. She chuckled. “Not, of course, that I intend to do anything you or my aunt or my mama would disapprove of. You may go and take tea and cakes with Lord Broxbourne’s servants and have a gossip, as I know that’s what you like to do.”

Agatha, a little nonplussed, departed toward the kitchen with alacrity.

“Now,” Elenora said with satisfaction at having rid herself of her chaperone so easily. Far more easily than she could have been rid of Aunt Penelope with her ridiculous notions of responsibility for her. “Can we go up and find Edward please?”

Three flights of stairs brought them to the nursery floor, where they discovered Edward playing with his young nurse in attendance. He jumped to his feet when he saw Elenora and ran to make a neat little bow to her. “You came, Miss Wetherby. I was so hoping you would so we could fight another battle. Miss Douglas has been teaching me about what poor King Harold had to do before Duke William’s invasion of England. I refuse to call him king, as for me, Harold was the true king and William just a usurper. Only I wouldn’t call him French—he was Norman and they have their origins in Scandinavia. Miss Douglas told me that this morning.”

“Goodness, you’re the most well-informed boy I’ve ever met,” Elenora said. “And I notice you do like to side with the kings who were usurped. My brothers were both dunces compared to you. I’ve never been able to get them the least bit interested in history other than to play at being knights in armor so they could fight each other.”

Edward’s face took on a slightly guilty expression. “If I had a brother to play with, I think I’d like to play at knights in armor too. But I don’t. Unless… you and I might do so one day? I mean… just with wooden swords, not real ones. In case we hurt each other.”

So he could be a playful small boy as well as a little intellectual. Elenora burst out laughing. “I should warn you that I often bested my brother Matthew who is only one year older than me. But yes, if your papa can provide us with wooden swords, then we can fight.”

“And shields,” Jack said.

Edward nodded with vigor. “Yes, shields too. With coats of arms on them.”

Jack laughed. “Just as you command, my liege lord.”

Edward clapped his small hands together.

Elenora joined in their laughter. “And yes, I would love to reenact a battle with you again. I believe your papa said you were most interested in the battle of Stamford Bridge, which came before Hastings if I remember correctly.”

He jumped up and down on the spot, still only an excited little boy. “Yes, oh yes. That’s just what I want to do. Miss Douglas has told me all about it.” He turned to Jack. “Will you play with us too, Papa?”

Jack was still smiling. “I suppose I could. So long as you don’t make me be the baddie again. You do have a habit of picking the winning side every time.”

Edward fairly crowed with delight. “If you like then, you can be Harold Godwinson and the Anglo Saxons, and I will be Harold Hardrada. Miss Wetherby can be Tostig Godwinson, who is very meanly fighting against his brother on the side of Hardrada. You don’t mind being such a turncoat, do you Miss Wetherby?”