Page 51 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"Everyone plants hawthorn because it is traditional," he continued, leaning forward with the earnestness of a true believer, "but hornbeam offers superior density and a much finer leaf. The autumn colour alone⁠—"

"How thorough of you."

The words came out dryer than she intended. Across the room, Margot looked up from her embroidery, needle suspended mid-stitch. Her eyes held warning.

Florinda reached for her own teacup—cold now, she had forgotten to drink it—and arranged her features into pleasantness.

Lord Camberton beamed, oblivious to the dryness. His face was open, unguarded, utterly free of subtext. It was, she supposed, a kind face. The face of a man who said what he meant and meant what he said and had probably never in his life hidden a confession in his boot.

"I have made quite a study of it," he said. "Thornbury's hedgerows are the finest in three counties, if I may say so. I should very much like to show them to you, Miss Ashbourne." He set down his teacup, brushed an invisible crumb from his waistcoat. "Perhaps a drive tomorrow, if the weather holds?"

"I should like that," Florinda heard herself say.

And the strange thing was—she almost believed it.

* * *

The problem was the measuring.

She did not mean to do it. Did not want to hold every gesture, every word, every glance against a standard she had no right to remember. And yet her traitor mind catalogued the differences with the precision of a naturalist pinning butterflies—this one here, that one there, neither quite matching the specimen she could not forget.

Lord Camberton's laugh: pleasant. Light and easy, offered freely at the smallest provocation. It did not catch in his throat as though dragged unwillingly from a defended place. It did not make her feel she had won a prize.

Lord Camberton's hands: soft. The hands of a gentleman who supervised his estate from a comfortable study rather than riding its borders himself. They had never lifted her. They had never trembled.

Lord Camberton's eyes: brown. Warm and earnest and uncomplicated. When he looked at her, she saw admiration. Interest. Perhaps the beginnings of genuine affection.

What she did not see was counting.

Frederick's eyes had counted her. Every time they met hers—over the rim of a teacup, across the length of the garden, in the suspended moment before he set her down at the top of the stairs—she had felt herself being catalogued. Gold threads. Freckles. The particular shade of grey her irises became in afternoon light. She had felt seen in a way that was almost unbearable, as though he were memorising her against some future when memory would be all he had.

Lord Camberton looked at her the way one looked at a pleasant prospect.

Frederick had looked at her the way one looked at the sun—knowing it would blind him, unable to look away.

"Miss Ashbourne?" Lord Camberton's voice pulled her back. He had set down his teacup and was regarding her with mild concern. "You seem distant. I hope my discourse on hedgerows has not bored you."

"Not at all." She forced her spine straighter, her smile brighter. "I was merely thinking of... hornbeams."

His face lit up like a child offered sweets. "You were? I am delighted to hear it. So few people appreciate the finer points of⁠—"

He continued. Florinda nodded at intervals she hoped were appropriate and tried not to think about letters hidden beneath mattresses.

She was not successful.

* * *

After Lord Camberton had gone—after he had bowed over her hand and promised to call tomorrow and walked to his carriage with the buoyant step of a man who believed himself making progress—Margot set down her embroidery.

"Well," she said.

"Well." Florinda remained by the window, watching his carriage disappear down the drive. Her tea sat abandoned on the side table, stone cold.

"He seems quite taken with you."

"He seems quite taken with hedgerows. I merely happen to be present."

"Florinda." Margot's voice held that particular quality—part exasperation, part worry—that Florinda had come to dread. "He has called four times this week. He looks at you as though you have hung the moon. These are not the actions of a man who is merely tolerating your company."