“I will leave that to your judgment,” he said, lowering his glass. “But I am happy to relinquish my mental image of you staggering into Hanover Square under the weight of such a floral offering, Thorne.”
“Mr. Thorne has asked me to drive out to Richmond Park with him tomorrow,” Jessica said. “In his curricle. I have not been there for at least a couple of years.”
“A curricle,” Avery said. “Without her mother or a maid to accompany her, then. It is fortunate, Thorne, that you have Lady Vickers to vouch for your respectability.”
“It is.” He inclined his head, and Jessica thought he still looked slightly amused. Most people, even men, meeting Avery for the first time were awed by him, even intimidated.
“Again,” Avery said, “I leave the choice of whether she accepts your invitation or not to my sister’s judgment.”
Mr. Thorne had not sat back down since Avery entered the room. “I will not take any more of your time,” he said, turning to her. “Lady Jessica, will you drive to Richmond Park with me tomorrow?”
There was, as everyone was saying, something of a mystery about him. He was a man who must surely have an interesting story to tell. But he was perfectly respectable, as Avery had just said. He was a gentleman, a relative of Lady Vickers. It was not, perhaps, quite wise to grant him such a favor upon a very slight acquaintance, but she could not resist the chance to learn more of that story. If, that was, he was willing to tell it. She wondered irrelevantly what her answer would be if it were Mr. Rochford standing there asking to take her to Richmond Park.
But there was a silence waiting to be filled.
“Thank you, Mr. Thorne,” she said. “I will.”
“At one o’ clock?” He bowed after she had nodded, took his leave of Avery and Anna, and strode from the room.
“Well, this is an interesting turn of events,” Anna said a few moments after the door had closed behind him. “I would have wagered upon Mr. Rochford’s calling this afternoon, if anyone, but it is Mr. Thorne who came instead.”
“I suppose, Jess,” Avery said, “it was Rochford who sent the flowers.”
“It was,” she said.
“Yes,” he commented, strolling closer and looking at them again, but with the naked eye this time. “It is as I would have expected.”
He did not explain. He did not need to. Jessica had had the same thought.
“I wonder why Mr. Thorne went to America,” Anna said, “and why he has returned—and to London instead of to his home, wherever that is, though he has hardly ever been here before.”
“Perhaps Jess can twist his arm for information when she drives out with him tomorrow,” Avery said, turning his lazy gaze upon his sister. “Were you even introduced to him last evening, Jess? I did not see you dance with him.”
“I did not,” she said. “Lady Parley presented him to me, but it was just before Mr. Dean claimed his set, and there was no chance to exchange more than a few words.”
“Ah,” he said. “But you made a significant enough impression upon him that he came today to lay his heart at your feet.”
“How absurd,” she said. “But the truth is, I had seen him before last evening. He was at the inn where I spent the night on the way home from Abby and Gil’s, looking for all the world like a cit—nothing like his appearance last evening or today. He had already reserved the only private parlor at the inn, but Mr. Goddard arranged with the landlord to persuade him to give it up to me. I daresay I was not meant to come face-to-face with him, especially while he was arguing the point with the landlord, but I did. And he did eventually quit the parlor after Mr. Goddard had hustled me upstairs to my room.”
“Edwin was uncharacteristically careless,” Avery said. “I will have a word with him.”
“Nonsense,” Jessica said. “He was such a scrupulous guardian that I almost imagined, except when I looked at him, that he was you.”
“But how romantic,” Anna said with a laugh, “that when Mr. Thorne saw you again last evening, Jessica, he immediately asked Lady Parley to present him. And today he has come here to invite you to drive to Richmond Park with him. Perhaps none of it would have happened if Mr. Goddard had not been careless, Avery. Though I am sure Jessica is right and he was no such thing.”
“Romantic!” Jessica said, tutting and shaking her head. “I do not believe Mr. Thorne and romance can ever be realistically uttered in the same breath.”
Though she knew she would look forward to tomorrow. It was not often that she found any gentleman attractive and intriguing, yet she found Mr. Thorne both.
Her life had suddenly acquired color. Not one but two new gentlemen had arrived in town, and both of them were showing an interest in her. More to the point, she was feeling some interest in them. Had it ever happened before? She did not believe so. Perhaps there was hope for her this year after all, without her having to settle for someone who did not particularly attract her.
Perhaps by the end of the year she would be married.
Happily married.
Dared she hope?
Six
The fine, sunny weather had held, Gabriel saw when he looked out of his hotel room window the following morning. In England one never knew what to expect from one day to the next, or even from one hour to the next. He had purchased a sporting curricle and pair the week before and hired a young groom. But a curricle, of course, called for fine weather, especially when one planned to share the high seat with a lady.
Horbath had put a letter beside his breakfast plate on top of the neatly folded morning paper. It was from Mary, Gabriel saw. She had received his own letter, then, which he had sent with Simon Norton, the man he had hired to be his steward. He had been obliged to take Norton into his confidence and had sent him to Derbyshire, not to displace Manley Rochford’s steward at Brierley, but to do some discreet information gathering. Gabriel had told him about Mary and instructed him to make sure she was secure in her cottage for the present and had sufficient money upon which to live. He had written to her himself to tell her he was back in England and she need worry no longer about her home and livelihood.
She had shed tears when she learned that he was so close, Mary had written in her letter—not unhappy tears, Gabriel must understand. She was still under notice to leave her cottage, and her allowance had been cut off, though Mr. Manley Rochford surely had no authority to do that yet. She was grateful that Gabriel had been thoughtful enough to send her money with Mr. Norton, whom by the way she considered a very pleasant, respectful young man. She did not need it, however. Through the years she had managed to put a little aside whenever she could for a rainy day and would be able to feed herself and the animals at least until Gabriel came home. Did he know that Mr. Norton had been taken on at Brierley as a gardener? And did he know that Mr. Manley Rochford was planning to leave for London soon with his wife to celebrate his elevation to the rank of earl? Did he know that Mr. Anthony Rochford was already there?
Gabriel knew. And when he opened the paper and came to the society pages, he read that the handsome and charming Mr. Anthony Rochford, son and heir of Mr. Manley Rochford, who was expected to become the Earl of Lyndale in the very near future, had been seen driving in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour yesterday afternoon with Lady Jessica Archer, sister of the Duke of Netherby. And this had happened the very day after he had danced and sat at supper with her at Lady Parley’s ball. Was the heart of the lovely and elusive heiress about to be snared at last?
Not if he had anything to say about it, Gabriel thought. Not by Anthony Rochford, anyway. One thing had been clear from Mary’s letter. There was no chance that she had misunderstood the eviction notice. Rochford had not had any change of heart since moving to Brierley. Without any right to do so, he had cut off the allowance her brother-in-law, the late earl, had made her. No matter what else he was doing at Brierley or planning to do—there had been no report yet from Simon Norton himself—Manley Rochford’s treatment of Mary was enough to seal his fate. And Gabriel’s too. There was to be no miraculous reprieve, and therefore no return to his life in America.
Let the courtship begin, then.
The front doors of Archer House opened as he drew his horses to a halt outside at almost precisely one o’clock. Someone must have been watching for him. Netherby stepped out as Gabriel was descending from his high seat and handing the ribbons to his groom.
“A neat sporting rig,” Netherby said, looking the curricle over unhurriedly. “And a fine pair of matched grays. You have a good eye.”
“I believe I do,” Gabriel agreed. Bertie Vickers had recommended a pair of chestnuts when he had accompanied Gabriel to Tattersalls, but to Gabriel’s eye they had seemed all show and no go.
“Lady Jessica is of age, as you are surely aware,” Netherby said, patting the neck of one of the horses and running his hand along it. “She is also independent of spirit and likes to insist upon making her own decisions regardless of what anyone else thinks or advises. It is quite unexceptionable for her to choose with whom she drives out, of course, even when the destination is a little more distant than Hyde Park. Her mother, however, is not happy that your choice of vehicle prohibits either her or a maid from accompanying her.”