Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 116547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Yes, of course. As if he would lose such a chance. He’s even brought along my mother and sister to ensure it. We shall meet them there.”
Will you calm yourself, you fool? I tugged slightly at my necktie.
“Are you all right?” he asked me.
“Perfectly well,” I stated without hesitation. “When will you simply tell your parents that you are in love with another woman?”
“When she finally drops all pretense and accepts me.” The smile on his face spread, and he even seemed to sit up straighter, nothing but determination in his eyes. “When that day comes, I will surely run through the streets singing and praising.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “How are you so certain she is the one—”
“The very first moment I saw her, all of me quaked. I could not sleep or eat without the thought of her, and I did not even know her name. Such a feeling is never to be doubted.”
The way Henry navigated the world was like none other I had ever seen. All I could do was shake my head at his madness.
“Do not pretend as if I have forgotten your mystery woman, as well,” he stated as the carriage came to a stop before the iron gates of the Du Bell home.
“No such person exists.”
“You must keep your story straight. Either you do not believe she is attainable, or she does not exist. Please make up your mind so I may discover the creature who has managed to enrapture you,” Henry replied as the door opened and the footmen held umbrellas above us.
I was not sure if I was comforted or disturbed by the other carriages I saw. In some sense, it provided cover—the more people, the more freely I could…I could maybe speak with her. But at the same time, how could I do so under their gazes? Would it not look improper of me to speak with anyone else but the host who extended the invitation to me?
“Gentlemen, his lordship awaits in the drawing room,” the butler said when we entered, already leading us. There was a single knock before the door opened, and I heard the man say, “Sir, Mr. Parwens and Dr. Darrington have arrived.”
When he stepped aside, it seemed as though all the world had vanished but her. She sat by the pianoforte, dressed in yellow, the smallest of smiles upon her sweet face, and, as Henry had described, I trembled.
Like thunder in the clouds and the greatest of tempests, I trembled.
7
Theodore
I had heard much of the Marquess of Monthermer. It was consistently said that he was a learned man with great fortune, luck, and family, that not one ill word could be spoken of him, and that he valued the intelligence of even the poorest of men to the company of princes. And if that were not enough, he and his children, especially his eldest son, Damon, shared a relationship more likened to a matured friendship than simply father and child. He was so highly regarded that, as the son of a marquess myself, I found it hard to believe such talk could be altogether true. I believed it an exaggeration of those seeking to get within his good graces for their own elevation.
However, in the short twenty minutes or so that I had been granted this opportunity to converse in their drawing room, I discovered I would likely speak of him with such fondness, as well. Never had I met a lord so…gentle and scholarly. But it was not just him. The whole Du Bell family seemed to radiate a warmth I had witnessed only in families with little else to cling to in life. Despite my status, he spoke to me as though I were of equal value with all the other lords before him. I would have greatly enjoyed his company if it had been in any other setting and only us males. But that was not the case.
Like an applied heat upon my back, I could feel her presence mere steps behind me. I did not know how such a phenomenon was possible, but it was. She was so close that my lungs felt as if they were compressed, yet at the very same time, she was so far that I could not even utter a word to her. When I looked, she had glanced toward the doors, as though she were waiting for someone. But whom?
Before I could find courage to speak, her eyes shifted to mine just as the door opened, and the butler, dressed in red, walked in, his shoulders back and his face forward. “My lord, your ladyship, dinner is served.”
“We will have to finish this discussion afterward, gentlemen.” The marquess gestured for us to go before him, and everyone waited for the women, of which there were the marchioness, Henry’s rather taciturn mother, Lady Fancot, and his equally reserved sister, Miss Amity Parwens, both of whom had red hair. There was also Lady Montagu, Damon’s wife, the Lady Hathor, and, of course, Lady Verity, who met my gaze for the briefest of seconds before she followed the party out.