Devil take it, what a phrase—family of his heart. It was enough to make any self-respecting male want to vomit. It was a good thing he had not said it aloud.
Keeping, he thought apropos of nothing as he went back downstairs to greet the new arrival. His mind had winked, and there it was—the woman’s name. Mrs. Keeping, widow. An odd name, but then, perhaps his own name, Arnott, was odd too. Any name was, when one thought about it long enough.
* * *
By the time Agnes had arrived home and removed her bonnet and pelisse, and tidied her hair and washed her hands, her heart had stopped thumping sufficiently that she did not think Dora would hear it when she went downstairs to join her in the sitting room.
It really, really was not fair that he looked even more handsome and virile on horseback than in a ballroom. He had been wearing a long, drab riding coat with goodness knows how many shoulder capes—it had not occurred to her to count them—and a tall hat set at a very slightly jaunty angle on his near-blond head. She had been suffocatingly aware of his supple leather boots and powerful thighs in tight riding breeches, and of his military posture and broad chest and mocking, handsome face.
The very sight of him just when she thought she was going to make it home safely had thrown her into such a stupid flutter that she could not remember now how she had behaved. Had she acknowledged him in some civil way? Had she gawked? Had she shaken visibly like a leaf in a hurricane? Had she blushed? Oh, dear God, please let her not have blushed. How dreadfully lowering that would be. Good heavens, she was twenty-six. And she was a widow.
“Oh, there you are, dearest,” Dora said, lifting her hands from the keyboard of her ancient but lovingly cared-for and meticulously well-tuned pianoforte. “You are later than you said you would be—but when are you not when you have been painting? You have been missing all the fun.”
“I never mean to be late,” Agnes said, stooping to kiss her sister’s cheek.
“I know.” Dora got to her feet and rang the silver bell on top of the instrument as a signal to their housekeeper to bring in the tea tray. “It happens to me when I play. It is a good thing we are both absentminded artists, or we might be forever bickering and accusing each other of neglect. You found something absorbing to paint, then?”
“Daffodils in the grass,” Agnes said. “They are always so much lovelier there than they are in flower beds. What is the fun I have missed?”
“The guests for Middlebury Park have begun to arrive,” Dora said. “A single horseman rode by a short while ago. He was past the house before I could dash to the window, even though I went at breakneck speed, and I saw only his back, but I believe he might have been the handsome viscount of the mocking eyebrow who was at the October ball.”
“Viscount Ponsonby?” Agnes said, and her heart began its heavy thumping again, threatening to deafen her and make her voice breathless. “Yes, you are quite right. I passed him farther along the street, and he actually acknowledged me and bade me a good afternoon. He could not remember my name, however. I could almost hear him searching his mind for it. He called me ma’am instead.”
Goodness, had she really noticed that much?
“And just a few minutes ago,” Dora said, “there were a couple of carriages. There were two people in the first, a lady and gentleman. The second was loaded down with a prodigious pile of baggage and contained a man who looked so superior that he was either a duke or a valet. I suspect the latter. I almost called up to you, but if I had done that, then Mrs. Henry would have heard too and come bustling to one of the front windows, and all three of us would have been seen to be gawking outward and not minding our own business as genteel ladies ought.”
“Absolutely no one would have paid us any heed,” Agnes said. “Everyone else would have been too busy gawking on their own account.”
They both laughed and took their seats on either side of the fireplace, while Mrs. Henry carried in the tray and informed them that the guests had begun to arrive at Middlebury Park, but she expected Miss Debbins had been too engrossed in her music to notice.
Agnes and Dora smirked at each other when she had left, and then got to their feet to see who was approaching along the village street this time. It was a young gentleman driving himself in a very smart curricle, with a young tiger in livery up behind him. The driver looked like another lithe and handsome man, except that a wicked scar slashing across the cheek nearest their window was horribly visible despite his hat. It gave him a ferocious, piratical appearance.
“I quite despise myself,” Dora said. “But this really is fun.”
“It is,” Agnes agreed. Though she wished it was not happening. She had really not wanted to see him again. Oh, yes, of course she had. No, she had not. Oh, she hated this . . . this juvenile turmoil over a man who had scarcely noticed her five months ago and had forgotten even her name since then.
Sophia had told her about the Survivors’ Club and had explained about their annual gatherings in Cornwall, and how she had persuaded them all to come to Middlebury Park instead this year because her husband, the foolish dear—Sophia’s words—had refused to leave her so soon after her confinement. There were seven of them, including Viscount Darleigh—six men and one woman. Three of them were married, all within the past year. They were going to be here for three weeks. The whole neighborhood was agog with excitement, even though it was to be a mainly private gathering. Every one of the Survivors was titled: the least illustrious of them a baronet, the most illustrious a duke.