Page 54 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
“If you must know—and I think you are nosy past all bearing—I felt comfortable around him, at peace, and not at all afraid that anything would ever hurt me.” She returned her gaze to the flowers by the road’s edge. “Things were always more fun when he was around.”
He considered Clarissa Partridge and sighed. “I supposeit must be a different feeling for men, then. Ah, well, I was curious.”
“You don’t feel that way around Miss Partridge?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Well, it’s still early days with you and her, isn’t it?” Emma asked.
“I suppose.” He looked behind him. They had been riding slower and slower, and the carriage would have to slow down. He picked up the pace of their travel, and they cantered ahead for a good distance.
“Well, what happened?” he asked finally when they slowed the pace again, and Emma still did not say anything. “I mean, between you and the Scot.”
“Oh, well,” she said, “it came to nothing. His indenture ended three years before mine would have.”
“And?” he prompted. “Emma, you are so tight with information sometimes that I find you singularly exasperating!”
“It might not be your business,” she responded tartly, then repented. “He was going beyond the mountains to take up some land in the Carolinas. He needed a wife then, so he married one of the other servants who was not under an indenture.”
“The cad,” Lord Ragsdale said with some feeling.
Emma laughed. “I was probably well out of that, my lord. If he could be so expedient, then he probably wouldn’t have been too concerned about my welfare.”
“I suppose not,” Lord Ragsdale agreed. “I mean, he might have shot you if you had broken your leg or something.”
And so they were on good terms again as they rode into London.If I keep a light touch, and do not poke and prod about her family, we seem to rub along all right, he considered as they entered the house on Curzon Street again.But dash it, that gets me no closer to finding out anything, and I still don’t know if I love Clarissa Partridge.
He paid Clarissa a morning visit the next day, armed witha pot of violets because Emma assured him that ladies loved violets, his eye patch on straight, and his clothes as orderly as Hanley could make them. He was not disappointed in his reception.
Clarissa cooed over the violets, just teetering, to his mind, on the edge of excess, then redeeming herself by sitting close to him on the sofa. Their knees touched once or twice, and he realized that it had been a long time since he had made love to a woman. Well, a long time for him. He dragged his mind along more appropriate lines then and thought he faked an impressive interest in her needlework. It was good, he had to admit, when she rose to put it away, affording him a particularly fine glimpse of her shapely hips and delicate walk.
I am being diddled, he thought and grinned to himself.By all that’s holy, it is fine.
“Clarissa—may I call you Clarissa?”
Blush, blush. Titter. “Why certainly, my lord.” She had a breathless voice, and he wondered if her corsets were too tight.
“You may call me John,” he offered.
Another titter. Another blush. “Very well ... John.”
Take a deep breath, my dear, he thought,or you may have to summon your dresser to loosen your stays. Of course, if you like to sit so close, I might want to do that myself.“Clarissa, if I may be so bold, would you care to tour Hampton Court with me tomorrow?”
She cared to, and he left happily, wishing that Fae Moullé had not moved to Bath to set up her millinery establishment.Emma would not approve, he thought.I will take a brisk walk home and behave myself.
She was busy in the book room, catching up on his correspondence, when he returned and stood lounging in the doorway. “Yes, my lord?” she asked, her eyes still on the paper before her.
“Congratulate me, Miss Costello,” he said as he came inand flopped into a chair. “We are Clarissa and John now, and she will go riding to Hampton Court with me tomorrow.”
Emma put down the pen and clasped her hands in front of her. “Bravo, my lord!” She smiled at him then, and his stomach did another tingle. “I think Manwaring will not be finished with that addition on your manor a moment too soon.”
He nodded, not altogether satisfied with her reply and wondering why not. He also wished she would not waste those fine eyes on him.You should get out more, Emma, he wanted to tell her,and meet some young men.He regarded her a moment more, reminded himself that she couldn’t because she was in his indenture, and felt vaguely silly.
She appeared not to notice but cleared her throat. “My lord, tomorrow is my day off. . .,” she began.
He made an expansive gesture, grateful to cover his stupid thoughts. “Of course, of course. Just don’t come home so late this time, and I will not scold you.”
“I won’t.” She was brief, to the point, withdrawn again, and looking at the correspondence in front of her. He eased himself out of the room, hoping that she would return in a better mood this time from her day off.
