Page 60 of The Seductive Love of a Lady
‘I will.’
He held her hand. ‘I hope this will be settled quickly. I should go now; the sooner I go, the sooner I will return.’ His smile offered reassurances he could not give.
She nodded, biting the tip of her tongue, trying not to cry, because tears would not help him. She must be strong for him.
‘Come on.’
He held her hand as they walked downstairs to the first-floor drawing room.
‘Framlington,’ her uncle said, acknowledging Andrew as they entered the room.
‘I am ready,’ Andrew said.
Ten minutes later, she stood on the steps beneath the massive stone portico, holding Andrew, his forehead resting against hers.
‘Goodbye,’ Mary said, her tears refusing to be restrained.
John and Kate stood beside them. Uncle Richard was waiting in the carriage.
Andrew wiped away her tears with his thumbs and kissed her fiercely for a short time. ‘I am coming back,’ he said. ‘I am sorry I dragged you into this muddle, but I do not regret helping Caro.’
‘I am glad you helped her. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ he whispered back and kissed her again. ‘Goodbye,’ he said as he released her. Then he walked away and climbed into the carriage.
A footman closed the door.
He waved from the window as it pulled away. She held her hand high and waved until she could no longer see the carriage.
‘We should fetch Lady Kilbride immediately,’ John said.
31
When the carriage drove into Maidstone, John looked at her. ‘Where are we to go then, Mary?’
Andrew’s letter was tucked into her bodice against her skin. She had told John they must go to Maidstone, but nothing else. Her fingers shaking, Mary pulled out the letter from beneath her clothes and showed John the address. ‘Please check no one has followed us. Lord Kilbride might have had someone waiting outside your gates.’
‘He did not. The grooms checked.’
They had travelled in an old, unmarked carriage, and the grooms were dressed in their own clothing not John’s livery.
John slid open the hatch in order to speak to the driver. ‘Please stop at the next inn you see. Thank you.’ He closed the hatch.
‘We will walk from there,’ he said to Mary.
It was only a few minutes before the carriage driver steered the horses through an arch into the stable yard of an inn. When it stopped, John opened the door, climbed down, then helped Mary alight.
‘Come,’ he said quietly, ignoring his staff, as they ignored him, as though he were not a duke.
She lay her hand on his arm.
They walked past the Bishop’s Palace, and the ford beside it, to find the row of terraced cottages Andrew had described to her.
Most of the narrow front gardens were planted with vegetables, apart from one; Caroline’s was planted with flowers, hollyhocks, delphiniums, and frail flowers which looked like tiny bonnets. The garden was just as Andrew had described.
‘Wait here,’ she told John. ‘Lady Kilbride may not open the door if she sees a gentleman calling.’
‘Indeed.’ John nodded.
