Page 37 of His Lordship's True Lady
Hessian’s invitation to take the children to the park had been extended in a weak moment. He much preferred a ride at dawn, when all was still and calm, and the most that might be expected of him socially was a tip of the hat or muttered greeting.
For Daisy’s sake, he’d ridden later in the morning, amid the nursemaids and governesses and their noisy, shrieking charges.
Now, he must brave utter chaos on foot for the sake of another hour spent with Miss Ferguson—and for Daisy’s sake too, of course. A rowdy gang of schoolboys was playing kickball down by the Serpentine, a toddler had erupted into tears beneath a plane maple sporting a stranded kite. Other children threw rocks into the water, while nannies and governesses read—books positioned immediately before their faces—despite all the noise.
“I’ve come armed for combat,” Miss Ferguson said, patting a large reticule. “My companion refused to stir from the house when the sun was so strong, but I have a ball, blanket, storybook, a few purloined tea cakes, and a flask of lemonade. What of you?”
“A flask of brandy.” Hessian was telling the God’s honest truth, and earned himself a smile. “Shall I carry your provisions?”
“You’d carry my reticule?”
“Of course.” Hessian slung the strap over his shoulder. “You’re the commanding officer on this sortie. You must be free to maneuver. Daisy, if you climb that tree, you’ll get no pudding for a week.”
This admonition—also entirely in earnest—provoked a spate of laughter from both Daisy and Bronwyn. They raced off after a hapless rabbit, while Miss Ferguson surveyed the surrounds as if she were indeed scouting enemy terrain.
“We want to avoid any stray boys,” she said. “They are loud, mischievous, and curious.”
The reticule weighed more than Hessian’s longest fowling piece. “Was I loud, mischievous, and curious?”
“Bronwyn, do not stomp in that puddle.”
The girl contented herself with finding a pebble to toss into the puddle, and for a moment, both children watched the rings spread across the surface.
“I mean you no insult, my lord, when I say that I can barely recall you as a boy.”
Not an insult, but lowering. “I was not particularly memorable. My younger brother made it his mission in life to make sport of me, while my father expected a miniature earl to toddle out of the nursery, complete with consequence and self-possession.”
The rabbit reappeared from the hedge, and the children crouched as if to sneak up on the poor creature.
“You were doomed,” Miss Ferguson said, regarding Hessian with more seriousness than the moment wanted. “Your brother wanted a playmate, your father wanted a peer.”
Habit prompted Hessian to disagree with her, to brush off the contradiction she pointed out.
With Lily Ferguson, only honesty would do.
“You are not wrong.”
Her gaze was commiserating more than pitying. When had anybody commiserated with Hessian, Earl of Grampion?
“We must find a place in the shade,” Miss Ferguson said, “where we can keep a vigilant eye on the children without the general public keeping its vigilant eye on us.”
“Miss Ferguson, dare I hope you have designs on my person?” Worth might have said something like that, but the words had come from Hessian’s own mouth—more honesty.
The rabbit hopped off a few yards and resumed nibbling. Bronwyn and Daisy, hand in hand, crept along behind it.
“You dare not hope any such thing,” she retorted. “We are in Hyde Park, in view of half of Mayfair, and if I had designs on your person—not that I’d admit to such an unladylike ambition lest it fuel your manly self-importance—they would be inappropriate except in the most private of settings. I have designs on that patch of grass there.”
She marched off, and Hessian followed.
Not quite a set-down, but neither had she exactly flirted with him. Hessian chose to be encouraged, because if Lily Ferguson wanted to deliver a set-down, she’d do so without ambiguity.
She chose a spot in dappled shade, away from the busiest walkways without being secluded. The blanket was a thick patchwork quilt gone soft with age. Her storybook wasAesop’s Fables.
A second rabbit ventured from the hedge, and the girls held a conference, likely deciding whether to stalk one hare or both. Hessian offered Miss Ferguson a hand as she settled to the blanket, then took the place two feet to her right.
He had told Worth the truth: He enjoyed Miss Ferguson’s company. She was a cool, tart lemonade compared to the overly sweet, tepid tea of the typical debutante or designing widow. Hessian had sampled the wares of a few of those widows, and had his own wares sampled, and found the encounters physically enjoyable.
Also sad.
