Page 90 of His Lordship's True Lady
“The ducks and the geese and the swans,” Avery added. “When can we feed them again?”
“We mustn’t feed them too much,” Lily said. “They’ll grow too stout to float.”
Avery began to chatter in French about learning to swim the previous summerat Trysting, and the water had been cold as ice and many, many,manyfeet deep, as deep as the ocean…
“That lady paid a call on the earl,” Daisy said, frowning in the direction of the dedicated reader. “She came with the other lady.”
“Were you spying?” Avery had lowered her voice, envious rather than scolding.
“I was manning the crow’s nest.”
“Which other lady?” Jacaranda asked.
Lily knew which other lady. The only woman to call on Hessian since he’d taken up residence in Mayfair.
Daisy grinned. “The one with the”—she held her hands open about a foot from her skinny little chest—“and the hat that looked like a blue chicken roosting on a Viking ship, except it wasn’t a chicken.”
“A peacock,” Lily said. “A very attractive bird, though only the male has the fantastic plumage. Shall we find our escort?”
For she abruptly felt the need to locate Worth and ensure he hadn’t been kidnapped by brigands or a certain greedy widow.
Jacaranda, with no evidence of hurry at all, organized the little girls and the nursery maid, Lily’s maid, and Lily herself in a sedate parade back to the coaches waiting along the street. Worth was soon at their side, handing the baby to her mother.
“The young lady,” Lily said, keeping her voice down, “the one with the book who’s been in the park during every outing we’ve made for the past week. Daisy saw her in company with Mrs. Braithwaite when she called on the earl.”
“I was manning the crow’s nest,” Daisy said, taking Lily’s hand. “I wasn’t spying.”
Worth tossed the child into the coach, stealing a kiss to her cheek that set her to giggling. “I noticed her as well, hence I presumed to share her bench and strike up a conversation.”
“I should join you for an ice,” Lily said, “and you should hand me up into your coach straightaway.”
“Excellent suggestion.”
Worth waved off Lily’s coach, and her servants and companion along with it. He climbed into the coach with the ladies, taking the backward-facing seat and putting Daisy on his lap.
“We’re off to Gunter’s,” he announced. He thumped on the roof of the coach once, meaning the horses were to proceed at a walk.
“We went to Gunter’s on Monday,” Avery said.
“We can go again,” Daisy countered.
The children bickered for the short distance to Berkeley Square, while Lily wanted to scream, and Jacaranda and Worth exchanged unreadable looks. The nursemaid chivvied the children into the sweet shop and Worth put a hand on Lily’s arm before she could follow them from the coach.
“The question becomes, is Mrs. Braithwaite’s companion in the park to spy on you, or to spy on Daisy?” he mused.
“Both,” Lily replied. “But to what purpose? You’ve heard nothing from Grampion?” Though he would have barely arrived in Scotland, traveling at a dead gallop.
“Not a word,” Worth said. “Though you should know, Lily, that Oscar Leggett has applied for a special license, and barring the unforeseen, it should be ready within the next week.”
* * *
There was good news, of a sort: Once Hessian arrived in Scotland, Lawrence Delmar’s household wasn’t difficult to find. Getting there, however, had taken six grueling, bone-rattling, exhausting days. If Hessian was to collect Mrs. Delmar in time for her to celebrate her birthday in London, he’d have to start the journey south in the next day or two.
All the while praying for decent weather, sound horses, the continued good health of his coachman and grooms, nothing untoward befalling Lily in London, and an absence of highwaymen.
“There it is,” said the groom, who’d been hired at the Birdwell livery. “Bide Cottage.”
Like many cottages in Britain, Mr. Delmar’s abode was commodious. Whitewashed stone rose to three stories across a seven-window façade. Two-story wings spread on either side of the central structure, and the whole sat on a rise handsomely landscaped and terraced. The driveway was circular, with a small stone fountain in the middle and a pair of short, bushy palm trees flanking the front steps.
