Page 48 of Too Scot to Handle
“But that’s just it. He’s not a lad. He’s a man. He’s commanded soldiers, he manages his business, and he owns two estates.”
“He’s not a boy,” Elizabeth said softly. “His older brother had the same quality. They’re men who have better things to do than leer at debutantes, amuse the merry widows, and exchange remedies at the club for their sore heads.”
“Aunt calls that bunch handsome idlers,” Charlotte said.
“Uncle calls them much worse than that,” Anwen observed, “but Colin isn’t among their number. He can save the orphanage, and I’m not sure another gentleman in all of Mayfair has either the ability or the motivation to take on that challenge.”
She had no delusions that it would be a challenge. The card party must go off flawlessly and become an annual event. The House of Urchins must maintain a spotless reputation, and something had to be done about the board of directors, most of whom couldn’t be bothered to perform their duties.
“Do you fancy Lord Colin, or fancy his ability to save the orphanage?” Elizabeth asked.
“Both,” Anwen said. “I like that he can argue with me, and that he can listen to me. He doesn’t treat me like I’m about to expire with every sniffle or megrim.”
“Do you have a sniffle?” Charlotte asked.
Elizabeth snatched up a pillow and cocked her arm. “Take that back, Charl. Wennie’s being serious.”
Charlotte downed her cordial in one gulp. “Fire away, Bethan, because I’m guilty as charged, but Wennie, we nearly lost you. You don’t know how that changed Mama and Papa. All you know is they took turns reading to you, telling you stories, playing cards with you, when you weren’t asleep for days at a time. We nearly lost them too. It was terrifying.”
Charlotte offered not a reproach but an explanation.
“I recall Aunt Esther moving in for a time,” Anwen said, “and then Aunt Arabella. Mama wouldn’t listen to anybody else, and even Uncle Percy had to remonstrate with her.”
“But she wouldn’t let the physicians bleed you,” Elizabeth said. “She told Papa that she’d steal you away herself before she’d lose you to quackery, and he’d never find her.”
“What did Papa say?”
“That he’d not lose two of the people he loved most in the whole world, and that as sick as you were, you weren’t getting worse, so Mama’s decision would stand.” Elizabeth, as the oldest, probably had the clearest recollection. “You started to improve from that day forward.”
“You heard Mama and Papa quarreling?” Anwen had no memory of her parents’ disagreement. She recalled crying as Mama had cut her hair, and being so sick of her bed, that Mama had the servants set up beds for her all over the house. She recalled the scent of straw wafting in the windows, for Papa had carpeted the whole drive with straw the better to muffle the noise of coach wheels.
“The entire shire would have heard them arguing,” Charlotte said.
Maybe it was the cordial, maybe it was the conversation, but warmth welled from Anwen’s middle.
“Lord Colin and I can have a difference of opinion, a fair donnybrook, and he still listens to me. I think I’m in love.”
Charlotte beamed, which had to be at least partly attributable to the cordial.
“Is Lord Colin in love?” Elizabeth propped her feet at the edge of Anwen’s hassock. “Westhaven would call that a material consideration.”
“Rosecroft would call it a tactical concern,” Charlotte added, tucking her feet at Anwen’s other side. “He’d be right.”
“Lord Colin seems enthusiastic about my company, he doesn’t need my settlements, and he argues with me. He might not be smitten, but he’s interested.”
Anwen hoped. But if he was interested, why hadn’t he paid her a call and reported on the doings at the orphanage?
Stopped by to ask her to save him a dance at the next ball?
Sequestered himself with her in the conservatory again?
“I’m interested.” Elizabeth studied her drink. “I’m interested in paying a call on Ladies Rhona and Edana.”
“Bit late in the day for that,” Charlotte said.
“We’ll bring them a bottle of Her Grace’s cordial. Anwen, will you join us?”
Oh, they were the best of sisters, when they weren’t hovering and fretting over her. “I’ll be at the front door in five minutes, but two bottles of cordial, I think. One for each sister.”
