Page 9 of The Heiress's Daughter
They rode on in silence for a while, concentrating on avoiding porters and barrow boys, street sweepers, hawkers, urchins, dogs and more—the usual chaotic London street scene.
Up ahead his cousin Maggie was chatting vivaciously. She said something and Oliver threw back his head and laughed.
“I’m sorry I’m such poor company,” Clarissa said abruptly.
He glanced at her. “You’re not. I’m perfectly content with the company I have.”
She gave him a skeptical glance. “I know my conversational skills are lacking.”
“Not everyone can be a chatterbox like my cousin, and I thank goodness for it. Otherwise the rest of us would never get a word in.”
Unconvinced, she gave a perfunctory smile. “It’s only since we came to London that we’ve had any experience in social intercourse.”
“Really? Why was that?”
She hesitated, then said, “My sister Izzy and I were not permitted to mingle with people in the local area.”
He frowned. “Why ever not?”
She shrugged carelessly. “Our father would not permit it. He never did explain why.”
She knew why, Race thought, watching her face. She might not find actual conversation easy but her face was very expressive, particularly her eyes. They were her best feature, he thought, wide and clear, and their color seemed to change, which fascinated him. Sometimes they seemed to be a soft greenish hazel, at others they were a honey gold color, like her hair when the sun hit it.
“Conversation is a skill like any other,” he said easily. “The more you practice the better you get.”
She shook her head. “My sister Izzy enjoys meeting new people and converses easily with strangers, but I find it…difficult.”
“Oh, but you don’t consider me a stranger, do you?” he said in a low, teasing voice. “You can tell me anything. I won’t mind.”
She blushed, but lifted her chin and gave him a direct look. “I don’t flirt, either.”
She was warning him off, and he found it delightful. “That’s another skill that develops with practice.”
“I’m sure it does,” she said primly. He was sure she meant it to have a crushing effect on him. It didn’t. He enjoyed a challenge.
“You could practice on me,” he suggested.
“No thank you.”
“You can trust me, you know.”
“I’m sure I can. After all, my guardian asked you to keep an eye on me, did he not?” There was a tightness to the way she said it. And it was no coincidence that she used the exact same phrasing that Maggie had used a few moments before.
“Ah, so you heard that, did you?” What else had she heard? He’d been trying to deflect his cousin’s curiosity, but maybe Miss Clarissa had taken it the wrong way.
She shrugged as if indifferent, but it only confirmed his thoughts.
“Leo did ask me to take you riding,” he said, “but don’t be thinking I consider it a duty, because I don’t. It’s mypleasureto accompany you—anywhere you like, in fact—but riding especially, since you’re such an excellent horsewoman.”
She obviously didn’t believe a word of it. “Then thank you for arranging this excursion,” she said, polite as a schoolgirl.
They rode on in silence. The countryside opened up before them, buildings dropped behind them; there were fields on either side of them now, here and there a small plot of cabbages or some other crop, but mostly fields of green dotted with sheep and cattle. And new houses being built.
Race glanced sideways at Clarissa, thinking to tease her a little more, and frowned, all desire to tease wiped away. Following her gaze, he watched as Oliver raised Maggie’s hand to his lips and kissed it.
Unaware of his observation, Miss Studley bit her lip, her expression a little dreamy, a little wistful, and somehow…melancholy.
“Sixpence for them,” he said softly.
