Page 8 of A Sense of Turmoil
Luke took the stairs two at a time and paused when he reached his grandmother’s door. He could hear the sound of Flora’s lilting voice reading aloud and his grandmother’s interruptions, no doubt criticising the story as being implausible.
He straightened his lapels and tapped at the door before turning the handle. Flora was seated on her usual stool at his grandmother’s feet. She turned her head at the sound of the door opening. Their gazes clashed and she sent him a welcoming smile that Luke reacted to all the way to his toes.
Ottilie can’t make my insides melt with a simple smile.
‘You’re back,’ she said softly. ‘Welcome home.’
‘Is that my rascal of a grandson?’ the countess asked. ‘About time too.’
Luke was shocked by the obvious deterioration in his grandmother’s health, as evidenced by the weakness in her voice and the fact that she appeared to have lost weight in the few months they had been separated.
‘Hello, Grandmamma,’ he said, stepping into the room and bending to kiss her wrinkled brow. ‘You look well.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m at death’s door.’
‘Death hasn’t come calling quite yet,’ Flora hastened to assure Luke, correctly interpreting his concerned expression.
‘How have you been?’ Luke asked, arranging himself in the chair across from his grandmother, acutely aware of Flora seated at her feet. He drank in the sight of her. She was not nearly so pretty as Ottilie Fleming, nor as compliant, but she was so damned compelling. He wished he knew what it was about her that made it so difficult for him to smile at any other female. It hadn’t been that hard for him to appreciate Ottilie’s finer points when he had been separated from Flora by nearly four thousand miles, but the moment he was anywhere near her he felt the old attraction spring up out of nowhere.
‘I shall leave the two of you to catch up,’ Flora said, standing.
‘Don’t go on my account,’ Luke said. ‘I need you to protect me from Grandmamma’s barbed tongue and to put her straight when she tries to mislead me about the state of her health.’
Flora resumed her seat. ‘I did not think you were afraid of a harmless elderly lady.’
‘Harmless, eh?’ The countess lifted her stick and waved it in the air for emphasis. ‘I’ll give you harmless.’
Luke smiled. ‘The alarming accounts I have received were clearly exaggerated, Grandmamma. I can see that Flora has done an excellent job of keeping you well, for which she deserves our thanks. We all know that you are not an easy patient.’
The countess screwed up her features. ‘The child is trying to kill me off with her vile concoctions.’
‘How was Boston?’ Flora asked.
‘Interesting. I had initially decided to sell up. Had a man interested but Fleming talked me out of it. Besides, Sam took to the idea of being a tobacco farmer, and he needs a challenge and so I left him there in charge.’
‘Will he manage?’
‘I think so. He has a lot of able people to advise him. I wouldn’t have agreed to let him try it if I doubted his abilities. George Fleming seems to think that he’s up to it, and he should know. I gather he’s had more to do with running the place than his father did these past few years.’
‘We shall miss Sam’s good humour.’
‘Just as long as he doesn’t get taken in by all those American females. I’m sure they’re not to be trusted,’ the countess observed.
‘That’s rather a sweeping statement, ma’am,’ Flora said, smiling. ‘I have encountered one or two Americans and found them universally charming.’
‘Yes well, you’re easily duped.’
‘Sam won’t be away indefinitely,’ Luke said, smiling at his grandmother’s preconceptions. ‘I have made him commit to two years, then we will revise the situation.’
Their gazes clashed and Luke suspected they were both thinking the same thing. By the time Sam returned to England, Grandmamma would be gone. So too would Flora, unless Luke broke his promise to his father—a possibility that he was able to dismiss out of hand when they were separated by an ocean, but one that was not so easily accomplished when they were in the same room.
His father, Luke persuaded himself, would have enjoyed Flora’s society. But approving of her as his countess… Even Luke couldn’t convince himself that a stickler for protocol, so proud of his family’s standing within the aristocracy, would have lowered his sights to that degree. It was far more likely that the pater would have encouraged Luke to take her as his mistress. But the chances of Flora agreeing to live beneath his protection, even if he could work up the courage to make such a suggestion to a female of such strong moral character, were slim.
‘I am glad to see you looking better than I’d expected, Grandmamma, since I have invited the Flemings to come and stay while they look for a property in the district. You remember them, I’m sure.’
‘I remember their father,’ the countess said, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘A very dashing man. Devoted to his wife, as I remember. There was absolutely nothing I could do to tempt him away from the marriage bed—and believe me, I tried.’
Luke and Flora exchanged a smile. For his part, Luke didn’t imagine that his grandmother was exaggerating too much. She’d been quite wild in her day. ‘Well, George is a handsome cove too, and Ottilie is all that she should be. I have a mind to invite Archie to join us. He needs a break from his responsibilities, he livens up any party and you enjoy flirting with him.’
