She shook her head.
“Has Captain Longhurst upset you?”
She stared at him, her dark eyes full of emotion. He had never seen her so vulnerable. “I upset him,” she said, her voice on the verge of tears. “I hurt him.” Her voice wobbled and she bit her lip.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured, sitting down. “But lover’s tiffs are like rain storms, wild and distressing while they last, and next thing the sun is shining again.”
She laughed but it sounded more like a sob. “This is no lover’s tiff, Monkstead! This is a hurricane raging through the islands of the Caribbean destroying all in its path!”
So dramatic, he thought. Who would have thought Lady Richmond with her icy demeanour could be so theatrical. He liked her better like this.
“And yet those islands have survived many such storms,” he offered gently.
She seemed to realise she was not herself and cleared her throat, trying to pull herself together. “I’m sorry. My maid shouldn’t have let you in, but now you are here . . . ?”
“Of course, Lady Richmond. My apologies—I will state my business and be on my way. My sister is arriving in London tomorrow and I am hosting a supper in her honour tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice so I wanted to deliver my invitation in person.”
She put a hand to her throat and the smile she gave him was forced. “If I am able then I will be happy to attend. At the moment I am . . .” She shook her head.
“I understand.”
“Do you? I wish I did. I was unaware you had a sister.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you asking everyone in the square? Will Miss Willoughby be there?”
He was startled, wondering why she had chosen to ask about Margaret in particular, and then he remembered that the two women were friends. “I do intend to ask her,” he said evenly.
“You know that Margaret will be leaving us soon?” she rambled on. “Going home to marry the curate. She doesn’t want to, but she is being ‘persuaded’ it is the right thing to do by her family.”
She shook her head and for a moment he thought she was on the verge of another wild outburst.
“Perhaps you can convince her to stay, Lady Richmond.”
Lavinia sighed. “I wish I could. We will miss her, will we not?” She was looking directly at him.
There was an awkward silence. Did she suspect his feelings for Margaret Willoughby were not quite as uncomplicated as he pretended? Perhaps, but she wouldn’t know for certain, he was sure of that. Monkstead was a master of emotional disguise and when it came to Miss Willoughby he kept his feelings buried deep.
“I don’t think Margaret will miss me,” he replied with a smile, as if it didn’t matter in the slightest that she looked at him as if he was the devil, and an annoying devil at that.
Lavinia gave him a little smile. “Because she pretends to dislike you so much? I am always rather suspicious of those sorts of declarations, Monkstead. Especially when they are spoken so often and so forcefully.”
He smiled back at her. “You speak as one who knows, Lady Richmond. Are you thinking of Captain Longhurst? If I remember correctly, you were avoiding him in my library not so long ago.”
“That was an entirely different matter,” she muttered.
“Was it?” he said, watching her fidget. “Sometimes it seems as if our fate is set, and that we have no say in what will happen next. That isn’t so. We have choices.”
She shook her head. “You talk in riddles, Monkstead. What has this to do with Margaret Willoughby and Captain Longhurst?”
“There are impediments to happiness, but they are not insurmountable.”
Her eyes flashed. “Sometimes they are insurmountable. Sometimes it is best to accept one’s fate.”
Monkstead had spent years ‘fixing’ other people, giving them the happy endings he himself had never had. Lavinia Richmond seemed to be a particularly difficult case, and yet it wasn’t in him to give up.
“I think you know I am an interfering sort of neighbour,” he said, with a self-deprecating smile. “But if you tell me that there is nothing to be done then I will step away and leave you to your lonely, bleak future without the man you love.”
Her eyes widened and then filled with tears. “You are cruel,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
“Yes,” he agreed, “I am. To myself as well as others.”