As this involved a monkey and the headmaster, it tickled Serena into laughing quite a bit, and she relaxed.
Looking at Freddy, she realized the more she laughed, the more sullen he became. She frowned over it, for the time had come for him to see on his own that his courtship was fruitless and unwise. She had hoped to spare him hurt, but it was beginning to look as though she was not going to be able to do that. It saddened her to think she might have to give him a set down. Her hope all along had been that he would grow tired of courting her and decide to return to Oxford on his own.
“You and your uncle, Miss Moorely, have a very special relationship,” his lordship said after eyeing his grumpy nephew and taking a quick look in her direction. “It is obvious that you dote on one another.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “He is a dear, and I have been very fortunate. He has been father, mother, and friend all these years.” She bent towards his lordship and said confidingly, though she couldn’t understand what prompted her to do so, “He often appears gruff and ill-tempered, but that is only his way. He has an overactive sense of humor and likes to tease incessantly.”
He chuckled. “And his sense of humor, I see, has rubbed quite nicely onto you. Teasing has become an art that you manage with a great deal of style.” His blue eyes twinkled as he looked at her. If he hadn’t turned away to watch their progress down the road, she would have been lost in his eyes.
She tried to ignore the effect he had on her as she repressed a smile and said, “I shall take that as a compliment, though I am not sure you meant it as one.”
“Aren’t you?” His brow went up. “But I did mean it as a compliment. I could not sit in your company and do anything else but admire you.”
“La,” she said with a soft chuckle and a shake of her head. “You, my lord, do that so well, that it doesn’t even sound practiced to me, yet I have this feeling that you are purposely trying to charm me and not for the usual reasons.” What did she hope to accomplish speaking thusly to him? What was wrong with her? Nothing. She was doing what she always did, riding her instincts, and her instincts told her that something more than flirtation was on his mind.
Of one thing she was certain, he was making an effort to win her interest, but what his ulterior motives were she could not guess.
“Have you been hurt in love?” he asked suddenly.
“No … at least … no, not hurt,” she answered, looking at him inquiringly. She was surprised by the question.
“Yet you are wary of the revered emotion.”
“Am I, do you think? Perhaps time has taught me that men of consequence are not always sincere. Their motives hinge on factors that usually have to do with furthering their place in society, plumping up their pockets or their egos. That knowledge disappoints; it does not hurt.”
“And who disappointed you, my beauty?” He appeared genuinely incredulous.
“Oh, as to that, you must know that young girls are easily disappointed,” she answered evasively.
“Did some buffoon stir your passions and then make a marriage of convenience with someone else? For that is what it sounds like.” His lordship seemed determined on this subject.
She eyed his profile until he turned his gaze from the road and his eyes once again locked with hers. She broke away from the intensity of that look, and a nervous laugh escaped her before she sighed and said, “My lord, I am three and twenty. It would be an odd thing indeed if my passions had not been stirred once or twice, don’t you think? And our society encourages ‘marriages of convenience’, but, no, no one has actually betrayed me in any way at all.”
“Then my question is, why so leery …?” he asked, his voice low and husky as it weaved a pattern through her mind, into her nerves, through her blood and took hold of her heart. “For leery you are and in spite of the heat I can see in your dark eyes. The fact is, when a man, any man looks into them, he is drawn to you, even against his will. Surely you have received offers over the years.”
His words blasted a bevy of shooting stars through her blood. She looked away as she answered him
with a question. “And you, my lord. Let us not make this all about me. How old were you when you lost your heart to some lucky female, and she broke it?” She looked back at his profile, and as he turned she was moved by the emotion on his face. Even in the cool breeze, she felt as though she were on fire. Too many clothes, she thought. She wanted to take off some of her clothes.
“Now how do you know that I had my heart broken?”
She released a short laugh. “La, but of course you did, for I see your opinion of love in your eyes, and that opinion speaks of caution.”
He gave her a half smile. “Indeed, I was not much older than Freddy.”
She frowned, for this is just what she had been concerned about: injuring Freddy for the next woman, the right woman. She asked again, “So then, some woman did break your heart?”
“She did.”
Surprised, even though she had asked the question in the belief that he had, in fact, been hurt as a young man, she said, “Odd that, though I wondered. I find it hard to believe.”
“Do you? Well, at the time I lacked the title, for my dear father was still alive, and my fortune was more of an allowance. In addition to these faults, I was, you see, quite naïve. The lady in question teased me, kept me at her side because it amused her, but she had her sights on a title and a greater fortune.” He shrugged. “I suppose she meant to keep me in the wings in case her earl did not come up to scratch.” He grinned wickedly. “The unsuspecting fellow never stood a chance, and now, as it happens, I feel sorry for him, though I envied him at the time.”
“Well, good riddance to her. She is not worth keeping in your memory,” Serena said with strong feeling.
He eyed her. “You actually mean that, don’t you?” He gave her a rueful look and said before she could respond, “Do you know, she wasn’t married to her earl more than six months when she offered me her time and her body.”
Serena felt a blush charge into her cheeks but asked, “And?”