She wasn’t surprised when Simon materialized beside her on the terrace; whenever they were in the same party, in situations like this, he’d be somewhere close—on that she could happily wager. Taking the role of reluctant protector had been his habit for years.
But then he broke with custom and offered her his arm.
She hesitated.
Simon watched her blink at his sleeve as if she wasn’t quite sure what it was. He was waiting when she glanced up; he caught her eye, raised one brow in a wordless, deliberately arrogant challenge.
Up went her chin; with haughty calm she placed her fingers on his sleeve. Hiding his smile, small victory though it was, he led her down the shallow steps onto the lawn.
Kitty had gone ahead with Ambrose and Desmond, conversing animatedly with Lucy Buckstead so that the damsel was forced to accompany the trio rather than hang back and walk with James as had most likely been her aim. Charlie and James escorted the Hammond girls and Winifred; Drusilla had declined to join them, citing an aversion to the evening air, and Henry had been engrossed in a conversation with Mr. Buckstead.
Reaching the lawns, they stepped out. “Do you have any preference—any sight you wish to see?” He gestured about them.
“By the fitful moonlight?” Portia tracked Kitty’s small band as they headed away from the house, toward the dark band of huge rhododenrons that bordered the lawn. “What’s that way?”
He’d been watching her face. “The temple.”
Her brows rose, faintly supercilious. “Which way is the lake?”
He waved to where the lawn sloped down and away, forming a broad green path wending through the garden beds. “It’s not close, but not too far for a stroll.”
They strolled that way. The others ambled after them; the Hammond sisters’ exclamations over the extensive gardens, the huge shrubs and trees, the numerous walks, borders, and well-stocked beds, rippled an appreciative chorus in the soft evening air. The gardens were indeed lush and dense; the combined scents of untold flowers wreathed through the warm dark.
They walked on, neither fast nor slow, with no vital aim; the moment was goal enough, peaceful, quiet—unexpectedly companionable.
Behind them, the others dawdled, their voices falling to a murmur. He glanced at Portia. “What are you about?”
She tensed fractionally. “About?”
“I heard you in the lookout, remember? Something about learning more, making a decision, and considering all those eligible.”
She glanced at him, her face shadowed by the trees beneath which they were passing.
He prompted, “Eligible for what?”
She blinked, her gaze on his face, then she looked forward. “It’s . . . just a point of interest. Something I’ve been wondering about.”
“What is ‘it’?”
After a moment, she replied, “You don’t need to know.”
“Meaning you don’t wish to tell me.”
She inclined her head.
He was tempted to press, but she’d be here, under his eye, for the next several days; he’d have time and more to figure out her latest start simply by watching all she did. He’d seen her taking note of the gentlemen over the dinner table, and when she’d danced with James and Charlie, and Winfield, too, she’d been unusually animated, leading the conversation with questions. He was quite sure those questions hadn’t been about Kitty; she might ask him such things, but that was because they were almost family—with each other, they didn’t even pretend to the social niceties.
“Very well.”
His easy acceptance earned him a suspicious look, but it wasn’t in her interests to quibble. He let his lips curve, heard her soft humph as she faced forward once more. They strolled on in easy silence, neither feeling any need to state the obvious—that he would keep watching her until he learned her secret, and that she was now warned that he would.
As they crossed the last stretch of lawn above the lake, he reviewed her behavior thus far. Had she been any other female, he would have suspected she was husband-hunting, yet she’d never been so inclined. She’d never had much use for the male of the species; he couldn’t imagine any circumstance that might have changed her mind.
Much more likely was that she was searching for some knowledge—possibly some introduction to or information on some activity not normally open to females. That seemed highly probable—exactly her cup of tea.
They reached the lip from which the grassed path ran gently down to the lake. They halted, she to sweep the scene before her, the vista of the wide lake, its waters dark and still, a black pit lying in a natural valley with a wooded hill looming beyond, an informal pinetum on rising ground to the right and, just visible in the weak light, the summerhouse on the far left shore, starkly white against a black backdrop of massed rhododendrons.
The sight held her silent, absorbed, head up as she took in the view.