your attention to some other matter. My father will do as he sees fit. He is a peer of the realm, as he frequently reminds all and sundry. You cannot gainsay him. My brothers have tried to thwart him, and it has gone hard for them as a result.”
Reston shrugged broad, heavily muscled shoulders clad in excellent tailoring. “Your brothers have to live with him. I can have you spirited off to family holdings in Ireland, and your father won’t find you. How old are you?”
Damn him for the casual rescue he offered. “Five-and-twenty years.”
“So your father cannot tell you where to go, or with whom. If you consented to some travel, it would not be kidnapping.”
“I will not consent,” Leah said. “He has already threatened to cut off my brother without a penny and has reduced Darius’s quarterly funds to a pittance, as it is.”
“Let me help you,” his lordship rumbled. He shifted his tone, imbued it with a lazy sensuality that sent tremors of memory through low places in Leah’s body. “I ask nothing of you, only that you let me help you, and you might as well.” He stood and tipped his hat. “I’m going to whether you like it or not. A pleasure, Lady Leah.”
He ambled over to the water to take his leave of Emily, showing her the same courtesy he would an older lady. She blushed and smiled, flattered, no doubt, that a titled lord would pass the time of day with her. Watching the tableau, Leah had an astonishing thought:
If Reston married Emily, then Leah could dwell in safety with her sister. As a member of the family, Reston would be able to provide a home for Leah, and the earl would have to allow it.
And so what if the most memorable kiss Leah had experienced had been with her sister’s prospective spouse?
Leah rose. “Lord Reston!”
“My lady?” He was at her side in a few long-legged strides.
Leah glanced at the footman, who was respectfully keeping his distance. “If the weather is fair, I can chance to meet you again at this hour in three or four days’ time. I am watched, though, so it had better not appear contrived.”
“Watched by the help,” Reston concluded easily. “Friday then, weather permitting, or Monday. Until then.” He tipped his hat again and left with a final, thoroughly friendly smile at the footman.
***
“So that was your Viscount Reston?” Emily gushed as she and Leah sauntered toward home. “Grand, indeed, Leah. And so very well-mannered. Is he the kind of gentleman you meet at these balls and breakfasts?”
Leah smiled at her sister’s enthusiasm and chose her truths, as usual. “He’s larger than most and probably more charming than most. Did you like him?”
“Of course I liked him, though he is quite a specimen.”
“Quite.” Emily was just a shade over five feet in her stockings, while Leah was eight inches taller. If Nicholas Haddonfield was imposing to Leah in terms of both his charm and his physique, what must Emily make of him? “He’s a mild-mannered man as well, though. I shouldn’t think his size would matter a great deal to his friends and family.”
“Perhaps not,” Emily replied, then she gave a little shudder. “But to his wife?”
“He would be a gentleman, Em,” Leah said. “In every regard.”
Emily cast her a curious glance, then shook her head. “He can be your gentleman, never mine.”
Bless Emily’s loyalty, and drat her stubbornness. “Don’t be too sure about that. He’s rumored to be in the market for a wife, and he’s an earl’s heir, Em. You could do worse. He’d be kind. I know he would.” And his kisses would be lovely. Drat that, too.
“Kind or not,” Emily said, “I’ve no wish to bear him his heirs. I’m sure I can find a suitable man among the fifty-one remaining candidates I’ve listed from Debrett’s, though perhaps I’d best start making inquiries regarding height, hadn’t I?”
Leah did not respond to that pragmatic observation, letting the subject drop. Emily had been ten years old when Leah had been whisked off to Italy, and the version of events passed along to Emily was no doubt the one that would put a girl in fear of the slightest misstep, particularly in her search for a husband.
She and Emily had never openly discussed the past, a small, curious sadness amid a sororal landscape full of them. A landscape that now included one very tall, well-mannered viscount with kind blue eyes.