One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,38

she said, her cheerfulness not forced—she was happy to see her sons, though dread of the coming conversation with George hung over her like a cloud. “We are in danger of becoming dilettantish with our lessons, boys. Noses to the grindstone today, I’m afraid.” She paused for a sip of coffee, fortifying herself not against the chorus of their grumbles but against the words she was determined to say next. “But first, I have a question.”

Jamie and Philip turned toward her, Jamie’s eyes dark like her own, Philip’s blue like his father’s, both pairs bright with curiosity despite the general air of sleepiness. They were good boys, growing into good young men. She could not expect to keep them by her side forever. They might even want to go away to school. Either way, they deserved to have some say in their future, in the plans Lord Dulsworthy had for them.

“Later this morning,” she began, “your Uncle George will be calling to discuss something of importance with me.”

He called frequently enough that the visit could not be a matter of particular interest to either of them. Philip, though generally optimistic, turned back to his breakfast while waiting to hear the rest, evidently having decided that another outing in the phaeton was unlikely to be on offer. Jamie, however, narrowed his gaze—only slightly, but enough to make her think that he suspected something.

That look was enough to weaken her resolve. “And so I wondered whether you would rather begin this morning with drawing,” she gestured toward the box of shapes, “or defer that lesson until after the interruption and start with geography instead?” She laid her hand on the rolled-up maps, hoping to disguise its tremble.

“Geography,” declared Philip around a mouthful of porridge. He generally lacked the patience for drawing.

“Whatever you think is best, Mama,” said Jamie, his trusting, steady gaze freighting the words with additional meaning.

Or so she chose to believe.

“Very well, then. Geography it is,” she said, rising to set aside the box and clear room to unroll one of the maps. “Finish your breakfast and we’ll begin.”

Not quite two hours later, she left the boys with a project to sketch the major rivers of Europe and Asia and went downstairs to freshen up before her meeting. She wished to appear cool and collected, not harried and a little dusty. And she did not want to be late, either.

She had already arranged to have Lord Dulsworthy shown into the library, not the drawing room. She would greet him from the chair behind her late husband’s desk, to remind him of the authority she still held as the boys’ mother and the Countess of Kingston.

She opened the library door and found…her mother.

Most mornings at this hour, she would still be in bed, drinking her chocolate, reading through her post and the newspaper, meticulously arranging her daughter’s life.

Now she stood in the library, running a finger over a row of book spines, apparently searching out a tome on agriculture and estate management—unless Matthews’s cleaning project of a few days ago had resulted in a total reorganization of the shelves.

“Mama, this is a surprise.”

She turned sharply, eyes wide. The hand that had been trailing over the bookshelf fluttered down to her chest. “Goodness, Amanda, what a fright you gave me. I never heard you come in.”

If she didn’t know it would violate her mother’s strict sense of propriety, Amanda might have suspected Mama of having once considered a career on the stage. Though not the London stage. Perhaps a troupe that traveled to villages and country towns where the audience’s expectations of the actors’ skill were considerably more modest.

“I suppose you must’ve already heard. Lord Dulsworthy is to arrive momentarily and I’ve arranged to have him shown in here.”

“Really?” Mama pretended to choose a book and crossed the room with it. For just a moment, Amanda allowed herself to hope that she intended to show herself out. “I suppose this is a comfortable enough room for entertaining,” she said, sitting down on the sofa near the front of the room, part of a grouping of softer, more comfortable furniture placed to balance the enormous mahogany desk at the other end.

“I’m not entertaining, Mama. He’s coming to discuss the boys.”

“Oh.” Disappointment flickered into her mother’s eyes. “Nothing…else to talk over? Since the ball, I mean.”

“No.”

She rose again. “When your Papa died, I had no thought of marrying again. But after a time, there were offers.” Amanda could not help but start at that