Always the Rival (Never the Bride #7) - Emily E K Murdoch Page 0,26
gate behind her and started walking up the church path. “Your cold could not have been too dreadful, then.”
“No, thank goodness,” she said. “Two or three days at home, doing very little was sufficient to cure me.”
Charles did not permit himself the luxury of looking at her. He was engaged to be married to Miss Frances Lloyd. Other ladies should not be attracting his eye—particularly those who evidently did not consider him a suitor.
His heart overruled his head, and he took a closer look at Priscilla. Had she always been this beautiful? Had her blue eyes always been so bright? Had the corners of her mouth always lilted just before she laughed?
How could he not have noticed these things until now?
“…and I must apologize profusely,” she was saying as Miss Worsley linked arms with her. “Tardiness is never acceptable, especially amongst friends. But I must say Charles told me half past the hour, so if anything, you are all too early!”
Westray laughed, a little too hard in Charles’s estimation, and the Duchess of Devonshire shook her head.
“Really, that is so like you, Priscilla,” Harry said, beaming. “And very like you, Orrinshire, now I come to think about it. Goodness, you are so alike, are you not?”
Charles felt heat rise to his cheeks as Westray, Harry, and Miss Worsley all turned to look at him.
“Alike?” he said, playing for time.
Priscilla was blushing. “I do not think we are anything alike,” she said. “Though I am not entirely sure who should be most offended by that!”
“Well, then, in that case, I say we are alike,” he said magnanimously. “Though I am not sure how you see it, Harry.”
Harry snorted. “You have never noticed? Goodness gracious, you were practically raised together, Orrinshire, I would be more surprised if you were not alike.”
Westray was looking between them now with narrowed eyes, and Charles shifted on his feet.
“Yes,” said Westray slowly. “Now that I come to look at you both, I do see the resemblance. ’Tis more how you hold yourselves, the way you jest. Practically brother and sister.”
“No,” said Charles quickly. “Not brother and sister.”
There was a moment of silence that continued for an awfully long time. Westray snickered. Charles felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise and forced down the urge to punch his friend in the face.
Where had all this anger and aggression come from?
“Shall we start then?” he asked, desperate to move the conversation on. “If we wait much longer, we will not have the light for the return trip.”
“I am not walking in the dark,” said Miss Worsley, still arm in arm with Priscilla. “You know the land around here, Your Grace, surely you can find a route that does not leave us in the darkening evening?”
Charles smiled at the formal tone.
“Please, call me Orrinshire,” he said gently, and her cheeks pinked. “Now, I suggest we start in this direction, which will bring us through woodland and then a little farmland – one of my tenants, he will not mind – which then circles back here. ’Tis only an hour, more than enough time to be completed in daylight. Before luncheon, even. You will have no need to fret, Miss Worsley.”
They set off, Westray and Harry taking the lead. Charles found himself walking beside Priscilla, with Miss Worsley on her other side.
“And the trouble is of course, that as a Liberal, he does not really understand the challenges that so many face,” Miss Worsley was saying earnestly. “If politics aims to be truly representative, as it should, then…”
Charles allowed the conversation to wash over him as they joined a footpath that meandered into Orrinsbeck Woods. Politics had never interested him; it all seemed to be a lot of shouting with not much action. He had never taken up his seat in the House of Lords for just that reason, something his mother berated him about on almost a weekly basis.
What was the point? A lot of stuffy old men with little understanding of the real world, and him, a gentleman with little understanding of the political world.
It was hardly a recipe for success.
“I believe the next election will change things dramatically,” Priscilla was saying, catching Charles’s attention. “The ongoing disagreements about the Enclosure Act will not continue in the same way, I believe, if the prime minister…”
Charles tried not to stare as she spoke. She was remarkably astute, and about a topic which, traditionally, had been the province of…well. Not ladies.