Earl's Well That Ends Well (The Way to a Lord's Heart #5) - Jane Ashford Page 0,19

Hostesses thought him an asset at any party. He was a mature man, not an awkward stripling in his first season.

And yet what he found to say to the señora was “I was in Spain once, when I was a boy.” His voice even sounded younger than usual.

“Were you?” she replied. Her face was difficult to see in the depths of the box, partly shaded by the mantilla.

“Our ship stopped in Málaga after we came through Gibraltar. I remember seeing oranges hanging from trees and being astonished.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “There is the scent, too.”

“The sweetness of the air, yes.”

“Almost like tasting the fruit.”

“But not quite,” he said. “They let me pick it. I ate as many oranges as I could hold.”

Her smile was reminiscent, as if she knew very well what he meant. Arthur enjoyed the beauty of it, and the fact that he’d evoked it. “My mother came from the south of Spain,” she said. “Near Cartagena. We would go there to visit her family in the winter.”

He nodded to encourage more confidences.

“The sea was so different,” she went on. “Soft and blue and friendly. Not like the rough waves of Santander.”

Her chagrin at mentioning this city was obvious. Clearly, she wished to reveal as little as possible about herself. It was frustrating. “Cartagena must be rather like Málaga,” Arthur said to keep her story flowing.

She raised dark brows.

“Both on the Mediterranean Sea and…southern.” This managed to sound both inane and naive. He gritted his teeth.

“How old were you when you made your journey?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Ten. My father wanted us to see Greece, the whole family, that is. So he packed us up and set off.”

“How original.”

“He was full of ideas and enthusiasms. There were times when I chafed against his schemes, but I think now that I couldn’t have had a better father.”

Señora Alvarez blinked, then bent her head. The edge of her lace mantilla fell across her cheek so that he couldn’t see her expression, but he knew the smile had died. He remembered that she’d lost her family in the war. He should have chosen some other topic of conversation.

“Did you enjoy your travels?” she asked.

“I did.” He should have talked about the play, Arthur thought. But at the moment he couldn’t remember anything about the wretched piece. He didn’t usually have troubles like this.

“And did your father?”

Nothing to do but press forward. “He found that the Greek he’d learned in school was nothing like that spoken in the streets of Athens. He was quite outraged. He sent a letter of complaint to his old schoolmasters at Eton.”

“Because he hadn’t been taught modern Greek?”

“No. He felt that the Greeks should not have been allowed to stray from strict classical forms.”

She laughed, and Arthur felt a surge of triumph. Laughter made friendships. He leaned a bit closer to her. The theater was filling, and the babble of the audience made conversation harder. He caught a hint of the sweet scent she wore, and lost his train of thought.

“And what did they reply?”

“They?”

“The schoolmasters at Eton.”

“Oh. Yes. I never heard. They didn’t mention the letter to me. Not even when I boasted to my schoolmates, after we returned, that I had seen the world. I was quite puffed up with my own consequence.”

“Did you take the, ah, the ‘grand tour’ after your school days like so many young English milords?”

How old did she think he was? “By the time I was of an age to do that, France had erupted in revolution,” he pointed out.

“Ah. Yes.” Her dark eyes grew distant. “And then the war came to our country. I was to go—” She broke off abruptly.

It seemed as if every conversational avenue led to awkwardness. Arthur wondered what journey the fighting in Spain had disrupted. He wanted to know all about her, and she didn’t wish to reveal anything about her life. It was an impasse.

“It became impossible to travel,” she said as if closing the subject.

He hated seeing melancholy in her face. What could he do to banish it? Arthur felt he would go to any lengths to cheer her. If only he knew how.

He hadn’t meant to pry. It was natural to want to get to know a new…friend? Señora Alvarez was looking down again, hiding her face with the mantilla. Arthur struggled with unfamiliar frustration. Generally, people he met were eager to further the acquaintance. Some did it because they saw an advantage in the connection, of course. Society was full