Earl's Well That Ends Well (The Way to a Lord's Heart #5) - Jane Ashford Page 0,3
need anyone, and wouldn’t, not ever again. She was free. “I must go,” she said.
“I’m headed back,” said Tom. “We can walk with you, can’t we, my lord?”
“Of course,” said the tall earl.
Teresa was amused to hear reserve in his voice. He was vexed that she hadn’t bowed and scraped when told his rank. And she could afford to annoy him. How she enjoyed that. But what was he doing with young Tom? Was she obliged to warn the lad? Yes, she would, when the object of her concern wasn’t looming over them like a storm cloud. “There is no necessity to accompany me,” she said. She wished they wouldn’t, in fact.
“We’re happy to,” said Tom. “Eh, my lord?”
Lord Macklin bowed, a polite acknowledgment rather than an agreement.
Tom was finding something amusing in this encounter, Teresa saw. As he did in so much of existence. She envied the boy his easygoing temperament. For her part, she wanted to get away. She did not require disruptive earls in any form. All was serene in her life now. Well, barring minor annoyances like Dilch. She was satisfied and settled and determined not to stray from the bounds she’d set. It had been a long, difficult road to this place. She would let nothing threaten that hard-won peace. “It is but a few steps,” she said. “I won’t trouble you.” She nodded at Tom and said, “Good day, my lord.”
The earl took his dismissal with bland grace.
Worse and worse, thought Teresa. Such smooth surfaces concealed deceit. It was much easier when this sort of man was cutting and cold. But no matter. She wouldn’t ever see him again. There was no cause for concern. “Good day,” she said again. And walked rapidly away with her lumpy bag of produce bumping at her knee. Though she could feel his eyes on her back, she did not rush. Prey ran; she was not prey. She would never be prey again.
“Who in the world is she?” Arthur asked Tom when the lady was gone.
“Like I said, a neighbor.”
“In your lodgings?” Arthur had never seen her on his visits to Tom.
“No, she has her own house just down the street from my rooms.”
“With her family? Her husband, perhaps.”
Tom gave him a sidelong glance as he began to walk along the cobbles again. “No, just her and a servant girl. I think her family all died in the war. She doesn’t speak of them. Turns the subject right quick if anyone asks.”
“Ah.” The war against Napoleon had caused a great deal of displacement on the Continent, and the Iberian Peninsula had been particularly affected. “So she lives here in London now?”
“Aye. I reckon she has a bit of money. She seems to be able to please herself.”
A small income would sustain an individual in this part of town, Arthur thought. “You say she paints scenery for the theater?” He still found this odd.
“That’s where I met her, at the workshop,” said Tom. “She can make the flats look real as real. Like you was…were looking out over a regular vista.”
“An artist then?”
“Learned watercolors as a girl, she said.”
One of the accomplishments of a lady, Arthur thought. He had no doubt she was one. Was it her fall in status that made her so prickly? Or did she blame him, as an Englishman, for the depredations of the war? That seemed petty and unfair. “And who is this Dilch?”
“Him.” Tom sniffed. “Our local bully.”
“He hurts people?” Arthur grew concerned for Tom.
“Mostly he blusters,” the lad replied. “When it starts to go beyond that, the people hereabouts band together against him. No need to worry, my lord.”
Worry was only a part of what Arthur was feeling. He was remarkably unsettled, he realized. Señora Alvarez had roused and interested and annoyed him. How long had it been since he’d felt such tumult? Longer than he could recall, he thought.
He ought to simply dismiss her from his mind. She’d clearly had no interest in him. Indeed, she’d seemed eager to get away. But he did not deserve her abrupt dismissal. That was what rankled, Arthur thought. He was a…worthy person.
His face heated as he acknowledged the pomposity of that phrase. Yet it was true. Many people thought so. And for some reason, he felt a strong urge to show Señora Alvarez that she’d misjudged him. After that demonstration he would probably never see her again. They obviously did not move in the same circles.