Earl's Well That Ends Well (The Way to a Lord's Heart #5) - Jane Ashford Page 0,39

his face promised that his word was good.

Teresa gazed at him in confusion. The difference between what she knew to be true about the world and the scene before her was driving her distracted. She didn’t want to try to decipher it. But could anyone play a role all the time? Pretend to be reasonable and kind with every phrase, every action, every change of expression, even when no one seemed to be noticing? She didn’t think so. She was extremely sensitive to deceit; she would have caught him. It seemed this man was not playing some deep game that she hadn’t yet understood. He really was honorable and accommodating, as well as a dizzyingly handsome nobleman, a combination she had not thought possible. Her admiration, her intense attraction to him, was not foolish. It was merely madness.

“So what else can we do to catch this crook-pated varlet?” asked Tom.

Teresa started. She’d actually forgotten the lad was there. He’d been so uncharacteristically quiet. And she’d been so absorbed in the conversation. She noted a twinkle in Tom’s eyes.

“We must realize that this phaeton driver has not actually been connected to the disappearances,” Lord Macklin replied. “We mustn’t stop looking for the kidnapper.”

“I’ll keep on asking questions at the theater,” said Tom.

“Carefully,” said the earl. “Someone who is abducting opera dancers won’t appreciate scrutiny. He might take steps.”

“I’ll be subtle,” answered Tom, as if it was a joke between them. “I can be,” he told Teresa.

Lord Macklin laughed. “That was the first evidence of your acting skills, I suppose.”

“I cannot come out like this again.”

Teresa didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until the earl asked, “Why not?”

“It is not apropiado.” It was ironic that she should fall back on convention, but the truth was not acceptable.

“Friends may go for a drive,” said Lord Macklin.

“We are not friends.”

Tom looked surprised.

“You have some objection to being friends with me?” asked the earl. His face was unreadable.

“Friends are equals. We can never be that. With the great difference in our circumstances.” Her life was calm and settled. He would turn it upside down. No, he already had. And she must fight her way back to safety.

“You would find much in common with Miss Julia Grandison,” he said.

Teresa blinked at this unexpected reply. She was nothing like the towering woman who had looked down her nose at everyone at the play. Was this some sort of insult?

“Tom and I are friends,” Lord Macklin added.

How much longer would she be shut in this carriage, her leg inches from his? His gaze was much too acute. Teresa looked out to see where they were. The outskirts of her neighborhood streamed by. “The cases are entirely different,” she said. This was true whether or not she believed in their friendship. Tom was a boy, and she was a woman on her own.

“Ah,” said the earl.

Now he would argue with her, explain where she was wrong and why she really should do just as he wished. Whatever that was. What was it?

“Well, we can maintain a fiction of friendship while we pursue our inquiries,” Lord Macklin continued.

“A fiction?” Teresa stared at him. Was this some English expression?

“A simple…pact. That was your idea after all, wasn’t it?”

“Mine?”

“When you…claimed ownership yesterday?” Something glinted in his blue-gray eyes. Did he dare tease her about that? This man was unprecedented in her experience. Tom was watching them as if fascinated. It seemed his aristocratic friend’s sly manner wasn’t familiar to him either.

“No obligations implied,” Lord Macklin added.

“I owe you none,” she snapped.

“Precisely. So, we are in agreement?”

If this was the sort of discussion he’d had with his wife, he didn’t know the meaning of the word, Teresa thought.

“We’ll have to be out and about looking for Odile and Sonia and Maria,” said Tom.

And a lord could go where they couldn’t. Tom had made that point. Still, it felt as if he was siding with Lord Macklin against her. No obligations, Teresa told herself. He could expect nothing. “Yes,” she said.

“What harm can it do?” the earl asked.

She didn’t know, but she suspected.

An hour later, Teresa sat in her small parlor with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits at her side and her mind in turmoil. Two sides of her were engaged in a rancorous inner battle. One was bemoaning all that she had lost. It felt constricted and sad in this limited English life. The other was grateful and happy to be in a cozy haven and wished never to venture