Nor had she been at dinner the past two nights nor in the drawing room to play cards or charades.
Julia’s pretty face had pleated. “I think Amy is taking her meals in the nursery. She is a great favorite with the children, you know.”
He could imagine.
He could also guess that Aimée’s popularity with the children made life a great deal easier for the other adults in the household.
Irritation rose in him.
It was none of his business if Aimée was taken advantage of by her English relatives, he reminded himself. She was not his charge. But he found himself watching for her all the same, driven by emotions he did not understand and could not name.
Attraction? Guilt? Concern?
Behind him, the conversation had turned to the Christmas ball and whether the guests would come in costume or wear dominos.
“Costumes, definitely,” Howard Basing said. “At least for the young ladies. Why cover their charms? I quite fancy myself a satyr disporting with nymphs and goddesses.”
Several of the young ladies in question tittered.
Lucian clenched his hand on the windowsill. He did not like Howard Basing. The only satisfaction he had was that Basing had spent the past few days with the rest of the house party. Whatever Aimée was doing, at least she wasn’t with him.
Movement disturbed the gray and white landscape outside. Figures lugging a basket down the gentle slope that led to the frozen lily pond. A woman, he guessed by her clothes and her size, and two—no, three—children. She carried the smallest in her arms.
Lucien’s pulse quickened. Aimée.
He watched from the window as she set the child down and grinned at the boy with the basket. Lucien had imagined her confined to the nursery, pressed into reluctant service while the house party went on without her. But there was nothing false in the smile she flashed the boy, nothing forced in the way she took the little girl’s hand, nothing grudging in her manner or apparent affection.
“Mrs. Pockley is making my costume. She says I have the prettiest figure she has ever measured,” Julia confided. “Of course, she is only the village seamstress, but she has some very interesting ideas for matching costumes.”
One of the girls clapped her hands together in excitement. “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Mars and Venus.” A giggle.
“Anthony and Cleopatra.”
“Punch and Judy,” muttered Tom Whitmore.
Lucien ignored them all, his attention on the scene outside.
Aimée Blanchard was . . . By thunder, she was actually lying down with the children on the snowy bank, all of them waving their arms and swooshing their legs as if they had been struck by illness or madness. He could not hear them, but the two little girls were clearly giggling. Aimée’s face was bright with laughter, her bonnet knocked sideways in the snow, her dark hair and pink cheeks glowing against the stark white backdrop.
He did not think her existence as an unpaid servant in her cousin’s house could bring her much joy. And yet frolicking with the children, she looked genuinely happy, young, exuberant, and vividly alive.
Perhaps she made her own happiness.
She slid on her bottom and rose carefully to her feet, leaving a crude outline behind her on the snowy ground.
An angel.
Inside him, something stirred and yearned like a hawk stretching its wings, straining to be free.
“Mr. Hartfell,” Julia called. “What is your opinion of matching costumes?”
He forced his attention from the window to focus on her pretty, expectant face. “My opinion must depend on the preferences of my partner.”
“And on her identity?” Julia suggested, with a sideways look at poor Whitmore.
Lucien was already tired of her game, but he had come to Moulton to play. Because he needed a rich wife. “Certainly on her identity.”