Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,82
of his preoccupation only when he heard a small sob. Bea often became tense and distressed, but she rarely cried.
He turned around and tried to peer inside through one of the airholes, seeing nothing but darkness. “Bea, poppet, I know Sir Hardshell isn’t coming back, but we can invite his cousin to come and stay with you. I hear his cousin has been looking for a place to stay. Maybe he wouldn’t mind inheriting Sir Hardshell’s glass tank.”
She sniffed but did not answer.
“The cousin’s name is Mr. Stoutback. He has a very nice, even temperament. And he is much younger than Sir Hardshell, so he’ll be able to live with us for a long, long time.”
Bea sobbed again. Hastings wished for fairy godmothers—one for Bea and one for him. “Or we can invite a different one of Sir Hardshell’s cousins. What do you think of Miss Carapace? I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind if you tied a pretty bow around her shell.”
“Does lady have cousins?” Bea’s question came all of a sudden.
Hastings started. “Lady?”
“Our lady,” she said dejectedly.
He was astounded. “You mean Lady Hastings? She is the reason you are in there?”
“Does she have cousins?”
If only Helena were as easy to replace as tortoises. “She does have cousins, but none of them can come live with us.”
Bea hiccuped. “Is she coming back?”
The all-important question. Hastings sat back down again and resumed his staring at the wall. “I hope so, poppet. I hope so.”
As she rang the doorbell of Andrew’s town house, Helena came to a disconcerting realization: Since she left Easton Grange, she had not once thought of Andrew. Half the time she’d been rubbing her lips, as if she were still trying to feel Hastings’s kiss. The rest of the time she kept reliving her last glimpse of him, standing before the window of the study, shadowy except for his face and his bright, lovely hair.
He had not waved, but only watched as her carriage pulled away.
Andrew himself opened the door. “Come in, Helena, please come in. I’m so glad you are here.”
How different it was to see him when she was firmly in possession of all her memories. When he smiled shyly, she was instantly transported to the small library at Fitz’s estate where they’d first run into each other and immediately started discussing the Venerable Bede’s works—how his face had glowed with pleasure that afternoon.
She blinked. Was this what Hastings had meant when he said that she saw Andrew not as the man he was, but the one he had been?
Andrew showed her into a parlor and lit a spirit lamp for tea. “It’s the servants’ half day, so if you don’t mind, we will make do with my rusty tea-making skills.”
He bustled about, retrieving tea and sugar, then bringing her a plate of toast sandwiches. She was reminded of her first—and only—visit to his house on the beautiful Norfolk coast as part of a group of young people. At her arrival, he’d carried her luggage up the stairs himself. In the course of the high tea later that afternoon, he’d made innumerable trips to bring her everything from lobster salad to cream cake.
Helena frowned: again the throes of nostalgia.
“Is something the matter?” asked Andrew.
“No, everything is fine. Did Mrs. Martin inform you I might be coming?”
Andrew sat down and measured tea leaves into the pot. “Yes, she cabled. I didn’t believe her, but I am so glad to be proven wrong.”
The stickpin at the center of his necktie—she’d given him one quite like it, with a Roman eagle emblem on the head. It had been the first Christmas party Fitz and Millie had thrown at Henley Park. Mulled wine had flowed freely. She’d pulled him into an alcove to kiss him, and he’d tasted of nutmeg and cloves.
She was always thinking of Andrew as he’d been years ago. How, then, would she judge the man he was today? “I’ll admit I haven’t always been fond of Mrs. Martin,” she said. “But after our chat today I’ve come to quite admire her. I like that she has taken her happiness into her own hands.”
“So you will leave Lord Hastings?” Andrew gazed at her. “Assuming, that is, you two have not yet married.”
“If I do leave him—”
“Then we can be married,” he said breathlessly.
“But what do you plan to do if I can’t leave him?”
Andrew fidgeted, rubbing a corner of the tablecloth between his fingers. “I don’t know.”
“Will you still grant your wife the divorce?”
“I suppose not, then.”
This was