I hope not.’ Mrs Jordan’s smile was curiously tender. ‘Not all the time.’
* * *
Avery watched Caroline during the meal and Caroline watched Alice. Not him. Which meant he had either so comprehensively embarrassed her that she did not dare risk catching his eye or that she was completely indifferent to him. And yet his reckless remark about desire had discomforted her to the extent that she had challenged him about it this morning. She had neither screamed, nor slapped his face when he had kissed her, but she had given him no encouragement either.
So...not a merry window or even one sophisticated enough to contemplate an irregular liaison. He suspected she was not mourning her husband in anything but the outward show of black clothing and quiet living. There was a mystery there.
‘Was your husband a landowner, Mrs Jordan?’
‘In a small way. He was a military man.’ She prepared an apple for Alice, scarcely glancing at him as she controlled the peel that curled from her knife.
‘From this part of the world?’
‘We lived in London when we were together.’ Her hand was quite steady with the sharp blade. ‘There, Alice. Now, I was careful to get it all off in one piece, which is very important for this magic to work. If you hold up the peel, very high, and drop it, it will make the initial of your husband-to-be.’
Alice giggled. ‘That can’t be right, Aunt Caroline. You peeled it, so you will have to drop it.’
‘I have no intention of marrying again.’
‘Please?’
Avery watched, amused that the wide-eyed green stare, combined with the faint tremble of the lower lip, worked just as well on Mrs Jordan as it did on him. He shuddered to think of the impact on young men when Alice was old enough to make her come-out. He would have to carry a shotgun at all times.
‘Oh, very well. It will come out with a Z or an X or something improbable.’ Caroline held up the peel and dropped it. She and Alice studied it with all the care of scientists with a lens. ‘I cannot make anything of it,’ she said at last. ‘The magic obviously works and it knows I will not marry again.’
Avery leaned across the table. ‘It is a lower-case a,’ he said. ‘It is facing me, that is why you cannot read it. See, the round shape and the little tail.’
‘A is for Avery,’ Alice exclaimed.
There was a deadly little silence, then Caroline said, ‘Your papa will be marrying a titled lady, Alice. She is probably dropping her apple peel at just this moment and it is coming out as a capital A, the right way up.’
‘You have the makings of a diplomat,’ Avery remarked softly as Alice became engrossed in making letters with pieces of peel while she nibbled on her apple segments. ‘I am sorry if we have embarrassed you between us this morning.’
‘I am not embarrassed,’ Caroline said and returned her attention to the piece of fruit on her own plate.
And she was not, he realised. But she was distressed. He was learning to read her emotions behind the calm facade and her eyes were sparkling as if with unshed tears and her hand shook, just a little, as she wielded the sharp little knife. What the devil had her husband done to her to make her so fragile on the subject of marriage?
* * *
He is going to marry some day and Alice will have a stepmother. She will call her Mama and she will love her. They will be a family in some glamorous European capital while Avery is a diplomat and then they will host great house parties at Wykeham Hall when they return to England. Alice will grow up and another woman will help her choose her gowns and will share her secrets and those first tears over a flirtation. Another woman will... Stop it!
It was self-indulgent and as foolish as prodding a bruise to see if it hurt. Of course it hurt, but her heartbreak was not important. Alice was what mattered. Only Alice. Laura glanced up and saw Avery was watching her. He knew she was upset and his face was grave. Strange how she was beginning to be able to read his face, the thoughts behind the skilful diplomatic mask. Would there have been as much subtlety and intelligence in Piers’s face as he matured to the age this man was now?
He smiled at her, a little rueful, the expression of a friend who wants to help, but is not quite sure how. He would not look like that if he knew she was deceiving him or who she was, she thought with a kick of conscience.
‘May I get down, Papa?’
‘Ask Mrs Jordan’s permission.’
‘Certainly. Go and play, Alice.’ Inevitably the door banged behind her. Then they were alone and she could say the thing her conscience was prodding her to say. ‘I apologise.’
‘Whatever for?’ Avery was leaning back in his chair, but he sat up at that.
‘I thought you arrogant and I made judgements about how well a single man could raise a child. It was wrong of me. Prejudiced.’
‘And I apologise for making assumptions about how a widow might wish to flirt.’
‘That is what it was? You must forgive me if I am a trifle innocent about these things.’ She was not, of course, but she wanted to maintain the fiction that her world was not that of the haut ton. But while he was being so frank, she could seize the opportunity to remove a small worry about Alice’s welfare. ‘Do you not keep a mistress?’
The look he gave her was forbidding, but he answered without hesitation. ‘I have done. Not very recently and not in this country. And I would never allow a future mistress anywhere near Alice, if that is what is worrying you.’
‘So, when you were hinting just now that I might take the position of governess, that negated any chance you might offer me a very different position?’
‘That is frankness if ever I heard it!’ That question jolted him out of his composure, which was interesting. When he recovered his countenance, with a speed that spoke volumes for his self-control, she thought he might be faintly amused under the surprise. ‘Allow me to be equally frank in return. I thought about that for a moment. And I am ashamed of myself, I own it, so you have no cause to look at me like that from those wide brown eyes.’
‘Like what?’ She had thought her emotions were well hidden.
‘As though you are disappointed in me. Although perhaps I should welcome some heat in your regard after your usual Arctic chill.’
‘You talk nonsense, my lord. I must leave now.’ Before this becomes any more complicated.
‘You will come tomorrow?’ he asked as she retrieved her bonnet, reticule and shawl from the hall stand.
The servants had made themselves scarce. Perhaps they know better than to intrude when their master is with a woman. No, that is unfair, I trust him when he says he would never expose Alice to one of his chères amies.
‘No,’ Laura said crisply. ‘It is not convenient tomorrow. Please say goodbye to Alice for me.’
Avery opened the door for her without speaking and she walked briskly down the drive, feeling his eyes on her back for every step. That had been remarkably like a tantrum,
