Lucien didn’t bother to suppress his sigh. “Miss Bexley,” he corrected.
Again.
“She may be far too brash for my liking, but she does have a good eye for fashion.” Lady Brightstone’s lips pinched as if the grudging praise caused her a physical ache. “If nothing else, you could at least ask her for advice on what to wear. Since you refuse to accept any of the gentle suggestions I’ve offered.” She sniffed with indignity.
In the past, her “gentle suggestions” were delivered with the delicacy of a bruiser’s right hook.
Before he could brush aside this new idea, his mother continued, “And this way, you would not cause her any harm. It would merely be advice.”
With that, she lifted her nose into the air and sailed abruptly from the room, no doubt counting his inability to respond as a win in favor of her argument. Her suggestion lingered in the air behind her like the fog of old perfume.
But then a strange thing happened as the memory of those words settled over him, the idea becoming less unsavory as the minutes ticked by. His mother did have a point, though Lucien would never admit it.
Surely, a discussion with Miss Bexley could guide him toward being more fashionable. Loathsome though the idea of altering his comfortable attire seemed, the enticement of conversing again with Miss Bexley was undeniably appealing.
Yes, he would do it. His decision was made at that very moment. He would seek out Miss Bexley’s counsel on ways he might improve his overall appearance for the undesirable goal of securing a countess.
While winter was not Hannah’s favorite season, the trail through the woods still held a note of magic as frost glittered like fairy dust over the naked limbs of trees and over ground-level shrubs that managed to maintain some of their leaves. She inhaled, taking in the fresh air amid the scents of damp earth as the curricle rolled along the path.
Having the freedom to drive her carriage was one of the many things she loved about the country. She sat a little higher on the seat and glanced behind her to ensure the manor house was no longer in sight. Confident she wouldn’t be seen, she slipped free the silk ribbon under her chin and pulled away the weight of her bonnet.
Freckles be damned. She loved the wind caressing her skin and hair as she drove.
Besides, it wasn’t as though she had ever encountered anyone on this path. She’d navigated the pair of horses down its twisting curves every day of their time in York for years and never came upon a single soul.
“Miss Bexley,” a voice called out.
She jumped with a start and her boots—so much more practical for the country than dainty slippers—slapped upon the wooden floor. The horses jolted forward in surprise, sending her bonnet toppling over the side of the bench.
“Whoa, Bess. Whoa, Tabitha,” she said in a soothing voice to the startled mares.
The velvety brown beasts calmed immediately and slowed to a stop.
Hannah swiftly leapt down from her curricle to retrieve the bonnet, her feet sinking several inches into the thick mud, and found a gentleman already bent over the headwear to retrieve it for her. Unfortunately, as he pulled it free, glops of mud and partially frozen water fell from the side that had landed directly in a slushy puddle. Bitter disappointment burned in Hannah’s stomach. Mother would be livid, especially so soon after Hannah had ruined her dress.
“I’m afraid it’s soiled.” Lord Brightstone met her gaze with a look of genuine chagrin.
Heat washed over her cheeks. “Well, I suppose it isn’t as though you’ve never seen me without my bonnet.” She laughed at her self-deprecating comment.
“It’s fortunate for you that you’ve such lovely hair.” He extended the dripping bonnet toward her.
She accepted it in a state of shock, her gaze locked on him. Lovely hair? Usually, people called it garish. As overbright as her laugh was overloud. Yet another facet of her “too much” personality.
A blush colored his cheeks. “Should I not have said that?” He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I don’t always say the correct things.”
She shook her head. “No, I…it’s…you see, no one has said my hair is lovely before.” She shrugged. “Well, except my mother, but of course, she doesn’t count. Not only is she biased toward me, but her mother had hair this color. And my friends, of course. They have complimented it, though they, too, are rather biased. I suppose, really, no man has ever told me that before.”
She was rambling. God help her.
Be silent, Hannah.
If he minded her wordy, pointless statement, he gave no sign of irritation.
She held the dripping bonnet in one hand, taking care to hold it away from her lest mud stained the side of her gown and ruined it as well.
How could she have been such a ninny as to remove the bonnet? She’d become too comfortable in her solitude, and now, once more, she appeared before the earl in an unladylike state. This time, she didn’t even have the excuse of rescuing a cat to salvage her improper dress.
In hindsight, she ought to at least have held her bonnet on her arm by its ribbons like a reticule.
“I’ve been hoping to see you again,” Lord Brightstone said stiffly.
He had been hoping to see her?
Hope flared up inside Hannah, igniting a flame in what had long since been cold ash. The sensation was irrational and impulsive and pitiful in how viscerally the need to be wanted burned inside her. And yet, she could not quash it once it flickered to life.
No matter the vow she had made with the other women at Lady Finch’s Finishing School, no matter how often she told herself she did not want marriage or children or love, she craved it all.
Desperately.
He had been hoping to see her again.
“Have you?” she asked, the icy morning air suddenly too thin to inhale properly.
And how could she when the back of her mind ran down a wayward path with a speed she couldn’t control?
Her imagination carried her into London ballrooms where she spun about the dancefloor in Lord Brightstone’s arms, to a dinner party announcing their engagement, back to the country where they wed under a bower of fresh summer roses and on to a nursery crooning over a swaddled infant.
An ache settled in her chest, powerful and poignant. One that couldn’t be willed away no matter how preposterous she knew her musings to be. The future that had rushed to her with such immediacy was what she truly, foolishly, hopelessly wanted.
Lord Brightstone had complimented her hair, and now she had taken that pearl to make a necklace of dreams from. She was being ridiculous. Wistful in a way that was unwarranted.
“I wondered if you might…” He looked down and shook his head, as though wrestling with how to say what he intended.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. If she might what? Wish to be courted by him?
Had he already discussed the matter with her father?
She stepped closer to him and lowered her face slightly to catch his gaze. “Please, you can ask me anything.”
He swallowed, his nervousness apparent.
“I wondered if you might,” he said again. “Assist me with being more fashionable.”
Her future disappeared in an instant, her hope little more than a wisp of smoke from a snuffed candle flame.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”