Home > Map of a Lady's Heart(8)

Map of a Lady's Heart(8)
Author: Caroline Linden

So much for impressing anyone. But the water made him think of the sea after a storm—hang it, also of maps of the ocean, especially medieval ones with illustrations on every corner, and when he said, “Sea serpent,” a startled hush fell over the room.

“Am I wrong again?” he asked after a moment.

“Er—no,” said Justin, sounding a little nonplussed. “You’re correct.”

“Near enough, anyway,” said Lady Bridget. “It was ‘sea monster.’”

“I ought to receive an extra point, for being more precise.” Wes pulled off the blindfold, and found he was staring directly at Mrs. Cavendish. She was leaning toward Lady Sophronia but gazing at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted. Their gazes collided and lingered for a moment, then she turned away, a faint pink in her cheeks.

“Well done, Lord Winterton.” Lady Bridget stepped forward and offered him a towel. “You trounced Lord Newton and won the round. And I do apologize for throwing a bit too much water.”

“I told you no boy would outsmart a man in his prime,” crowed Lady Sophronia from her perch beside Mrs. Cavendish. “Didn’t I, Viola?”

Her murmured reply was too low for him to hear, alas, as it came just as the butler entered to announce dinner. Lady Bridget bounded forward. “Hurrah! I’m famished!”

“Winterton, you may lend me your arm,” announced Lady Sophronia, rising from the sofa. Wes obeyed the command immediately, taking the chance to exchange a quick glance with Mrs. Cavendish. Her eyes glowed with mirth and when she stepped aside to make way for Lady Sophronia, her skirts brushed his leg, sending a charge up his spine.

Good Lord, what was happening to him? Wes tried to focus his attention on the elderly lady clinging to his arm. She was giving directions to all the other guests, pairing them up in no discernible way. She told Justin, a viscount, to give Lady Alexandra his arm, while Lady Serena was assigned to Mr. Jones, a mere gentleman. But no one seemed willing to argue with her, and they went in to dinner.

As he pulled out Lady Sophronia’s chair, Wes scanned the table, confirming his suspicion. Sophronia hadn’t told Mrs. Cavendish what to do; he’d hoped it was because there weren’t enough gentlemen present—counting himself, there were only five, while there were seven ladies—but it appeared Mrs. Cavendish would not be joining them for dinner.

Which was unaccountably disappointing.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

The next morning Wes was determined to see if the Duke of Wessex owned the atlas he coveted.

Logically, the most likely place was the library. Even better, at this time of morning he should be able to explore it in solitary peace. Wes had a vague notion that ladies never emerged from their bedchambers before noon, and judging by the silent stillness of the wing where he and Justin had been settled, neither would his nephew. Excellent.

After a quick breakfast in the dining room—barren of all other guests, but laid out with enough dishes to feed a regiment—he asked the butler to direct him. The Kingstag library was on the ground floor, set at the rear of the house. It was a long, narrow graceful room, with tall windows looking out on the snow, still falling thickly beyond the glass. Fires were burning in the hearths at each end of the library, and there were comfortable-looking chairs and sofas arranged at artful intervals. At the far end of the room stood a pair of large globes behind a settee, which immediately caught his eye. He made a note to examine them at a more opportune moment.

Because, unfortunately, he had not discovered the room quiet and deserted. There were a large number of people already there. On the settee before those globes sat Lady Alexandra, smiling and laughing with one of the young ladies Wes dimly recalled meeting last night, and—to his surprise—Justin, who hadn’t willingly risen before ten any morning since they’d left Hampshire. Today his nephew seemed quite pleased to be awake, smartly attired and freshly shaved and vying for the ladies’ attention with another young dandy. Nearer the doorway where Wes stood, Lady Bridget was pacing, waving her arms as she spoke to Mrs. Cavendish, seated on a chair in front of the windows and studying some pages in her hands.

No one looked up at his entrance.

Wes paused in indecision. Retreat in silence and return later, when he could examine any atlases in the room at leisure? Or stay to see what had put that charming little frown on Mrs. Cavendish’s face?

“It makes no sense, Bridget,” Mrs. Cavendish said. “You’ve written lines for a swan.”

“Does art need to follow every dictate of logic? No, I say,” declared Lady Bridget. “It is supposed to transport one’s soul.”

“Obviously,” murmured the other woman. “But you must have some sense of story—”

“It’s a farce, Viola. They don’t need to make sense.”

The expression on Mrs. Cavendish’s face—perplexed, thwarted, and amused all at once—made Wes want to laugh. He did laugh, in fact, a bare catching of breath in his throat, but it made the lady look at him, her green eyes wide with surprise. He tried to cover it with a cough, then thumped himself on the chest. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

“Good morning, my lord.” Mrs. Cavendish got to her feet and handed Lady Bridget the pages with a speaking look. The young lady took them to the desk and began writing, scribbling out one long line. Perhaps the swan had lost his part. “Were you looking for someone?”

You. The unexpected thought caught him off guard, and Wes coughed again, a little too hard. “No,” he rasped. “I was looking for the library.”

She smiled. “You’ve discovered it! As have most of the other guests. Lady Bridget is working on her play.”

“Farce,” said the girl, sotto voce.

Mrs. Cavendish closed her eyes for a second. “Were you seeking something in particular?”

“Er . . . A book,” he said, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say.

She gave him a patient look. Anyone looking for the library would naturally be seeking a book. “Of course. Have you anything in particular—?”

“No, no, I’ll just have a look around. Don’t mind me,” he said hastily. He strode to the nearest shelf and frowned thoughtfully at it.

“I don’t say that the play must be a model of logic and wit, but even a farce has some sense to it.” Mrs. Cavendish returned to her conversation with Lady Bridget, her voice lower but still audible to Wes’s alert ears.

“This scene has sense! See, the pirate arrives to find the swan sick with love for the lonely spinster, which stokes his own affections for her.”

“But on the next page you’ve got a ghost arriving to deliver a prophecy.”

“That also makes sense. He’s a ghost because he drowned in a flood. As there’s a pirate and a swan, a flood would affect both of them.”

Wes choked on another laugh, trying again to make it into a cough. He could just picture the struggle Mrs. Cavendish was undergoing. The ladies behind him fell silent. He realized he was staring at a selection of books about sheep farming, about which he knew nothing and cared even less, and walked to the next bookcase.

Their conversation resumed, even more quietly. “But Bridget, the prophecy is about who shall marry the prince. Where is the prince?”

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