“You haven’t gotten some other impression of him, have you?” Lord Harlston asked, frowning. “I know he can be a bit awkward at times. I wouldn’t like you to have the wrong idea about him.”
“No, no, I don’t think I do,” Valeria assured Lord Harlston. “I don’t think badly of him. Not at all.”
But she wondered, suddenly, whether Lord Harlston knew that Lord Woodsford had been asking her about the possibility of courtship the last time they had met. She wondered what he would say if he knew that his friend had been so forward.
He would be able to tell me what kind of expectations Lord Woodsford has.
Suddenly she was very tempted to ask the question.
More to divert herself from it than anything else, she took her arm back from him. “I ought to go speak to my aunt and cousin,” she said. “Will I see you at dinner?”
“I’d love to sit next to you, if you don’t mind,” Lord Harlston said.
Valeria found, to her very great surprise, that she didn’t mind at all.
“I’ll see you in the dining room, then,” she said, and hurried across the foyer to where Duncan and Aunt Albert stood talking to one another.
She had only made it halfway there, however, when she was stopped by Lord Woodsford.
“Lady Valeria,” he said quietly. “May I have a word?”
She looked around, wondering if there was any polite way to decline.
“Just briefly,” he assured her. “We can stay right here.”
“Very well,” she said. “What is it?”
He inclined his head toward her slightly. Her instinct was to pull back from him—what did he mean by getting so close to her? But there were so many people around. He couldn’t possibly intend to hurt her in the middle of Lord Harlston’s foyer.
“I just want you to know,” he said, “that I saw you watching me just now. When I was in conversation with Lord Milton.”
“Oh,” she said, wondering why he would bring such a thing up. “All right.”
“Well, I just wanted you to know…” He looked uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t speak with that man of my own will. After the way he behaved at your aunt’s dinner party, I don’t believe he belongs in civilized society, and if I had my way I would run him off the property. I’m only bothering with him because Henry has asked me to do so, and because I don’t wish to be rude to my host.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Valeria asked.
“Because I knew you had seen me speaking to him,” Lord Woodsford explained. “And because I don’t want you to think of me as the kind of man who abides that sort of behavior.”
She shook her head. “Why does it matter to you what I think of you?” Hadn’t she made it clear that there would be no romance between them? Was it possible that he hadn’t understood?
“I don’t know why,” he said quietly. “I suppose it just does, that’s all.”
They stood quietly for a moment.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Valeria admitted.
“You told me you weren’t interested in courtship,” he said.
“And I’m not,” she said. “I hope you’re not raising that subject again.”
“No,” he said. “But it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
“The way youfeelabout me?”
She couldn’t help it—she glared up at him. He took her arm and pulled her off to the side of the foyer.
She wrenched her arm from his grasp. “What do you think you’re doing? I consented to talk to you for amoment, but now, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to find my aunt and cousin!”
