Siblings? Ha!
“I’m famished,” Henrietta announced. “Tea should be served soon. I’ll leave you two alone. I so enjoyed meeting you, Lady Willow.” Henrietta extended her hand, and without a single hesitation, Lady Willow shook it heartily. “I look forward to our future collaboration.” She turned sky-blue eyes to Grayson, but they looked right through him. Where had she gone? And what collaboration did she mean? “It was lovely to see you again, Lord Rigsby.” She dipped a curtsy. No warm handshake for him.
He watched her walk away, wishing beyond reason he could follow her.
“I like her.” Lady Willow stood right beside him, but her voice sounded as far off as France. No, Canada.
“Me, too,” he answered, barely aware he said anything at all. What collaboration had she spoken of? What future plans did she have with Lady Willow? Henrietta was his past, but if she insisted on continuing an acquaintanceship with Lady Willow, she’d be part of his future, too, and he wasn’t sure he could survive such an arrangement.
“Excuse me, Lady Willow, I must go.”
“Oh? Where to?”
Henrietta appeared no larger than a pin prick in the distance. He had to move quickly to catch up.
“Lord Rigsby.” Lady Willow’s head tilted to the side, and she eyed him quizzically. She looked small and alone on the vast lawn dotted with aloof people. Henrietta could wait. He’d catch up quickly. Lady Willow needed his help first.
He spied Miss Cavendish close by. She spoke with their hostess, but her gaze kept darting toward them. Grayson ushered Lady Willow in her direction. “I have business to attend to, but come, I wish to introduce you to someone I think you’ll enjoy. She’s a close friend to Miss Blake.”
Lady Willow’s steps quickened and within seconds he had her smiling shyly and comfortably ensconced between Miss Cavendish and Lady Stonefield. Good. She wasn’t alone now. He metaphorically clapped his hands together at the job well done and all but ran toward the garden, where he’d seen Henrietta disappear moments before.
“Henrietta,” he hissed, peeking behind a rose bush. “Henrietta!” he called a bit louder. “Hen!” Surely his voice carried across and through all the assorted shrubbery and vegetation.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel, growing closer. He smiled as she came into view, a frown dipping her brows low, her skirts hitched above her ankles to allow for her briskly annoyed pace.
“What?” she hissed, seeing him finally at the end of the garden path.
He couldn’t help but smile in reply.
She scowled in return, stopping several feet in front of him and placing her fists on her hips. “Is something amiss, my lord? What on earth would have you calling my name across all of God’s creation?”
“Many things,” he replied truthfully.
“Many things are amiss or many things would prompt you to scream for me like a banshee?”
Both. But he’d focus on the one. “I would like to know more about the nature of your relationship with Lady Willow.”
She stiffened. “We have only now become acquainted.”
“And do you intend to continue the acquaintanceship?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. She’s very likable.”
“I do not think you should.”
“Oh? Why?”
Surely, she knew of his intentions. “She’s the one I told you of last night.”
Her brow arched. Her lip quirked. “I’m not a dullard. I know who she is.”
He stroked the petal of a pink rose, imagining its softness was her skin, knowing her skin felt softer. “You see why you cannot befriend her.”
“I see no such thing. She sorely needs friends, I think.” Henrietta looked over his shoulder, past the garden walls, toward the throng milling on the lawns. “You are not very kind to her. You’ve left her alone.”
The accusation stung. Did she not know him? “I left her with Miss Cavendish and Lady Stonefield. She looked rather lost all by herself, and Ada is a friendly soul to those in need.” He clenched his hand into a fist above the rose, saving it from the crushing force of his grip. “I’ve done nothing to hurt her. Why you would think—”
Her face softened and she stepped closer, first one step, then two. “My apologies. You are not here to abandon her, then, but to make her more comfortable by warning me away. You do not want her to befriend your ex-fiancée.”
