He lifted his hat and scratched his ear.
“What ails you, Lord Rigsby?”
“How do you know—”
“Your itchy ear.”
She still remembered? No matter. He spoke with her for one reason alone—the necklace. But an inquiry as to its whereabouts, a demand for its return, is not what came from his mouth. “I saw your father has opened a shop in London.”
“Yes.” Her voice soared with pride.
He couldn’t help but smile, to feel her pride in his very chest. “Well done, Hen.”
She tilted her head, her smile tightening. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the shop is all your doing, is it not?” She’d spoke of her frustration with her father’s refusal to expand his business into another avenue often when they’d been together. “I’ve visited the shop, you know. Everything in it from the curtains and furniture to the shopgirls has your stamp on it.” The shop had made him miss her more than usual. “The only improvement you could make would be to the—”
“The sign.”
“It’s too fancy. All those curlicues.”
She nodded, thoughtful. “Exactly. But my mother insisted. I would have preferred a simpler text.”
“A more dignified one,” he teased.
“Precisely.” She lifted a hand to her heart, as if his understanding sent an arrow deep into that region. Her white hand rested against her bosom, rising and falling with each breath, the slim fingers oddly gloveless and bare.
Wait. No ring adorned the hand laying against her chest. Most would be scandalized by the lack of gloves, but he knew her, knew she hated having her hands confined and jerked them free of their silk casings as soon as she stepped away from the prying eyes of their social circle. Her bare, gloveless skin did not faze him, but her bare, ringless finger did. He slid his gaze to her other hand, but it hid behind her skirts. No, wait. It fluttered upward and into her lap, as bare as a newborn babe. Ringless, too.
Not married, then. Not even engaged? What secrets did her bare hands reveal?
But what would knowing them change? Nothing. Whether Miss Henrietta Blake was engaged or not, he must still propose to Lady Willow by week’s end.
Forget pleasantries. They achieved nothing. Time to be direct. “Miss Blake, you must know what this is about. You must have been expecting this. You can’t keep it, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The necklace,” he clarified. “You can’t keep the necklace.”
“What necklace?”
He searched for the right words, but they were as annoying as the bench’s edge biting into his arse. He wiggled, searching for a comfortable position and the right thing to say. If only he could show her what he meant, but no, not this time. Best to keep it simple.
“The necklace I—”
“Oh!” she interrupted. “Do you mean the engagement present? The one you gave me?”
“Just so. You can’t keep it.”
“You are quite rude.” Her blue eyes flashed, and she sniffed, pinching her usually full lips together. “I don’t have the necklace.”
He stiffened his spine, even though it meant digging his arse harder into the slicing edge of the bench, and ground out, “You do.” He would never have considered her a liar before, but she had to be lying now. He inched close, as much to study her face as to escape the piercing hell created by the edge of the bench.
“I do not!” she hissed, scooting away. “Oh!” She jerked her chin over her shoulder, gazing down. She must have discovered the edge of the bench. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to scoot back into bench hell and give her space.
Grayson stayed put, meeting her gaze. “I gave it to you, at this very party last year.” Had she forgotten? A spike of anger lanced through him. How could she have forgotten the fervent kisses in honeysuckle-scented corners of the garden at dusk? Or the silent promises he’d made her in the library after everyone had gone to sleep? She’d helped him breathe in honeysuckle and sigh out pleasure in the garden. This garden. She’d kissed her “yes” into his palm in the darkened library.
But that was before he’d risen from spare to heir. She hadn’t wanted his kisses after his elevation.
