For some strange reason, she’d captured his attention and awoken his desire with an ease, a facility, he hadn’t before encountered.
That fact alone made him even more intent, more curious, and more determined to learn a great deal more about her. Instinct crawled just beneath his skin, and it wasn’t something he could readily ignore. In the circumstances, the best he could do was hold himself back from acting on it, and at that moment, he was hanging onto those reins for all he was worth.
Because finally, he’d realized who Lady Adriana Sommerville was.
He’d been slow to make the connection, not least because, on the face of it, the identification hadn’t seemed plausible. He was no Louisa, with all information on the ton at his fingertips, but finally, he’d followed all the dots and found himself facing the utterly bizarre not to say incomprehensible conclusion that Adriana was, indeed, the female known throughout the ton as Miss Flibbertigibbet.
Miss Flibbertigibbet was universally acknowledged as the most flighty, frippery, and foolish female currently gracing ton ballrooms. She was patently silly, her conversation inconsequential, her observations vacuous in the extreme.
In fact, now he thought of it, Miss Flibbertigibbet’s personality and behavior matched—exactly—what one would expect of a female of Adriana’s physical appearance.
Yet the Adriana he’d met at Aisby Grange was nothing like Miss Flibbertigibbet. The lady pacing beside him at that very moment was coolly intelligent, collected and focused, able, determined, sensible, capable, and with a will that was as pliable as granite.
There was strength in her, that sort of feminine strength with which he was exceedingly familiar, given it was a characteristic of virtually all the females in his family.
So now, to his already heightened focus on her he could add a burgeoning, driving, intensely compelling curiosity as to why she seemed to have two such contradictory sides to her.
As the house fell behind and they walked on across the open fields toward the paddock where The Barbarian was housed, he glanced her way again.
Her attention was fixed ahead, and she seemed wholly focused on the matter at hand.
He shifted his gaze forward and told himself he needed to take a leaf from her script. He’d come there to buy The Barbarian. Once he’d accomplished that…
That would be the time to pursue learning more about Lady Adriana Sommerville.
* * *
In the earl’s sitting room, the earl and countess stood before the window that looked out over the gardens to the distant fields and watched their older daughter walking beside Nicholas Cynster.
“Well, my dear.” The earl gently squeezed the countess’s hand where it rested on his sleeve. “That was easier than we’d expected. I have to say that old Wisthorpe leaving me that horse was a bit of luck in more ways than one.”
The countess’s gaze remained on the pair steadily crossing the fields. “Indeed,” she murmured. “Without The Barbarian, I don’t know how we might have managed this.” She cast her spouse a warm glance. “It was an inspired idea to spread that rumor so it reached Cynster’s man in particular.”
“Hmm. Took a bit of doing that, but”—the earl nodded at the distant couple—“with luck, it’ll be well worth the effort.” After a moment, he added, “Our venture’s certainly borne fruit, old thing, but I have to say I was rather surprised it was the older brother who turned up. We were expecting the younger one, weren’t we?”
“Indeed, but”—the countess studied the faraway pair—“I’m not sure the substitute won’t prove a better fit for our purpose.”
The distant couple rounded a hedge and vanished from sight, and the countess sighed and turned from the window. “Now, we’ll have to wait and see what more, if anything, comes of this.” She moved to claim her customary seat. “I do think they will suit.”
“We can but hope.” The earl walked to his armchair and sank into its comfort. After a moment, he admitted, “I’ll feel very much more comfortable once Addie is married to a gentleman who values and deserves her.”
“You and me both, my dear.” The countess leaned across and patted his hand. “You and me both.”
The earl sighed. “I do so want to walk down the aisle and give away at least one of my daughters.”
The countess’s gentle smile was crooked as she squeezed his hand. “And if Fate is kind and smiles on our endeavors, you will, my dear. You will.”
* * *
Covertly, Nicholas continued to study the lady pacing beside him. He remained confounded by the contradiction between her reputation and the reality, for he had no doubt that the real Adriana was the lady with him now. The lady who, possibly unintentionally, he’d been allowed to meet courtesy of the odd circumstances of their first encounter.
Obviously, her beauty and the full sum of her appearance remained the same in both incarnations, and he could see that her outward appearance might lead people to assume…
But that didn’t explain why she’d encouraged people—indeed, the entire ton—to so thoroughly misjudge her character, as she must have done.
In the end, he couldn’t resist asking, “What happened to Miss Flibbertigibbet?”
The narrow-eyed look she shot him left him steeling himself to weather a stern set down—that or outright denial or deflection—but instead, after a moment of staring straight ahead, she evenly replied, “For the most part, Miss Flibbertigibbet remains in London.”
