She had barely made it midway down the stairs before the butler appeared in the foyer below.
“Is all well?” she asked when she saw how hurried he was.
“Oh, My Lady, I did not see you there,” the old man exclaimed, pausing with his hand upon the front door handle. “A carriage approaches.”
Cecelia grimaced. They had not given any reason to suggest that they should be accepting any callers. She suspected most would remain away after having heard of the ordeal the day before.
Hurrying the rest of the way down the stairs, she stopped at the window beside the door and twitched back the net curtain.
Her heart stopped when she immediately recognized the carriage.
George!
He had come to surprise her a great deal in recent days, and his approaching carriage gave her an awful giddy feeling in her stomach.
“Lady Cecelia, how glad I am to finally see you,” Lord Greystone said from the drawing room doorway. “Won't you join your mother and me for tea?”
A shiver ran down Cecelia’s spine.
The butler had already opened the front door, and Cecelia heard a familiar tone from outside.
“I have come to enquire as to Lady Catherine's health.”
Just hearing his voice made that giddy feeling inside her grow.
She remembered all too easily his heroics the day before, and desperately, she wished to thank him.
Yet, she could not ignore her duty to the man standing in the doorway, watching her expectantly.
“My Lady?” the butler said before she could respond to the viscount.
“Yes?” she said, over willingly.
“His Grace, the Duke of Cumberland, is without,” the butler said, and Cecelia's heart skipped another beat.
“Please, allow him in,” Cecelia insisted. After his heroics the day before, she could not bring herself to deny his entrance, even after their conversation at the theatre some days earlier.
The butler stepped out of the doorway, leaving room for George to enter, and Cecelia found herself holding her breath.
“Lady Cecelia, I am glad to see you well,” George said, meeting her gaze before dipping a bow, “I do hope I am not intruding but—”
Before he could finish, Lord Greystone cleared his throat.
George's head snapped up, and Cecelia watched how his face twisted at the sight of Lord Greystone.
“Lord Greystone,” he seemed to speak through gritted teeth as he dipped his head to the viscount before he turned back to Cecelia and said, “I see I am interrupting.”
Cecelia opened her mouth to argue, beginning to think better of it as she heard her mother call from the drawing room, “Nonsense! Join us, Your Grace.”
Cecelia had never been so conflicted as she was at that moment, unsure whether she wished to kiss her mother or scold her for putting her in such an awkward position as to sit in a drawing room with both of them.
The tension between the duke and viscount was so thick that she thought she might have been able to cut it with a knife, like a cake that had been left to bake too long and had gone hard as stone.
“Please, Your Grace, won't you join us?” Cecelia asked, gesturing to the drawing room.
“Yes, Your Grace, do join us,” Lord Greystone insisted, though his tone was not in the least inviting.
George glowered at the man, and for a second, Cecelia feared they might come to fisticuffs in the foyer.
