A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance by Britton, Sally (story reading .txt) 📗

While the lady appeared too distracted to make eye contact, her companion never glanced away. Watching him. Luca raised his eyebrows at her, wondering what she meant to convey with her stare.

Lady Josephine spoke abruptly, fretting with her bonnet’s ribbons. “Do you have our list, Emma? We had better start on our way.”

That secret amusement appeared again in Miss Arlen’s eyes as she darted her gaze away from his to her mistress. “It is in my reticule.”

“How far is Lambsthorpe?” Luca asked, directing the question to Lord Farleigh.

“Not even two miles away.” Lord Farleigh gave his walking stick a twirl, then gestured to the doors. Two footmen opened them in unison.

As Luca passed beneath the entry, he glanced back at the men dressed in the duke’s livery. What must it be like to have grown up in a way that meant having every whim seen to and every order obeyed? Luca’s family, while not poor, had gone through too many lean years for him to take servants for granted.

He looked forward at the others—all younger than him by several years—and experienced a moment of pure envy for their serene smiles and laughter. As he watched, Lady Josephine fell into step with Miss Arlen, their bonnets tilted toward one another as they conversed. The two noblemen followed behind, their many-caped coats teased by an autumn breeze.

Somehow, Luca had already fallen behind, missing his chance to walk next to Lady Josephine unless he ran like a fool to catch up to her. With a stretch of his legs, he managed to come abreast of the other men, at least.

A half hour’s walk to the village would mean an excellent opportunity to observe all of them and better determine his course in wooing Lady Josephine. Before long, he realized she cast her gaze backward fairly often, though she made no attempt to join the men’s conversation.

She seemed to only look back when Sir Andrew said something which annoyed her.

Miss Arlen kept her bonnet turned forward, until they turned down a dirt path away from the road.

“We cut through here,” Sir Andrew explained, falling back a step. “It’s narrower than the road but takes a quarter mile off when we go down the farm tracks.”

“The walk is more shaded, too.” Miss Arlen gestured to the trees above them. “They are not trimmed so much as those which hang over the main roads.”

Sir Andrew gestured elaborately to the women. “We must watch over your pretty complexions, ladies.”

Lady Josephine sniffed in reply.

After smothering a laugh, Lord Farleigh ducked slightly. As the tallest in their company, his height became a liability as some branches reached the top of his head. “Men, you had better keep hold of your hats. Lest these branches snatch them off completely.”

Their order shifted as the ladies fell back, allowing Sir Andrew to hold branches to clear the path for them from time to time. Soon it was Sir Andrew and Lady Josephine leading their group, with Miss Arlen and Luca in between, while Lord Farleigh brought up the rear, his hat completely removed from his head and in his hand.

Miss Arlen gave Luca a thankful smile when he pushed aside a thorny branch that reached too close to her dress. “Thank you. I confess, I did not expect the track to be this overgrown. I suppose the farmers have all been too busy with harvests to give heed to our little shortcut.”

“How often do you take this route?” Luca gestured to what looked to be barely more than a game trail to his eyes. Yet it wound its way through farmlands and between meadows, along the paths of humans rather than furry creatures.

Light on her feet, Miss Arlen skipped over a protruding tree root on her side of the lane. “Rarely. We usually have Lady Isabel and Lady Rosalind with us, and Lord James. That means we stay to the road, as Lord James would love nothing so much as to lose himself along the path, collecting insects or frogs, or sticks and stones. The road keeps the children out of mischief.”

Luca glanced back, realizing Lord Farleigh had fallen behind enough for the growth to obscure him from sight. He frowned and looked ahead, glimpsing Lady Josephine and Sir Andrew perhaps thirty feet ahead, at the top of a small rise.

Their voices, raised in argument, drifted back. But the words were too broken up in passage through the branches for Luca to make out what they said.

“Is Sir Andrew often at odds with his friends?” Luca asked, trying to conceal his frustration. The man did not even seem to like Lady Josephine, yet he had wound up walking beside her, leaving Luca to escort Miss Arlen.

“Oh, he enjoys a lively argument from time to time. But it’s all in good fun between Andrew and Lord Farleigh. I think it delights him that Lady Josephine rises to the occasion. She cannot stand to let him have the last word on any subject.” Miss Arlen pushed aside a branch tipped in yellowing leaves.

The change of the seasons had begun, as evidenced by the reds, oranges, and golds in many of the trees above them. Yet enough green leaves remained to hold the memory of the summer sun a little longer.

As though to contradict him, a large yellow leaf flitted down from a tree and caught itself upon Miss Arlen’s bonnet. The stem tucked into a small gap between a ribbon and the straw of the broad-brimmed hat.

Miss Arlen kept walking, unaware of her new ornament. “What of you and your sisters, my lord? Do you never tease one another?”

The implication of her words, that Sir Andrew and Lady Josephine perhaps regarded each other as brother and sister, eased his mind. “Not often. I did not spend much time near my sisters in the years when it would have seemed most natural to tease.” His parents had hidden him away in a monastery and then sent Luca to a university in Spain. Every moment