“Lordly,” he repeated flatly.
“Elegant, I mean. Lords wear fashionable embroidered silk waistcoats, and their behavior is sogentlemanlike.” Cecilia couldn’t resist putting an emphasis onthat last word.
“So, your measure of a gentleman is an embroidered silk waistcoat? That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes, it is rather ridiculous, isn’t it?” Cecilia touched her fingers to the ribbons of her hat to make certain he took her meaning, then offered him a polite curtsy. “Thank you for taking the time to see me today, Lord Darlington. Goodbye.”
She turned on her heel and marched toward the door, but she hadn’t taken more than a few steps before Lord Darlington stopped her. “Wait, Miss Gilchrist.”
Now she’d said her piece, Cecilia’s limbs were twitching with the urge to flee this place, but there was an unexpected note of grudging admiration in his voice that made her pause and turn to face him.“Yes, my lord?”
He nodded toward the chair she’d just left. “Sitdown, please.”
Cecilia didn’t want to sit down. She’d already decided it was one thing to peek at Lord Darlington from behind the safety of a thicket of shrubs in Hyde Park, and quite another to be trapped alone with him in a dimly lit study inside a haunted castle.
The first was vastly preferableto the second.
Even from a distance she’d noticed he was a large gentleman, but now, with only a desk between them, Cecilia could see Lord Darlington was as close to rivaling Daniel Brixton in height and sheer, muscular bulk as any man she’d ever seen.
The wisest course was for her to seize the excuse he’d given her to leave Darlington Castle and abandon him to his fate, but she’d made a promise to Lady Clifford, and she found she couldn’t give it up for lost quite yet. So, she sat, her hands folded in her lap, and waited.
Lord Darlington was scowling, as if he already regretted calling her back. “If there’s something you wish to say to me, youmay do so now.”
Cecilia blinked. “You mean about silk waistcoats, and you not looking like a marquess?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “No, Miss Gilchrist. You said earlier you weren’t lying to me. If you care to explain what you mean, I’lllisten to you.”
“That’s, ah…very good of you, Lord Darlington.” What a pity she’d been so busy denying his accusations she hadn’t thought of any convincing lies.
But the next thing she knew her traitorous lips opened, and a half dozen lies spewed forth. “I didn’t lie to you before, my lord. My cloak is a gift from Lady Dunton’s daughter. She made a present of it to me when I left Stoneleigh.”
“A present,” Lord Darlington repeated.
“Yes, my lord.” That much at least was true. The cloakhadbeen a gift. From Lady Clifford, not Lady Dunton’s daughter, but it was as close as she could get to the truth. Georgiana always warned her to stay as faithful to the truth as possible when telling an enormous lie, and the lies onewascompelled to tell should be simple ones, and thus easier to remember.
“How generous of Lady Dunton’s daughter.” He didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “I suppose the blue ribbons were agift, as well?”
“No, my lord. I have a great-aunt who lives in London. She sent me the ribbons.”
Alas, one lie seemed to be her limit, because this second one didn’t leave her lips quite as smoothly as the first one had. He noticed it, and his gaze sharpened on her face. Much to her dismay, Lord Darlington appeared to be the sort of man who noticedeverything.
“Your aunt’s name, Miss Gilchrist?”
Cecilia nearly groaned aloud. Oh,whyhad she mentioned a great aunt? She might have just said she’d purchased the bonnet in London, but she’d had to throw a great aunt into it, and complicate things. If Georgiana were here, she’d be appalled.
“She’s, ah…Mrs. Bell, my lord.” There, let the blasted man do a search through the hundred or so Mrs. Bells living in London.
“Her direction?” Lord Darlington snatched up the quill from his desk, dipped it, and hovered it over ascrap of paper.
Cecilia’s satisfaction faded. “Lambeth Road, my lord.” Surely, there must be at least one Mrs. Bell in Lambeth Road?
He scrawled the direction on the paper, then tossed the quill aside and leaned back in his chair, his hands over his wide chest, his hard, blue eyes fixed on her face. “You did say you were born in Stoneleigh, didn’t you, Miss Gilchrist?”
Cecilia resisted the urge to squirm. “Yes, my lord.” Again, it wasn’t a lie, precisely. She’d been born in Stoneleigh, and had spent her infancy there, but it was so long ago it might have been in another lifetime. After her grandmother died her parents had moved to London, and Cecilia had been there ever since.
But if Lord Darlington knew she hailed from London, he might connect her to the Clifford School. Lady Clifford made it a point not to call attention to their activities, but the school and its proprietress were infamous among certain people in London. Lord Darlington would find out who she was eventually, of course, but Cecilia intended to be gone from Darlington Castle long before then.
He didn’t speak for some time, but leaned back in his chair, his arctic blue eyes moving over her face. His posture bespoke casual ease, but Cecilia wasn’t fooled. There was nothing easy about the rigidity of his spine, the tightness of his lips, the clenchof his fingers.
