Page 41 of Aurelia
“I promise I won’t spend time with you unless it is something that I want to do. You, in exchange, agree not to accept my offer of company if you have plans to abandon me, lock me away, or generally abuse my offer of friendship. What say you?”
“How do I know that you will be telling the truth?”
“Rely on your own judgment. If you don’t trust me or my motives, then you should decline any offers.”
“But my father will not allow me to ride my horse if I am not going somewhere with you.”
Aurelia chuckled.
“What is so amusing?” Celsa snapped.
“You just accused me of only doing things with you to curry favor with the earl. And now you are admitting to the same behavior. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“I suppose that is true,” Celsa grudgingly admitted after a moment.
“Come, my lady,” Aurelia cajoled, smiling at the obviously miserable and lonely young woman. “What do you have to lose by accepting my offer?”
Lady Celsa regarded her through narrowed eyes for a moment, but then nodded. “Very well. I agree to your terms.”
“Perhaps tomorrow we might meet up at the stable and you can take me for a ride around the island. I’ve only been on the one main road, really.”
She brightened at that. “Yes, I could do that. What time? I am not finished with lessons until three.”
“Three-thirty?”
Celsa nodded, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Goodnight, then,” Aurelia said.
“Goodnight, Miss Burton.”
The moment the door shut behind the girl Aurelia sagged onto the bed.
She hoped Lord Crewe found out about their bargain and understood that he didn’t need to shame and punish his daughter to get results. Kindness was far more effective.
Aurelia imagined him eating his words and smiled.
She paused at the thought. Good Lord! Why was she even considering what the earl would think? Could Celsa be right that women only wanted to spend time with her because of the earl?
No, Aurelia decided after a long moment of introspection. Proving the earl wrong wasn’t the main reason for doing things with the lonely girl. It was just a happy benefit.
Chapter 8
The days fell into a pleasurable rhythm and flew by and Aurelia’s first month on the island passed before she had even realized it.
She worked from early in the morning until two or three o’clock. After putting away her paints and brushes she spent the hours before dinner either exploring the island on her own or, more often, riding or—weather permitting—rowing with Lady Celsa.
On her first four visits to the village, Aurelia had been cornered and interrogated by Mary Neel. Indeed, the innkeeper appeared to have developed some sort of mania for Aurelia and managed to apprehend her no matter whether she slipped into town on foot or on horseback.
“She has always been bothersome,” Lady Celsa said after they had gone to the village tea shop one afternoon and had both been trapped by Mrs. Neel. “But she seems even worse lately.”
The innkeeper made it so unpleasant to go to town that Aurelia took to avoiding the village entirely, only going there unless she needed something from one of the shops.
Although she had not seen Lord Crewe venturing out on one of his late-night visits to Mrs. Neel, she had no reason to believe that he had curtailed his nocturnal activities. Thinking about the voluptuous innkeeper, and what she did with the earl, was not something Aurelia liked to ponder.
Indeed, she tried not to think about the earl at all—although of course that was difficult to do when they had dinner together each night and often encountered each other during the day while working on the various samples.
Oddly, she did not see him as much as she had feared. In fact, sometimes she wondered if he was avoiding her every bit as sedulously as she was avoiding him.
