Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) by Donna Lea Simpson Page A

company.
     
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    The next week passed uneventfully, though True found her resolution to stay away from Lord Drake impossible to keep. Arabella was restless often, and Lord Conroy was best able to walk with her and show her the points of interest around Lea Park, which he was familiar with, having been a schoolmate of Drake’s and spending a good portion of his school holidays there.
    This day found them determined to explore the home woods, which Conroy declared had the best hickory nuts to offer. Arabella, in a pair of stout jean half boots and with a woven basket in her hand, took his arm and they strolled off. They made a handsome pair, well matched in size, and with his dark head bent to her golden one as he listened to her prattle with mannerly indulgence.
    Mid-September was a lovely time in Hampshire, True found, as she strolled in the opposite direction from her cousin, down a gentle decline into a grassy meadow with Lord Drake. Her companion was silent as he often was, though his eyes became a glowing golden as he picked a delicate pink wildflower and presented it to her with a flourish.
    “Thank you, sir,” she said with a formal curtsey. “It has been a long time since a gentleman gave me a flower.”
    “Since your gallant seaman fiancé was lost?” he asked, taking her arm and gazing down at her as they walked on.
    Matching her gait to his, she said, “Yes. He was the last.” She held the dainty pink flower up to her nose. “My . . . my current suitor is not much for flowers.” A shudder passed through him and she glanced up at him, alarmed.
    “Your current suitor?”
    His voice was slightly wheezing, and True wondered if they were going too fast for his injury. She stopped and broke away from him. Why had she never mentioned Mr. Bottleby before this? Was it because the subject was private and personal, or was it more because she did not want to waste her time in Lord Drake’s company speaking of real life? It was lovely to walk with him through enchanting valleys and down wooded lanes and along verdant riverbanks, pretending that life was different, that the world was different. She could make believe that an impoverished vicar’s daughter and a future earl could meet on equal ground, and maybe even fall in love among the wildflowers. It was a fairy tale, but then she had always loved fairy tales, particularly the one of the cinder girl and her prince.
    “Mr. Bottleby,” she said, determined to “put away childish things,” as admonished in Corinthians, “is, or was, my father’s curate. He has obtained a living in the north, and has asked me to go with him, as his wife.” She could not look into his eyes, and instead spread one hand out flat, running it over the tops of the long weeds around them. She watched them sway and tangle under her hand and felt the tickling sensation on her bare palm. In the last week she had come to feel much more at home, even amid such luxury, and had taken to leaving her gloves behind when walking. Nature could not be experienced with the artificial barrier of cloth.
    “And you are considering it,” Drake said, in a voice curiously devoid of inflection.
    “I am considering it.”
    Drake picked up a stick and swished it through the long grass, decapitating some of the feathery daisies that grew wild. “I wish you happy, then. You will make an eminently suitable vicar’s wife.”
    The way he said it made it sound like an insult, and True gazed at him in puzzlement. She did not wish to quarrel, especially when she did not know what he was angry about. “That is just what Mr. Bottleby said when he proposed marriage. He goes as vicar to a poor parish, one that needs an energetic and good man, which is what Mr. Bottleby is. He genuinely cares about the less fortunate, and I honor him for it.” Honor him, but could not love him, she added to herself. Why could she not love so good a man?
    Drake stabbed his stick into the ground and kicked at it. As