Page 4 of All Roads Lead To Earls (To All The Earls I’ve Loved Before #2)
Hannah did not have to be asked again. Lady Mary wanted her in the room with the rest of the gentlewomen, and as Lady Mary was the mother-in-law of her employer, she could hardly refuse either.
In the receiving room, the women sat on an array of comfortable chairs and were already sipping tea a footman had brought in on a wheeled tray.
“I’ll have a sherry,” Lady Mary said to the tall lad, who nodded and soon returned with her tipple of choice on a salver.
The moment they were truly alone without any servants, all eyes turned to Hannah and one of the visiting ladies asked, “Tell all about the earl!”
“Yes, please do!” another begged.
“He’s so handsome!” a third woman fluttered a fan at her neck to cool herself.
Hannah wanted to please them, so she recounted their brief interview the best she could. “His eyes are the most delightfully deep brown,” she began.
Several women sighed and one dramatically leaned back on the chaise longue as if swooning.
More questions soon followed, and she did her best, but often she had to shrug and admit she didn’t know. However, “If Lady Mary hosts more dinners while he is still here, I’m sure there will be a chance to find out.”
He had not said that much to her, and she even less back to him, but she found that what he had said in that short time provided more than enough detail for the ladies to appreciate.
“Where is the Earldom of Tullamore located, exactly?” another begged.
Before long they were asking her several things at once and Hannah became terribly confused. She looked to Lady Mary for advice, and the dowager benignly nodded for her to go on.
“Tullamore is in Ireland. His lordship was on his way to Holyhead to sail to Dublin,” she answered.
A round of comments about how beautiful Ireland was soon followed.
When Hannah described the way a lock of his hair fell over one dark eye, one of the ladies, Miss Gideon, made a soft groan.
This set off gales of laughter at Miss Gideon’s expense.
Hannah felt sorry for the lady and immediately said, “It was all I could do to stand upright and remember to breathe myself, he is so terribly arresting.”
“Am I just?” A man’s voice said from a side door.
Hannah burned with deep shame. Every lady in the room gasped and turned to see the Earl of Tullamore standing there, big as life, with a wicked grin on his face.
If the ground could open up and swallow her whole at this moment, she would be exceptionally grateful.
Lady Mary stood up, “I see you have forgotten the directions to your rooms. Allow me to redirect you.”
He really shouldn’t overstep his welcome, but there was something of the renegade in Patrick Belconnen that he struggled to contain.
The charming young lady he’d made blush earlier had been so far down the other end of the table he’d had no time to learn anything more about her. Naturally, he wanted to know more.
Because he was in an unfamiliar abode, and because he was an earl and very much used to getting his own way without question, he felt at complete liberty to wander into whichever room he chose.
He chose the room where he could hear feminine voices, and the blush she delivered his way was even better than her earlier rendition.
His hostess said something about him walking into the wrong room, but he’d completely ignored her. He was in exactly the correct room at the precisely correct moment. “I’m sure absolutely everything Miss Jones has told you about my person is completely true,” he announced to the room.
As one, the ladies tittered and fluttered their eyes and hid smiles behind fans. Meanwhile, Miss Jones had blushed splendidly, but then she turned a little pale, which was the opposite of what he’d wanted to happen.
Oh dear, she appeared to be about to faint.
Rushing forward, he reached her just in time as she swooned for real into his arms. He was ready for this. There was nothing of her, she’d be as light as a feath-
She fell heavily against him, a complete deadweight. He hadn’t braced properly, lost his footing and the two of them crashed onto the floor in a crumpled heap.
Squeals and gasps of alarm filled the room.
Temporarily winded, he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Drat it all, he was supposed to catch her in his arms and be there when she opened her beautiful eyes. Then the game would begin!
He took longer to regain his composure than she. Like a startled rabbit, she leapt away. “I’m so terribly sorry, my lord, please forgive me.”
“Noth-” the words would not come out, as his chest refused to refill.
Lady Mary stepped forward, “Have you broken anything?”
“Pride,” he squeaked out.
“Miss Jones,” Lady Mary said, “Help me get his lordship back on his feet.”
Bless her, she gifted him with a modest blush as she took his hand in hers and Lady Mary took the other. With a quick movement, he was vertical again and breathing more easily by the second.
He did his best to hold Miss Jones’s hand for as long as he could, but she withdrew it and clamped it safely in her other.
Lady Mary spoke again, “Are you injured?”
He dearly wanted to be, because it would give him the excuse to extend his stay with the Rosstrevors.
Alas, Miss Jones had such a fretful expression on her face he couldn’t in good conscience add to her distress.
The invisible rapscallion sitting on his shoulder told him to stop teasing the poor lass and leave her be.
His guardian angel, on the other shoulder, was weeping.
“I am hearty and whole, my lady. And it does appear I am in the wrong room. Kindly guide me to the suite you’ve so generously provided in my time of need.”
Once he’d been reintroduced to his suite of rooms, he bid Lady Mary goodnight and settled in to the bed, which was far more comfortable than he’d expected. Good beds were hard to find, and he was sorely tempted to offer to purchase it and take it home for himself.
Ahh, but that would require a good-sized cart and more horses, and his own carriage. The previous one lay in pieces, somewhere down a steep incline on the London to Holyhead road.
Oddly, he no longer worried about that carriage. He would purchase a new one, and it would not take long. However, he hoped it also would not happen too quickly. It meant he could spend more time with the charming Miss Jones.
He drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face.