She turned her head, frowning. He brought up a hand to cup her cheek. “I told you once that I wanted an equal. I meant that in every respect. You know I’ve never given society’s expectations much thought when it comes to my own happiness. That’s one thing I have no desire to change.” He kissed her to drive the point home. By the way she softened against him, she understood.
He turned her back to face the mirror. “There. You look the perfect lady again. No one will suspect I’ve had you in my arms all afternoon. More’s the pity.”
“Not quite.” She touched his face, running a teasing finger along his jawline. “Gloves.”
“Gloves! Of course.” There was one somewhere underneath the armchair, he was reasonably sure. As he began his search, Selina stayed at the mirror, turning this way and that to check that all evidence of their encounter was hidden.
Malcolm emerged triumphant from behind the chair, two white silk gloves in hand, to find Selina looking at something on the dressing table with a puzzled frown.
“What’s this doing here?” She picked it up and held it towards him, and even though there was no longer any need for it, Malcolm’s heart gave a guilty start.
He took the silk square with the embroidered swallow as carefully as though it were a living thing. It was still damp from the rain “I, ah. I carry it with me. Have done for some time.” He ran his thumb over the familiar ridges of the embroidery, the graceful curve of the little bird’s wings in flight. “Ever since you gave it to me, in fact.” He felt naked in a way that putting on a shirt would do nothing to fix. “It gave me something to pin my hopes to. And it seemed appropriate, after all.”
“Appropriate?”
“Yes. It’s a spring bird, the swallow. They come north when the winter’s over.”
She looked at him quizzically, and he could not resist a grin. “Icicles melt in the spring.”
20
“Behave yourself, for goodness’ sake.” Malcolm treated the yipping dog at his feet to a glare that would have silenced the House of Lords, but Percival was not a lord and had no regard for rank. He had recognised the Balfour house the moment their carriage pulled up outside, and he knew who they would find waiting for them. Malcolm had to admit to a degree of sympathy for the dog’s excitement.
“You are here at Selina’s request, and under sufferance,” he said, scratching Percival behind the ears. “And, may I add, you have discovered a remarkable talent for jumping up and down, considering you are supposed to be lame. It’s not too late to put you back to work as a coach dog, you know.”
Percival quieted, rubbing his head luxuriantly against his master’s glove.
“Ha. I knew the thought of an honest day’s work would frighten you. I mean what I say, Percy. We are paying an important visit, and we must both be on our best behaviour.” Malcolm considered the task that lay ahead of him and breathed out a low groan of resignation. “Me, especially.”
A week he’d waited. A week of pure agony, when he’d thought at first he would burst if he kept it in for a day. Selina had returned to London with Anthea early the morning after the election that was not an election, leaving Malcolm to wait for Lord Louis to sleep off his indigestion sufficiently to make the journey himself. Malcolm’s phaeton, sadly, had hit its last pothole. But Louis had borrowed his father’s most commodious carriage for the trip, and there was room for Malcolm within and Higgins the coachman on the rumble seat.
Malcolm passed the journey in such unusually excellent spirits that Louis was thoroughly unnerved by the time they arrived at Malcolm’s London residence. The grinning duke ran up his front path with barely a wave of farewell to his puzzled friend, calling for his valet as he went. It wouldn’t do to meet the Duke of Loxwell in the sort of clothes the Twynham tailor had rustled up.
He bounded up his front steps two at a time, the butler barely managing to open the door before he reached it. He was greeted by a joyous Percival in a manner that suggested the little dog had thought him gone forever.
Malcolm thought it worth a few seconds’ delay to scratch the dog’s ears, and in doing so, he noticed the letter half-chewed inside Percy’s mouth.
“Drat that dog!” exclaimed the butler. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I’ll have it out in a jiffy.”
“No need.” Malcolm extracted the note by a combination of belly rubs and brute force. He unfolded it.
He cursed loudly enough to send the dog running to hide behind the hat stand.
The Duchess of Loxwell’s travail was upon her. Selina was at her side and wouldn’t leave her for the world. Malcolm did not need telling that Daisy’s adoring duke would be out of his mind with worry.
There was no question of seeking an audience with Loxwell that day. Or, presumably, for several days after. Malcolm wasn’t family – not yet – and he couldn’t intrude.
I know you want to speak to him personally, so I won’t suggest that you write, Selina had written. There is no call for haste, in any case, as I will not be returning to society until Daisy is back in perfect health. I will write to you every day. Nobody will notice a few letters amid all the fuss.
Try to be patient, Malcolm. I know you won’t be – in fact, I hope you are as anxious as I am – but try, for me.
He pressed the letter to his lips, remembering too late the slobbering it had received from Percy. “Gah!”
So here he was, a week later, assured that Her Grace of Loxwell was quite recovered from her efforts, that the duke
