‘Good afternoon, Lady Elizabeth,’ Leonard Ashburton said as they all sat down. Beth’s mother was trying to signal something with her eyes, but Beth couldn’t work out what so quietly ignored her.
‘Good afternoon. It is kind of you to call.’
‘You remember my brother, of course.’
Beth felt the heat rising up into her cheeks as she was forced to turn and acknowledge Joshua Ashburton again. He was sitting back in his chair in a relaxed manner, one ankle propped up on the opposite knee.
‘I hope you don’t mind me accompanying my brother, Lady Elizabeth.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Mr Ashburton was just telling me how his brother has only recently arrived from India,’ Lady Hummingford said.
India. Beth allowed herself a moment to imagine a country so different from theirs. She’d read books about it, poured over the pictures in the big atlas her father had kept in the library at Birling View. It sounded so exotic, so exciting, and his recent return explained both why she wasn’t aware of Joshua Ashburton’s existence and the hint of a tan on his face.
‘You must be thrilled to have your brother home, Mr Ashburton.’ Beth forced herself to address the man she was meant to be promised to, even though she wanted to study the man sitting next to him.
‘Indeed. Although his visit is only brief. We must make the most of him whilst he is here.’
Beth allowed her eyes to flit to Joshua Ashburton, to find his attention fixed squarely on her. He even smiled when her gaze met his. Beth felt a guilty flush and quickly turned her attention back to Leonard Ashburton.
He seemed a man of few words, content to sit in the awkward silence that was beginning to stretch out ahead of them whilst Beth floundered for a topic of conversation.
‘I understand you spend much of your time in the countryside, Mr Ashburton.’
‘I do.’
She waited a moment but it became apparent he wasn’t going to expand on his answer. ‘Do you have a country residence or do you stay with family?’
‘My great-uncle has a few properties in Sussex and Kent. He is an elderly man, infirm of body although still very sharp of mind. I run the estates for him now and live in one of the smaller properties just outside Tunbridge Wells.’
‘Oh, Tunbridge Wells is such a delightful town, so stylish,’ Lady Hummingford gushed. ‘We’ve often taken a small diversion on our way to London to spend a night there.’
Beth’s childhood home, the only home they owned now their London house had been sold a few years ago and the two other estates inherited along with the title by a distant cousin when their father died, was just outside the little town of Eastbourne, looking over the white cliffs and rolling hills. She loved living by the sea but knew it was another thing she would have to give up as a married woman.
‘Where do you live, Lady Elizabeth?’ Mr Joshua Ashburton asked.
‘We have an estate on the south coast, near Eastbourne. I enjoy rural life, although I can’t deny a stay in London is very diverting.’
‘Lady Hummingford, perhaps I could have a word with you in private,’ Mr Leonard Ashburton said abruptly.
Beth’s eyes widened. This was the moment he revealed his intent. Either she would be rejected as an unsuitable wife for a future Viscount or he would be discussing a proposal.
‘Of course.’ Lady Hummingford looked serene, as if this weren’t what she had been working towards for the last year. She rose, the smile just visible at the corners of her mouth, and Beth watched as she and Mr Leonard Ashburton left the room to take a stroll around the garden. Her mother glanced back, making sure the door was left wide open, but she was too keen to talk to Mr Ashburton to protest that Beth was being left alone with a gentleman.
The silence only lasted for a moment after they left, then Mr Joshua Ashburton swapped seats so he was sitting directly next to her. They were still separated by the arm of the chair, but it felt a little inappropriate.
‘Lady Elizabeth, we meet again.’
‘I feel I need to explain—’
He held up a hand. ‘No need.’
‘There is. I wouldn’t normally behave like that.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Lady Elizabeth.’ She had the irrational urge to ask him to call her Beth. It was how she thought of herself, even though only her sister ever called her Beth out loud, but she wanted to hear her name slip between his lips, uttered in his perfect English with just a hint of an accent she couldn’t place.
‘I shouldn’t even have been alone in the garden, let alone stopped to dance with you.’
‘These rules you all live by,’ he said with a rueful shake of his head.
‘The rules of society?’
‘Why should you feel guilty for spending a pleasant few minutes alone with someone else? It wasn’t as though anything inappropriate happened.’
Beth thought of the hand on the small of her back, the way their legs had brushed together as they danced. She felt her pulse quicken as she remembered the moment the music had stopped and his finger had tilted her chin up so their lips were only a few inches apart. They might have been saved from crossing the line by the arrival of Mr Leonard Ashburton, but that didn’t mean Beth hadn’t behaved scandalously, both with the action of straying into the garden unchaperoned and in her thoughts and wishes in that moment before they’d been interrupted.
‘Although...’ he said, a mischievous glint in his eye. ‘I do suspect you wanted me to kiss you.’
Beth spluttered. It might be true, but a real gentleman wouldn’t point out a little indiscretion like that.
‘I did not.’
‘You did.’
‘I thought you were your brother,’
