Searching for My Love: A Regency Romance (Spinsters of the North Book 3) by Isabella Thorne

Author:Isabella Thorne [Thorne, Isabella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mikita Associates
Published: 2023-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Lord Belton appeared several minutes later on silent footsteps, and Peggy knew that he had seen her in distress if only for those last few moments. He offered her a cup filled with cool water that he must have procured from her stores. She was grateful for it and drank deeply.

Without a word, he turned and leaned against the wall so that they were shoulder to shoulder looking out upon the misty snow that was threatening to fall.

“Are you quite well?” he asked after a long silence.

“I am fine,” she lied.

He nodded as if accepting her words, but she could tell from the draw of his mouth that he did not believe her. “You know,” he began with a calm tentative tone, “if this business is too much for you, I would understand. You would still be welcome to remain in your lodgings for as long as you need. Or I could send you with the carriage ahead to catch up with your friends. It is not too late to change your mind.”

“It isn’t that,” Peggy replied with sincerity. “I know that I said that trade was something I wanted no part of but, if I am being honest, it felt… rewarding. What I did today.” Though she had not given it much thought before this moment, what she said was true. There had been something fulfilling in crafting those letters and knowing that she was making prudent decisions. She had not forgotten as much as she had thought, and though it had often grated on her father’s nerves primarily because she was not a son, it did come naturally. It still, after all this time, was second nature to her.

He turned his head slightly to look down at her, evaluating her features with that strange and almost unnatural ability to read a person. Then, he nodded, accepting what she had said for the truth that it was.

Still, he would not be fooled. “If it was not of the store, then what?” he asked.

Observant to the end, she mentally cursed his perception and her own weakness.

“It’s nothing really,” she said as she pushed away from the wall. “I must be tired.” She started to make her way back to the main room, not willing to let the conversation go any further. It would not be easy to keep Lord Belton from the truth if he really dug at it, and Peggy did not wish to lie any more than she already had.

But his voice put a pause in her step, so calm and earnest that she felt like the greatest heel for refusing to accept his attempts at kindness.

“Just so you know,” he said as he came to stand beside her and looked down upon her with those piercing blue eyes, “if there were anything amiss, anything that troubled you at all, you could tell us. If not me, then my sister.” He glanced towards the main room where Miss Nora stood watching with a concerned eye.

“I hope you know that,” he said.

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