Lord Greywell's Dilemma by Laura Matthews Page B

early.” With any luck, Elspeth could be finished before the viscount ever descended to the Breakfast Room. She found Sadie totally unwilling to accept the plain gray day dress she’d already decided on.
    “You’ve company, Miss Elspeth,” she protested, drawing forth a blue wool with several falls of lace at the elbows. “An old-fashioned dress,” she proclaimed it, “but ever so nice on you.”
    Once again Elspeth submitted to the girl’s ministrations, thinking it couldn’t be wrong when Lord Greywell had come all this way to inspect her. He shouldn’t leave with the impression she was dowdy, at least. After last night it would have been almost an insult to revert to her more mundane dress, as though she were mocking him for ever thinking he might be willing to marry someone like her. Elspeth tried to put all thoughts of the sickly child from her mind.
    Unfortunately, the dressing of her hair took longer than she had anticipated, and she didn’t reach the Breakfast Room until almost her usual time. Lord Greywell was already there. Elspeth forced a smile to her lips. “Good morning. I hope you slept well.”
    “Very well, thank you.” He stood until a footman had held her chair for her and then, resuming his seat, observed, “You set a remarkably fine breakfast table, Miss Parkstone. I haven’t seen this much variety since my last large house party.”
    “My father and I both like a little bit of a lot of things. It’s odd of us, I suppose, but one gets into the habit of indulging oneself. We usually have only a cold collation for luncheon, though sometimes in winter we have a warming soup.” She hesitated before asking, “Will you be staying for luncheon?”
    “No. I should be getting back to Ashfield. It makes me nervous leaving Andrew there alone for very long.”
    Elspeth concentrated on buttering a muffin. “Of course.” The horrible dream forced its way into her mind, and she winced, but could not bring herself to say anything.
    Watching her, Greywell wondered if she’d had second thoughts. Why, otherwise, had she flinched that way, as though he’d hurt her by insisting on leaving? There was no sense in broaching the matter again if she preferred not to consider it. But if she’d changed her mind? Would it be reprehensible of him to back off now? Compromising, he said, “I was hoping you’d show me the gothic ruin I passed by on my drive in, before I left.”
    “In the snow?”
    He’d forgotten the snow. “If you’d prefer not to . . .”
    “Oh, no, I love walking in the snow,” she confessed. “If you haven’t a pair of boots to withstand this kind of weather, someone could fetch a pair of Papa’s.”
    “My own will do,” he said, and for the rest of the meal he asked her questions about the surrounding countryside, Aylesbury, and Lyndhurst itself, carefully keeping each topic perfectly neutral. When she had finished eating, long after he had, she excused herself to get her outdoor wrap.
    Elspeth reappeared in a navy-blue cloak lined with ermine, her hands thrust into an ermine muff. The effect of the outfit was somewhat spoiled by the heavy boots she wore, but she appeared unperturbed by the incongruity. When they met in the hall, she pulled the hood up over her head so the ermine lining framed her face. “Ready?” she asked, offering a faint smile.
    Greywell nodded and took her arm. There was a flagstone path, freshly swept, that led from the east door of Lyndhurst across the lawn and through a stand of trees toward an ornamental pond. At the stand of trees one could look back over the gray stone building, somewhat forbidding in the dull light of the winter morning, or down the slight slope to the still water of the pond. The path had been swept only as far as the trees, but Elspeth never hesitated as she stepped into the fresh snow, looking back to see the pattern their footprints made in its pristine surface.
    “My father’s grandfather had the ruin built,” she