A Chance Encounter by Gayle Buck Read Free Book Online

done the previous evening. As he took his own place across from her, he said, “How is your ankle this morning, my lady?”
    “It is much improved, my lord. The abigail wrapped it in wet clothes to reduce the swelling,” Joan said. She knew that he could not possibly be interested in such a mundane topic, not when there was so much other to be discussed. She placed her napkin in her lap, a frown pulling her slim brows together.
    “What is it, my lady? What is troubling you?”
    His quiet question startled her. She looked up quickly. He was regarding her with an alert expression in his fine eyes that she found somewhat disconcerting. The color rose in her face. “I did not know that I was so transparent,” she said.
    Lord Humphrey smiled slightly. “Perhaps my own doubts and uncertainties make you so, ma’am. We have taken a rather odd turn in the road, I think.”
    “Yes. That is it exactly,” Joan said, with some relief that he understood. She looked at him earnestly. “It seemed much the best thing to do, and yet this morning ... My lord, what are we to do now?”
    “Do, my lady? Why, we shall live out the remainder of our lives in a most companionable and respectable manner. Doubtless we shall have a number of progeny along the way and attend a ghastly number of social functions and generally live up to what is expected of us,” he said. He saw that she turned her head away from him and he was instantly ashamed of his own flippancy. “Dash it all,” he exclaimed under his breath.
    But she heard him. Her brown eyes rose quickly to his, then dropped again to her plate and the meager breakfast that she had served herself.
    Lord Humphrey pushed aside his own breakfast untasted, suddenly revolted by the ham and eggs and biscuits that not seconds ago he had been ravenous to taste.
    She gave a small jump at the sudden forceful movement and she sent another fleeting glance up at his face.
    The viscount sighed. “My dear ma’am, it was not my intention to sound so unfeeling. The truth of the matter is, I am very nearly at a standstill in this business. I do not regard the matter of our marriage itself as the stumbling block, but rather the speculation that must arise because of it. I want to get through the business as smoothly and painlessly as possible, but I do not yet see my way clear as to how it can be done.”
    “Scandal,” she breathed, and nodded. “Yes, I understand that. You have married a nobody, all of a sudden and without announcement, when probably everyone has been expecting you to come up to scratch for Miss Ratcliffe for ages. It will look very bad for you, won’t it?”
    “Yes,” agreed Lord Humphrey, regarding her with some sense of surprise. He had not expected her to grasp his unenviable position so readily, nor had he expected her to restrain her anxieties over her own predicament. But, then, perhaps she did not quite fully comprehend the difficulties and discomforts that she must certainly overcome before she was fully accepted as his legitimate wife, he thought. Voicing his reflections, he said, “I have done you nothing but ill turns since I first ran you down in that lane.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. You talked a great deal of nonsense, of course, but one thing struck me as particularly penetrating.” She smiled, inviting him to share in her own gentle amusement. “I would not have made a very successful governess. I am too used to having my own freedoms and I fear the charges put upon me in such a situation would have tried my patience most unbearably.”
    “I am glad to have been of some service, at least,” he said, also smiling. But he as quickly sobered. “My lady ... Dash it all, would you object overmuch if I called you Joan? It is deuced awkward as it is without maintaining a false formality.”
    “Not at all, my lord,” Joan said, her heart picking up speed in that ridiculous way it had suddenly started.
    “Good. And I shall be Edward to you, if you please,” he