Free Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh Page B

She spent a great deal of time in company with Justin Magnus, with whom she appeared to enjoy a close friendship. But whenever Wulfric looked directly at her—and it happened far more than it ought—he saw the same intelligence and laughter in her face that he had observed that first afternoon in the drawing room. But never again was she to be found alone in any corner of a room. She was becoming popular with the young people—a strange thing in itself. She was not a young woman. She ought not to be romping with the infantry.
    Then there was the afternoon when they were all to go on an excursion to the ruins of a Norman castle some miles away and the carriages had been drawn up on the terrace and they were all out there ready to take their appointed places as directed by Lady Renable—except that it turned out when a head count was made that they were one lady short and thus the plan to pair them neatly for the journey threatened to fall into chaos. It was Mrs. Derrick who was missing—Lady Elrick was the one to point it out, her chilly tone suggesting that they all might have suspected it from the start. It took fifteen minutes of searching, during which time Lady Renable looked as if she might collapse into a fit of the vapors, before Mrs. Derrick put in an appearance.
    Actually, she came dashing up from the direction of the lake, two children—a girl and a boy—at her heels, and another in her arms.
    “I am so terribly sorry!” she cried gaily as she came, her voice breathless. “We were skipping stones on the water and I forgot the time. I shall be ready to go the moment I have returned your children to the nursery, Melanie.”
    But Lady Renable put her offspring, of whose very existence Wulfric had been unaware until that moment, firmly into the keeping of a footman, and Mrs. Derrick, looking less than pristine but really very pretty nevertheless, was handed into one of the carriages by Gerard Hilliers, her appointed partner. Within five minutes they were all on their way, and she behaved herself for the rest of the day, though she
did
climb up to the battlements of the castle with the gentlemen when all the other ladies remained in the grassy courtyard admiring the ruins from below—
and
the group of young gentlemen with whom she climbed seemed very merry indeed. It would have been decidedly unseemly if she had been a young girl, but she was not, and she was, moreover, a widow, and so Wulfric conceded that her behavior was not quite improper.
    It was only a little irregular—perhaps a little indiscreet. Not quite good
ton
.
    And then on the fifth day she went beyond indiscreet. They had had one day of rain and one day of indifferent weather after the expedition to the castle, but at last the sun shone once more. Someone suggested a walk into the village to see the church and take refreshments at the inn, and a sizable number of them set out.
    Wulfric went with them. He was interested in old churches. And since he could never seem to deter the very young ladies from hanging upon his coattails, even if only figuratively, he walked deliberately with two of them—Miss King and Miss Beryl Chisholm—and wondered when the world had turned mad. Young ladies—and most older ones too—had been giving him a wide berth for years past, but these two chattered away in a manner that could only be called flirtatious. Mrs. Derrick walked between the Culver twins, Renable’s nephews, and took the offered arm of each. There was a great deal of merry conversation and laughter coming from their group, though Wulfric was not close enough to hear anything that was said. She was wearing her usual bonnet—a straw one with a brim made floppy from age, though he had to admit that it looked very becoming on her. She also had a tendency to stride along as if she had energy to spare—and as if she had never heard of ladylike deportment.
    They all went first into the church and were given a lengthy tour by the vicar, who was well