Free Hayley Ann Solomon by The Quizzing-Glass Bride

boots?”
    “On second thought, no. Your ignorance is disturbing. You may interfere with many things, but not, I think, my neckerchief or my boots! My valet would have serious convulsions, and he is a decent sort of fellow. I would not wish such a tragic end for him.”
    Fern giggled. Warwick regarded her sternly, but she was not deceived. She had grown used to the telltale dimple and the twinkle that illuminated those deep brown eyes.
    “You shall read to me. A novel use for a page, but one that I would find pleasant. By the by, you do actually play the harp, do you not?”
    “It is considered my greatest accomplishment!”
    For some reason, Warwick started coughing most alarmingly. Fern stepped forward, but the moment passed quite quickly.
    “Then the evening with the marquis was an aberration?”
    Fern groaned. “Oh, do not remind me of it! I quite wished to sink! It was hideous! It was a wonder he did not flee there and then, rather than stay to kiss me on the balcony!”
    “I am sure he found the latter more to his tastes.”
    “Don’t let us talk of Warwick. It is an excruciating chapter for me, but I believe it has ended.”
    Warwick, who had been on the point of summoning a footman, stopped in his tracks and regarded Fern with a curious, indefinable expression in those aristocratic eyes. “Ended?”
    Fern nodded firmly. “I have been very foolish. I see, now, that Warwick must be consigned with the dance master and the beast.”
    “You mean . . .”
    “Calf love. I have had a lucky escape, for I am certain, if you had not rescued me, I would have landed up wedding him. My inclinations were exactly to do so, you see. I may not have had the resolve to resist, with Mama and Papa and his lordship himself all so implacable. . . .”
    “But it would have been a mistake?”
    “Assuredly. It always would have been. But I thought I had one advantage. I thought I loved him.”
    “And now?”
    “Now I know I don’t.”
    “How can you be so certain?”
    Fern shook her head, but her color was high again.
    A glimmer of a smile crept onto Warwick’s lips. He thought—he hoped—he knew the answer to this riddle. Fern did not love Warwick, for she had transferred her affections to him. And a very good thing, too, he thought, for it was becoming harder and harder to play out the charade. Perhaps, if her feelings had undergone such a transformation, she would not long have to be his page. Fern, in the first bloom of womanhood, had felt the undeniable attraction between them but had not understood it. Now she was feeling that same attraction compounded by something deeper, something more intimate—friendship and trust. It was a powerful combination. He knew, for he felt it every bit as much as Fern, only it was revealed to him, whereas Fern was working from instincts alone. He wondered who was suffering the most and decided, ruefully, it was probably him.
    How easy it would be to seize her in his arms and carry her off to the great tester bed! But he would be a cad if he did so, so he mildly proceeded to ring his bell, call for the housekeeper, describe the livery he required, and keep Fern in stitches with little anecdotes from his wild youth.
    At dinner—which was a quiet affair, on account of Fern miraculously having all her livery bar a crucial topcoat, which needed stitching but meant she could not yet be presented to the servants—Warwick made himself as amiable as he possibly could. This put Fern at her ease, for with nightfall, and the necessity to light candles, she was feeling increasingly more uncomfortable. When her pallet on the floor was carried in, she found it hard to meet his eye, or to thank the two footmen who had carried it up the stairs and past all seven doors.
    They stared at her curiously, bowed low to his lordship, then disappeared, causing no further disturbance bar the arrival of the tea tray, carried in by no less than the housekeeper, the butler, the under butler, and an upper