Free Sweet Bargain by Kate Moore

of appropriate reserve between strangers, but he felt his face must show how stirred he had been at the brief touch. He did not know how he came to be seated in the dining room with Mrs. Darlington on his right and his hostess on his left. Soup had been served, and his hostess regarded him expectantly. He smiled and raised his spoon.
    Bel did not know where to look. Her hand tingled from the brief touch of the earl's. She had turned from him to find her mother's gaze on her, not unkind but cautioning. Clearly, her mother had recognized the unease of Bel's meeting with the earl and wondered at it. Darlington, too, had seen her encounter with Haverly. Now, to her left across the table, he glared at her.
    The earl was at the far end of the table between Mrs. Darlington and Aunt Margaret, and Bel's wayward gaze sought his without her will. To her dismay, every glance of her own down the length of the crowded table seemed to be detected by her mother or Darlington.
    The earl's silence seemed to reproach her family's hearty volubility. Familiar anecdotes that had amused Bel, no matter how frequently repeated, now seemed self-absorbed and vain. Even Augustus Shaw seemed to have too much to say. Uncle Fletcher proposed a toast to the earl's health. Ellen stared at the man with a steadiness that would have done credit to a cat. Then Aunt Margaret served poached trout, to which Darlington called everyone's attention with a fulsome compliment that set Aunt Margaret to apologizing.
    "Oh, dear, my lord, you must wonder what I was thinking. But trout are so lovely poached ... in wine, of course, with tarragon and basil."
    Again Bel could not help but look his way. Again he seemed to anticipate her glance and meet it. Her aunt was explaining the poaching process in detail, elaborating on the mix of herbs and wine, and blushing more with every mention of poach or poached or poaching . For a minute Bel thought his solemn eyes brightened with mirth. Then her father came to her aunt's rescue with an account of Uncle Charles' fishing for the trout in question right behind the vicarage.
    By then Bel had no notion of what she was eating or what was being said around her. Threads of conversation from his end of the table tangled in her mind with the remarks of those around her so that she didn't dare reply to Phil, her dinner partner. Really, she was behaving foolishly, and Phil did not deserve such inattention from her. He was but newly promoted to Aunt Margaret's company table and doing his best. He furrowed his handsome brow, adjusted the unfamiliar cravat at his throat, and plunged on with his subject. Her eldest brother, Richard, on her left, expected no more from her than a nod of agreement from time to time. This she could comfortably give as Richard, in spite of heroic action at Talavera and Badajos, never said anything which could not be consented to by the entire population of the nation.
    Bel welcomed the arrival of Aunt Margaret's custard and the suggestion that soon followed that the ladies should adjourn, but Bel's father rose as well.
    "Charles, the ladies have the advantage if we let them depart now. I say we all step out into your garden. The evening's as fine a one as we're likely to have this summer."
    "My lord? Squire?" asked Charles Shaw, looking to the earl and Squire Darlington.
    At the earl's agreement, chairs were pushed back, linens dropped, voices raised. A servant came forward to open the double doors at the end of the room, and the guests moved out onto a low stone terrace and from it to the lawn that stretched to the river below.
    Bel held back a little, resolving to take herself firmly in hand. How had the presence of one new person so altered her behavior at a family dinner—the same sort of dinner she had reported in detail to Tom not weeks earlier? Tonight she was sure she remembered nothing except the earl's eyes. What could she write her brother? "Dined with the Earl of Haverly. His eyes are as dark as pools of