Free A Flirtatious Rendezvous: The Gentlemen Next Door #4 - Historical Regency Romance Novellas by Cecilia Gray Page B

during Lady Landale’s visit. It was the only explanation. Otherwise, she could have sworn Lady Landale had just said—
    “I’m so pleased you’re to live with us, Hanna.”
    She pinched the inside of her wrist to keep present and waited for Lady Landale to say something else in the realm of pleasantries. Only her ladyship continued to smile at her over the rim of a teacup from the settee while her father paced behind it. Her features were a softer, prettier version of Hayden’s. Her eyes a warmer brown, her hair less severely cut than his, and her lips much more likely to smile. As they were smiling now.
    Hanna glanced at her father, whose fist was pressed firmly against his mouth. He removed it. “I meant to tell you sooner.”
    Lady Landale’s gaze whipped between them. “Is she just hearing that she’s to live with me for the first time? But her things have already been moved.”
    “She thought her things were being sent to the country,” her father explained.
    Hanna knew she wasn’t the best student, nor the best listener, which was why governesses left in droves, but she could have sworn they meant…. “Am I to stay here, in London, with Lady Landale instead of moving to the country with you, Father?”
    “I should leave you two to discuss this,” Lady Landale offered, setting down her teacup.
    “She should be with a woman here,” her father said.
    But Hanna knew he didn’t mean woman . He meant mother .
    Hanna’s lower lip began to tremble, rather embarrassingly, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help that she and her father hadn’t found the same easy routine they’d had when her mother had been alive, and she couldn’t help that she did want a woman around, and she couldn’t help that she didn’t want to leave her father alone but didn’t want to leave London, the only home she’d ever known, either. There seemed no way that she could have everything she wanted, so she was destined to lose.
    “I thank you for your kindness, Lady Landale. But there’s no need.” Hanna fixed her father with a firm stare. “I will come with you. I won’t leave you.”
    “All daughters must leave their fathers,” he said. “You’re nineteen, near twenty. If not now, then when?”
    “Later,” she insisted, panic flooding her. “After we’ve settled.”
    “Be smart about this. Think, Hanna. Please.”
    “I’m thinking clearly enough.”
    “You rarely do, my dear.” Her father shook his head. “Bless your sweet soul, it’s what I love about you most. This country home is miles from the nearest community, further still from eligible bachelors.”
    “Not everyone marries.”
    This elicited gasps from both Lady Landale and her father. But how could she tell them that if she couldn’t marry Hayden, she needn’t marry at all?
    “You need your Season,” Lady Landale explained.
    “Why?” she insisted. “Why now?”
    “Because, dear.” Pity softened Lady Landale’s face. “It’s been long enough.”
     
    * * *
     
    Hanna stood at the steps to the Landale residence and faced her father. Her heart told her head this was temporary. She would placate her father by letting him move first to the country, to settle in, to realize how much he missed her. Then he would send for her and she would come.
    Until then, she would enjoy the grand adventure of living under the same roof as Mr. Hayden Banks. An experience for a lifetime of dreams and memories to take into whatever spinsterhood lay ahead.
    A brief but flirtatious—if she had her way—rendezvous.
    “Get enough rest,” her father said. “Don’t forget to sleep—daydreaming isn’t enough, you know.”
    “I know, Father.”
    “And take care with their home. I do not want any correspondence from Lady Landale complaining of broken heirlooms.”
    “I haven’t broken a vase in years!”
    He smoothed back the wayward brown tendrils at her forehead. “It will be a privilege to stay with Lady Landale.”
    “It is more a privilege