Follow the Heart (18 page)

She nodded and murmured appropriate responses at Mr. Carmichael, but her insides roiled. As soon as he paused to take a breath, she stood. “Please, do excuse me, Mr. Carmichael.”

She escaped the sitting room and didn’t slow her pace until she exited the house through the orangery. The setting sun cast a rosy haze over the landscape, and her breath fogged around her head in the cold air. She shivered but kept walking.

Had Mother known? Had she learned that Father was the kind of man who could—and would—eventually lose everything? Had she come to view following her heart a mistake? Did she regret marrying Father? Envy her brother who’d inherited not just the family title of baronet but also the family fortune?

Was the cautionary tale of the six unhappy wives of Henry VIII the reason Kate had never been able to find a husband?

The image of a man with curly brown hair flashed into her mind . . . but it was not Oliver Carmichael. Kate could not count the number of young men she’d met in her life, prospective suitors her father paraded in front of her, hoping one of them would catch her interest—or that she would catch theirs. But it wasn’t until she came here, until she met Andrew Lawton, that she’d ever felt a stirring in her heart, that she’d ever had the temptation to throw caution to the wind and follow her emotions rather than her reason.

Her mother had been able to choose love over caution, with no concern over wealth or what the future would hold for her family. Would Kate be able break her own heart by giving up the man she was falling in love with to find one who could offer financial security?

“Miss Dearing?”

She gasped and turned. Lord Thynne pulled his coat off and wrapped it around her shoulders. “It’s far too cold to be out here without a coat.”

“Th-thank you.” Her teeth chattered together. “I guess I was too lost in my thoughts to realize how cold I was.”

He led her back into the house, making her stop and stand in front of one of the coal braziers in the conservatory until she was warm enough to give the coat back to him.

“What was it that drove you outside on an evening like this?” He folded the greatcoat over his arm.

“I . . . something came up that reminded me of my mother. I haven’t thought about it—haven’t thought about her in that way—in a very long time.”

At a distance a bell gonged. “That’s the dressing signal. I should go.” She skirted around Lord Thynne, but he fell in step with her.

“I shall walk with you, if you do not mind.”

How could she refuse? “Of course.”

“I do not wish to pry, but it sounds like you lost your mother at a young age.”

“I was eight years old when she died. Complications from childbirth.” Somehow, explaining it to the viscount allowed Kate to distance herself from the memories and shove the grief—and the worries over just what her mother had meant by telling her those stories—back into the corner of her mind.

“I understand your parents’ marriage was a love match. How fortunate that you were old enough to experience their relationship.”

Lord Thynne seemed intent on not allowing her the comfort of putting those thoughts away. “And your parents, my lord? Was theirs a love match also?”

The viscount let out a sound akin to a snort. “My mother and father could barely tolerate being in the same room with each other for longer than five minutes. Many say it is a miracle they managed to have three children, and an even greater miracle we were all sons. Of course, now that my elder brother is no longer with us, my mother is determined to cajole my younger brother into resigning from his position with the embassy in India and returning to England.”

Louisa Buchanan had been visiting New York with her parents when she met Graham Dearing at a ball. They knew each other for less than a month before they decided to elope—because they knew her father would refuse them permission to marry. After all, who was Graham Dearing’s father but an upstart cattle and pig farmer?

Kate had been born a scant nine months later.

If her mother had been more cautious, if she’d followed reason rather than romance, Kate would never have been born. Because Kate was certain her mother, with time for her family to influence her against the match, would have followed their wishes instead of her heart.

She gave Stephen Brightwell, Viscount Thynne, a sidelong glance as they parted at the top of the marble staircase. Though she wasn’t certain she believed Florie and Dorcas that he had shown greater attention to her at his arrival than to the others, she could not escape the fact that he’d shown interest in her by twice coming out to the gardens to find her.

One path led to Stephen Brightwell, life as a viscountess, and financial security for her family.

The other path led to Andrew Lawton, a life as a hardworking wife to a hardworking man, and the constant worry of when and where his next job might be.

Head or heart? Given a choice, which would she follow?

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

A
ndrew paced the edge of the area again, this time determined he would not lose count of his steps. A rustling. Was that a footstep on the gravel path?

Never before had anxiety crawled over his skin like ants. But the sight of Katharine Dearing coming toward him made every hair tingle. She increased her pace, coming downhill, and he met her halfway, offering his hand to help her over the sinkhole in the path caused by rain or melting snow, or both.

“I hoped I might find you out and about this morning.” Kate’s blue eyes sparkled, and she did not pull her hand out of his for a long moment after she steadied herself on solid ground again. “I’ve brought you something, and I hope you will not be upset at my presumption.”

Right now, there was nothing she could do that would upset him. “I make no promises.”

She narrowed her eyes, but the corners of her finely wrought lips raised in a smile. She pulled a scroll of parchment from under her cape. “I . . . I took the liberty of sketching out some ideas for that piece of land between the grape arbor and the sunken garden.”

He took the scroll from her. “Would that be the piece of land where one lone boxwood shrub once stood?”

Kate laughed. Not a simper, not a giggle, but an honest laugh that warmed Andrew to his toes. “Yes. That would be the one.”

The blue ribbon securing the scroll of paper very nearly matched the color of her eyes. Andrew slid it up the cylinder, but Kate stopped him, her mittened hand over his. “Don’t look at it now. I . . . I’m afraid you won’t like it, so I don’t want to be here when you see it.” She backed away, lifting her skirts to leap over the hole again. “I cannot stay anyway. I am expected back at the house to help entertain the guests.”

Andrew moved as if to follow her but stopped when she held up her hands. “When will I see you again?”

She ducked her chin and smiled. “Have you not realized I walk in the garden every morning after breakfast? Or pass the time in the orangery if it is raining?” A few steps backward, then she turned and hurried away.

Andrew almost ran back to his cottage. After stoking the fire in the main room, he pulled up his favorite armchair beside it and unfurled the scroll.

Kate’s sketch of her idea for the garden looked as if it had been drawn by an artist based on real life, not sketched from imagination. Not only could he visualize the layout from it, he could tell from the fine detail the types of plants she envisioned in many of the planters.

Of course, he would never allow them to become so overgrown, but he could definitely make this work.

He ran the ribbon through his fingers and turned the paper over. Katharine’s handwriting wasn’t nearly as refined as her drawing, but it was clear and concise. She explained not just her vision for the garden but suggestions as to the plants he could use, which would allow for varying color schemes in the spring, summer, and autumn. Her heart sparkled through her plain but passionate prose, and her knowledge of flora impressed him yet again. And below the note, she’d signed her name.

Kate.
Not Katharine. But Kate. His Kate.

A knock at the front door drew his attention from the drawing. He set it in the chair before entering the cold hall to answer.

“Mr. Lawton, good, I hoped to find you at home on such a day as this.” Lord Thynne stood on the other side of the threshold. “I asked the gardener where your cottage was when I could not find you out in the grounds. I hope you do not mind.”

“No, my lord, I do not.” Andrew stepped back. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you.” Lord Thynne ducked under the low lintel.

Andrew closed the door. “May I take your hat and cloak, my lord?”

“No, I can manage, thank you.”

Because he usually ate in the servants’ hall, Andrew did not have much in the way of refreshment to offer a guest. “I was about to make tea. Would you care for some?”

“I . . .” Lord Thynne tapped his hat against his leg before hanging it on the peg in the hall atop his coat. “Well, if it would not put you out of your way, a warm-up would be appreciated.”

“If you would like to have a seat, my lord, I will be with you shortly.” Andrew motioned toward the small sitting room, which served also as his office.

“There is no need to stand on ceremony with me, Mr. Lawton.” Lord Thynne followed Andrew into the kitchen. He pulled out one of the two mismatched wooden chairs at the small, scarred-oak table and looked as at ease as if visiting in hovels like this were something he made a habit of.

Andrew turned his back on the viscount, for every time he looked at him, all Andrew could see was Kate walking away with the man, seemingly enthralled by him.

“Miss Dearing told me of your plans for the gardens and parks here—some of them, anyway. She said she found the gardens here beautiful and restful, and that is what I want at Greymere. So I wanted to come talk to you in person, for the grounds at my home are in much need of refurbishing.”

Andrew pulled an old, white porcelain teapot down from a shelf beside the hearth, and the lid clanked in his trembling hand. He’d assumed that the recommendation to Lord Thynne would come from Sir Anthony, not from Kate. He sent silent thanks her way, not only for putting his name forward to Lord Thynne, but also for talking about him to the aristocrat. The fact that she had talked about him enough for Lord Thynne to be interested in possibly hiring Andrew to create a new design for his grounds filled him with pride and pleasure.

“What is it that you have in mind, my lord?” Andrew set about making the tea while Thynne described his estate, on the opposite side of Oxford from Wakesdown.

By the time the viscount was ready to depart, Andrew had made two additional pots of tea and the table was littered with sketches on the paper Andrew had retrieved from the other room.

“Thank you for allowing me to take up your morning, Mr. Lawton. As much as I would enjoy continuing this conversation, I must be going.” Lord Thynne smiled at Andrew over his shoulder as he shrugged back into his caped greatcoat. “After all, I promised Miss Dearing at breakfast that I would see her at luncheon, and I would not want to disappoint her.”

Every charitable thought Andrew had for the viscount over the past few hours popped like soap bubbles, to be replaced with an acidic burning in his stomach. “Yes. It would not be good to keep someone like Miss Dearing waiting.”

Lord Thynne turned and leveled his gaze at Andrew, his expression inscrutable. “She is a most fascinating woman, is she not? I do not know if it is because she is American or if it is just her nature, but she is so . . .”

Beautiful. Charming. Intelligent. Well-spoken. Strong-willed. Self-assured.
Andrew’s mind filled in words as Thynne seemed to search his brain for an apt description.

“Refreshing.” Thynne quirked a brow. “I know that is not something most women would want to be called, but . . . there it is.”

Refreshing. Yes. She did bring a refreshing difference that most English women did not possess. But Andrew would go to his grave before agreeing aloud with Lord Thynne. He returned the lord’s expression with a tight smile of his own.

“Again, thank you, Mr. Lawton. I shall have my head gardener send over the plans for the grounds and bring them to you so that you can create a plan for me to look at. I have a few other landscape architects who have done so already, but none have met with my approval. From our talk I am certain you understand the vision I have for the place, but, of course, before I hire you, I would like to make certain.”

“I understand, my lord. I will be happy to do so, though you do understand that the time line would be dependent on my finishing my work here first.”

“Oh, yes, naturally. I would expect no less dedication to your commitment to Sir Anthony as I would hope you would show to me.” Lord Thynne inclined his head, then settled his hat atop it. “Mr. Lawton.”

Andrew made a slight bow. “My lord.”

A puff of cold air rushed in when Andrew opened the door to let Lord Thynne out. He waited to close it again until Thynne turned into the main lane leading back to the house.

Returning to the kitchen to clean up, Andrew considered the past hours. Had Lord Thynne truly come to discuss his gardens, or had he, as it seemed at the end, come to inform Andrew of his interest in Kate?

It seemed as if Kate must have talked about him to Lord Thynne enough to make the viscount believe that an attachment existed between them. Which, given Kate’s situation, was impossible.

Though, Andrew admitted to himself, if he had Lord Thynne’s position and wealth, Andrew would be considering asking Katharine Dearing to become his wife, even though he had met her not quite two weeks ago. For he knew in his heart he would never meet another woman who would make him feel the way he did when he was with her.

Complete.