She looked up at him and he felt it again, the air swooshing from his body as he lost himself in her eyes. And he knew she felt it, too. She had to. How could she not, when he felt as if his own legs might give out beneath him?
“I am sure that it will be delightful,” she said.
“Are you in possession of a sweet tooth?”
“I am,” she admitted.
“Then you are in luck,” Gregory told her. “Mr. Gladdish has promised to include some of his wife’s gooseberry pie, which is quite famous in this district.”
“Pie?” Neville visibly perked up. He turned to Lady Lucinda. “Did he say we were getting pie?”
“I believe he did,” she replied.
Neville sighed with pleasure. “Do you like pie, Lady Lucinda?”
The barest hint of exasperation washed over her features as she asked, “What sort of pie, Mr. Berbrooke?”
“Oh, any pie. Sweet, savory, fruit, meat.”
“Well…” She cleared her throat, glancing about as if the buildings and trees might offer some guidance. “I…ah…I suppose I like most pies.”
And it was in that minute that Gregory was quite certain Neville had fallen in love.
Poor Lady Lucinda.
They walked across the main thoroughfare to a grassy field, and Gregory swept open the sheets, laying them flat upon the ground. Lady Lucinda, clever girl that she was, sat first, then patted a spot for Neville that would guarantee that Gregory and Miss Watson would be forced to share the other patch of cloth.
And then Gregory set about winning her heart.
Four
In which Our Heroine offers advice, Our Hero takes it, and everyone eats too much pie.
He was going about it all wrong.
Lucy glanced over Mr. Berbrooke’s shoulder, trying not to frown. Mr. Bridgerton was making a valiant attempt to win Hermione’s favor, and Lucy had to admit that under normal circumstances, with a different female, he would have succeeded handily. Lucy thought of the many girls she knew from school-any one of them would be head over heels in love with him by now. Every one of them, as a matter of fact.
But not Hermione.
He was trying too hard. Being too attentive, too focused, too…too…Well, too in love, quite frankly, or at least too infatuated.
Mr. Bridgerton was charming, and he was handsome, and obviously quite intelligent as well, but Hermione had seen all this before. Lucy could not even begin to count the number of gentlemen who had pursued her friend in much the same manner. Some were witty, some were earnest. They gave flowers, poetry, candy-one even brought Hermione a puppy (instantly refused by Hermione’s mother, who had informed the poor gentleman that the natural habitat of dogs did not include Aubusson carpets, porcelain from the Orient, or herself).
But underneath they were all the same. They hung on her every word, they gazed at her as if she were a Greek goddess come down to earth, and they fell over each other in an attempt to offer the cleverest, most romantic compliments ever to rain down upon her pretty ears. And they never seemed to understand how completely unoriginal they all were.
If Mr. Bridgerton truly wished to pique Hermione’s interest, he was going to need to do something different.
“More gooseberry pie, Lady Lucinda?” Mr. Berbrooke asked.
“Yes, please,” Lucy murmured, if only to keep him busy with the slicing as she pondered what to do next. She really didn’t want Hermione to throw her life away on Mr. Edmonds, and truly, Mr. Bridgerton was perfect. He just needed a little help.
“Oh, look!” Lucy exclaimed. “Hermione doesn’t have any pie.”
“No pie?” Mr. Berbrooke gasped.
Lucy batted her eyelashes at him, not a mannerism with which she had much practice or skill. “Would you be so kind as to serve her?”
As Mr. Berbrooke nodded, Lucy stood up. “I believe I will stretch my legs,” she announced. “There are lovely flowers on the far side of the field. Mr. Bridgerton, do you know anything about the local flora?”
He looked up, surprised by her question. “A bit.” But he didn’t move.
Hermione was busy assuring Mr. Berbrooke that she adored gooseberry pie, so Lucy took advantage of the moment and jerked her head toward the flowers, giving Mr. Bridgerton the sort of urgent look that generally meant “Come with me now.”
For a moment he appeared to be puzzled, but he quickly recovered and rose to his feet. “Will you allow me to tell you a bit about the scenery, Lady Lucinda?”
“That would be marvelous,” she said, perhaps a touch too enthusiastically. Hermione was staring at her with patent suspicion. But Lucy knew that she would not offer to join them; to do so would encourage Mr. Bridgerton to believe she desired his company.
So Hermione would be left with Mr. Berbrooke and the pie. Lucy shrugged. It was only fair.
“That one, I believe, is a daisy,” Mr. Bridgerton said, once they had crossed the field. “And that stalky blue one-Actually, I don’t know what it’s called.”
“Delphinium,” Lucy said briskly, “and you must know that I did not summon you to speak of flowers.”
“I had an inkling.”
She decided to ignore his tone. “I wished to give you some advice.”
“Really,” he drawled. Except it wasn’t a question.
“Really.”
“And what might your advice be?”
There was really no way to make it sound any better than it was, so she looked him in the eye and said, “You’re going about this all wrong.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly.
Lucy stifled a groan. Now she’d pricked his pride, and he would surely be insufferable. “If you want to win Hermione,” she said, “you have to do something different.”
Mr. Bridgerton stared down at her with an expression that almost bordered on contempt. “I am well able to conduct my own courtships.”
“I am sure you are…with other ladies. But Hermione is different.”
He remained silent, and Lucy knew that she had made her point. He also thought Hermione different, else he wouldn’t be making such an effort.
“Everyone does what you do,” Lucy said, glancing over at the picnic to make sure that neither Hermione nor Mr. Berbrooke had got up to join them. “Everyone.”
“A gentleman does love to be compared to the flock,” Mr. Bridgerton murmured.
Lucy had any number of rejoinders for that, but she kept her mind on the task at hand and said, “You cannot act like the rest of them. You need to set yourself apart.”
“And how do you propose I do that?”
She took a breath. He wasn’t going to like her answer. “You must stop being so…devoted. Don’t treat her like a princess. In fact, you should probably leave her alone for a few days.”
His expression turned to distrust. “And allow all the other gentleman to rush in?”
“They will rush in anyway,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “There is nothing you can do about that.”
“Lovely.”
Lucy plodded on. “If you withdraw, Hermione will be curious as to the reason why.”
Mr. Bridgerton looked dubious, so she continued with, “Do not worry, she will know that you’re interested. Heavens, after today she’d have to be an idiot not to.”
He scowled at that, and Lucy herself couldn’t quite believe she was speaking so frankly to a man she barely knew, but desperate times surely called for desperate measures…or desperate speech. “She will know, I promise you. Hermione is very intelligent. Not that anyone seems to notice. Most men can’t see beyond her face.”
“I would like to know her mind,” he said softly.
Something in his tone hit Lucy squarely in the chest. She looked up, right into his eyes, and she had the strangest sense that she was somewhere else, and he was somewhere else, and the world was dropping away around them.