Too dumbfounded to find her tongue, Anna nodded helplessly and stepped aside. As they passed, the earl smiled, but Anna couldn’t tear her gaze away from his mouth.
Those were extraordinary lips for a man, full and ripe and quite enticing, which Anna should know— she wouldn’t forget those lips in her lifetime, and had thought of them practically daily since she had kissed an almost identical pair one year ago at the Lockhart ball.
Four
H aving met his sixth Amelia since his arrival in London a month or so ago, Grif was coming round to the conclusion that being one of their number likely meant that the poor female was rather young and plain or old and fat. This one, bless her, was even plainer than the first young Amelia, who at least had a rather jovial spirit that made up for her large beak of a nose and tiny mouth.
None of the Amelias he’d met thus far were acquainted with Lady Battenkirk. But Grif had high hopes for this Amelia.
She was practically floating beside him as they toured the gardens. It would seem that Miss Crabtree’s opportunities for such walkabouts were rare indeed, and judging by the way her little hand clutched his arm, Grif thought it might be a bit of a struggle to extract himself from her company. Better to get it over and done with, then.
“Quite a lovely moon, aye?” he asked, looking up to the watery image of a half moon, obscured by the sooty haze from thousands of chimneys.
“Oh, my lord, I think it perhaps the loveliest moon I have ever seen!” she exclaimed with great enthusiasm.
If that was the loveliest moon she had ever seen, he pitied her, for she, along with all the bloody Englishmen, had no idea what inspiration one could divine from the big, milky white moon that hung ripe over Talla Dileas. The lass would think she’d passed through the pearly gates to heaven.
“’Tis quite amazing how the moon can look so very different from place to place. Have ye been abroad, Miss Crabtree?”
She blinked two small blue eyes. “Abroad? Ah…my family has a country home, in Yorkshire. We are back and forth between here and there.”
“That’s the travel ye’ve done, then?”
“Yes?” she asked, biting her lower lip as if she feared he might be cross with her for not having ventured farther into the world.
Grif couldn’t possibly have cared less if she’d traveled as far as the ladies’ retiring room or not. “There’s quite a lot to see in the world, there is. Ye must rely on the tales of yer friends who go abroad.”
“I suppose…Well, of course!”
“I’d wager they bring ye trifles now and again.”
“Trifles?”
“Wee gifts.”
She bit deeper into her lip. “Well… I suppose they might. If they traveled very far, that is. But what with the Season upon us all, my friends are rather firmly rooted in London,” she said with an uncertain smile.
“All of them, really?”
She nodded.
Grif smiled. “Are you acquainted with Lady Battenkirk, then?”
Miss Crabtree’s wee eyes went wide with surprise. “Lady Battenkirk!” she exclaimed. “Certainly I know of her, but… but I could not fairly count her among my acquaintances.”
Bloody hell, then. Grif shrugged. “Ah. I had heard she’s had the good fortune to travel quite extensively,” he explained, “and I should like to inquire if she’s ventured as far as Scotland.”
“Oh! I suppose you’ll have to wait for a time before you may ask her that,” Miss Crabtree said, obviously pleased to know something after all.
“And why is that?”
“I am given to understand that she has gone off to Wales to study cathedral ruins.”
“I beg yer pardon—to study what?”
“Cathedral ruins. Cathedrals are rather large churches—”
“Miss Crabtree, I’m no’ such a heathen that I donna know what a cathedral is,” he said with a wink. “But a study of them?”
“The architecture, that sort of thing.”
Ach, for the love of Christ! Did the English have nothing better to do with their time than study architecture? In Wales of all places?
“I beg your pardon… did I say something wrong?” Miss Crabtree asked meekly.
Grif forced a polite laugh. “No’ in the least, lass,” he said. “’Tis that I’m a wee bit surprised to learn that the study of architecture is in vogue among the ladies. Perhaps ye’ve spoken to Lady Battenkirk of her travels?”
“No, my lord, for I scarcely know her at all.” She smiled uncertainly again; Grif returned her smile and turned her sharply about and started the march back to the house, where he intended to deposit Miss Crabtree at a table with a cup of punch.