A Chance Encounter by Gayle Buck

the neighborhood. She had been allowed to stay in the small house that she and her father had thought of as home, but before many more weeks were out, there would be engaged a new vicar who would require the house for himself and his family.
    Her naiveté had led her to assume that she would quickly establish herself and make herself useful in one of the many households that her father had served. That comfortable invitation had not materialized, and she saw no reason why the offer should come now.
    Joan had walked back to the parish house, meeting above half-a-dozen acquaintances on the way. Her heightened senses had enabled her to see what she had been previously blind to: she was greeted with courtesy and sympathy, but there was a hint of embarrassment and hurry as well. Her continued unaided presence in the neighborhood was a reproof to the vicar’s flock and one that they could undoubtedly do without.
    That evening Joan had written the Percys, who could at least be depended upon to shelter her for a time. When she had received their reply, she had boarded the mail coach without fanfare or the well wishes of anyone whom she had thought to be her friends. Thus she had left the only home that she had ever known and taken the first step toward an unknown destiny, her naiveté tempered and her eyes more discerning.
    Now as she thought over and weighed what her reception might be at the hands of the viscount’s various family members and his acquaintances, she decided that she would vastly prefer meeting his grandmother first. Perhaps, if the lady was anything as the viscount had painted her, she would be able to gather to herself the courage that she would need to face the others’ certain disapproval.
    Lord Humphrey had watched the various expressions cross her face. He had held his tongue, content to eat his breakfast in the silence of her reflections. He had also watched the dainty way in which she ate her own meal, approving of a natural grace of movement and a lack of greed in her manners. When she seemed to halfway nod to herself, he decided it was an appropriate time to bring her back to an awareness of her surroundings. “A penny for them.”
    Joan looked up at the viscount. Her husband, she corrected herself. She must begin thinking of him in such terms or the whole thing would become a hopeless mess. “I was but thinking of meeting your grandmother, and the rest. I feel very uncertain of my reception, you see. And I do not think that I shall enjoy making Miss Ratcliffe’s acquaintance at all,” she said.
    She had a gift for frank expression, he realized. Lord Humphrey smiled in recognition of it. “I do not think that she will enjoy making your acquaintance, either,” he said ruefully and just as frankly.
    Her eyes widened and then narrowed in amusement. “I had not thought of it in just that way,” she admitted. “How wonderful. I shall not be totally out of water, then.”
    Lord Humphrey found that uproariously funny and he laughed hugely. “Indeed! I almost look forward to seeing the look on the lady’s face,” he said, still grinning.
    Joan smiled at him, quite genuinely pleased that she had made him laugh. She brushed her mouth with her napkin and set it beside her emptied plate. “I am quite ready to go, my lord, if you are.”
    “That is my girl,” he said approvingly.
    He was already rising and so he did not see the swift tide of color that rose in her face. He did not give a thought to his careless endearment or how she might perceive it. Her reaction would have surprised him very much.
    The shot was paid and the viscount’s own team was reengaged to his phaeton. The viscount solicitously handed up Joan, who took her place in the middle of the seat, while next to her settled the overawed abigail.
    The viscount climbed up to sit beside his bride and took up the, leather traces. “We shall be at my grandmother’s manor house in time for tea,” he said cheerfully. He cracked the whip and