The Love List by Deb Marlowe

your Grace.  Even the staff has mentioned it.”
    Aldmere waved a dismissive hand.  “I’m fine.”
    “Yes, sir.  And yet, I thought there might be something I could do to help.”
    He merely glared at the man and waited.
    “It’s been a while since Lord Truitt has visited, I could send round a note.  Or I could send an acceptance to one of the invitations, perhaps.”
    “Good God, man, don’t do that.”  Dropping the report, he stood.  “Your concern—it is appreciated, but not necessary, Flemming.  I am fine.” 
    But his secretary was not finished yet, it seemed.  “Well then, I thought that we might investigate some of the issues going before the Lords,” he said in a rush.  “A short speech, perhaps, just to awaken your old skills—”
    He reared back, his fists clenching.  Flemming paled. 
    Aldmere strived to tamp down the swift rise of anger.  “Be careful where you are stepping,” he growled.
    “Yes, sir.  My apologies.”  His man nodded unceasingly, his eyes riveted to the desk.  “I won’t presume again, sir.”
    Relenting, Aldmere scrubbed a hand along the back of his neck.  “Go along and hunt up that mineral survey from the Northumberland estate then, would you?  I need to go over it again.”
    His secretary’s shoulders drooped as he trudged to his own small office off the back of the room.  Aldmere, in turn, left his desk behind and went to stand by the window, trying to curb his spiraling irritation.  Flemming’s intentions were good—but the man could have no idea of the turmoil inside of him.  Yes, he’d been a firebrand once, ready to set the world ablaze with the strength of his passion and the power of his words.  Known at school for his skills at debate and his idealistic fervor, he’d been sure that he would right wrongs and change the world. 
    But he’d been forced to change his grand plans when he’d inherited the title.  And later, when he’d tried to reclaim his own dreams, fate had intervened, teaching him without mercy and with much pain, the folly of such youthful ambitions.
    Yes, he’d been punished for his arrogance—but others had paid the price.  As his penance he’d learned to embrace the counsel of older, wiser heads.  And so he was left with duty and obligation, with a hollow emptiness inside of him and nothing to fill it besides this intermittent, restless ache. 
    Yet it hadn’t been so intermittent lately, had it?  Discontent and agitation wouldn’t fade as it had in the past.  It had a death grip on him and had ever since that fateful night of the Dalton’s ball, when he’d walked into that library and seen—
    Her .
    He gave a great start and stared out the window.  Miss Brynne Wilmott.  He wasn’t seeing things.  She was right there on the pavement in front of his house.
    Surprise numbed his brain.  It rolled in waves down his spine and caught up short against an unexpected and inappropriate flush of pleasure. 
    She’d caught his interest that night.  Later, he’d watched avidly as the scandal of her escape flared high and only begrudgingly died a slow demise.  Eventually the crowds and the caricaturists and scandal rags had moved on, but he hadn’t forgotten. 
    Damn, but her rebellion had looked and felt so familiar.  He told himself that was the explanation for his unusual attentiveness as he watched it play out and felt something stir up from his unplumbed depths.  If he’d been younger he might have labeled the churning in his belly dread .  But he’d left young behind long ago, and experience had taught him the meaning of words such as inevitability and cynicism .  And so he’d wondered—was she still happy with the trade she’d made?  Or had fate already stepped in to snatch her resolve out from under her?  He’d resigned himself to never finding out.
    Except that now she was here, rigid with purpose, right outside his home.  In one hand she carried a parcel.  The other gripped the wrist of