He was speaking half-seriously and half-mockingly and Valencia wondered if he resented a woman telling him these things and would have preferred to hear them from her father.
Equally she could not help feeling that she could make his new duties more understandable even than her father could have done.
It was late when they returned finally home.
As the Earl drew his horses to a standstill outside the Chaplain’s House, he asked Valencia,
“I would like to see your father if he is available.”
“He will be in the study,” Valencia replied, “and he will not have the slightest idea that we have been gone for so long.”
She laughed as she spoke.
The Earl, however, looked serious and she wondered what he was thinking.
They then went into the study.
As Valencia expected, her father came back
