“I thought gray was a bit dull when you picked it out,” Suchlike chattered, “but now it almost shines like silver.”
“It’s not too much, is it?” Melisande looked down worriedly. The dress was more ornamented than she’d originally wished, with pale yellow ribbons tied in small r, „bows all along the low round neckline. Her overskirt was pulled back to reveal the heavily embroidered underskirt of gray, red, and yellow.
“Oh, no. It’s very sophisticated,” the lady’s maid replied. She came around to face Melisande and frowned, inspecting her rather like a cook examining a haunch of beef. Then she smiled. “Lord Vale will be that taken with you, I’m sure. After all, it’s been ages since he last saw you.”
Well, that wasn’t quite true, Melisande reflected, but it had been several weeks since she’d seen the viscount. Lord Vale had left the day after Lady Eddings’s musicale and had not returned to London until yesterday. She’d even begun to wonder if he was staying away to avoid her. He’d been rather distracted at the musicale after talking to his friend, and he’d never introduced her to the man. Indeed, his friend had disappeared after talking to Lord Vale. But none of that mattered, she chided herself. After all, Lord Vale stood right now at the front of the church waiting for her appearance.
“Ready?” called Gertrude, who hurried in from the nave door and reached out to twitch at Melisande’s skirts. “I never thought I’d see this day, my dear, never! Married, and to a viscount. The Renshaws are a very nice family—no hint of bad blood at all. Oh, Melisande!”
To her amazement, Melisande saw that phlegmatic Gertrude had tears in her eyes.
o;Oh, dear, poor Harold.”
“Poor Harold indeed, but what about me?”
“You are obviously a saint among men.”
“I am glad you realize it,” he said. “And the arrangements?”
“I am content with them,” she replied.
“Good.” He cleared his throat. “I should tell you that I’ll be leaving town tomorrow.”
“Oh?” Her tone was still even, but the hand in her lap had fisted.
“Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. I’ve been the recipient of letters from my land steward for weeks now. He informs me that my presence is desperately needed to settle some type of dispute. I can ignore them no longer. I suspect,” he confided, “that Abbott, my neighbor, has again let his tenants build on my land. He does it every decade or so—tries to expand his border. The man’s eighty if he’s a day, and he’s been doing it for half a century. Used to drive my pater mad.”
There was a short pause as he guided the horses into a smaller street.
“Do you know when you shall return?” his fiancée inquired.
“A week, maybe two.”
“I see.”
He glanced at her. Her lips were thinned. Did she want him to stay? The woman was as inscrutable as the Sphinx. “But I shall certainly return by our wedding date.”
“Naturally,” she murmured.
He looked up and saw that they were already at Lady Eddings’s town house. He drew the horses to a halt and threw the ribbons to a waiting boy before jumping from the carriage. Despite his swiftness, Miss Fleming was already standing when he rounded to her side, which rather irritated him.
He held out his hand. “Let me help you.”
She stubbornly ignored his hand and, still gripping the carriage side, gingerly lowered a foot toward the steps set beside the carriage.
Jasper felt something snap. She could be as brave as she wanted, but she need not spurn his help. He reached up and wrapped his hands about her slender, warm waist. She gave a breathless squeak, and then he was letting her go in front of him. The scent of Neroli floated in the air.
“There was no need for that,” she said, shaking out her skirts.
“Oh, yes, there was,” he muttered before tucking her hand safely into his elbow. He led her toward the imposing white doors of the Eddings town house. “Ah, a musicale. What a delightful way to spend an afternoon. I do hope there will be country ballads about damsels drowning themselves in wells, don’t you?”
Miss Fleming shot a disbelieving glance at him, but a formidable butler was already opening the door. Jasper grinned at his fiancée and ushered her in. His blood was running high, and it wasn’t at the prospect of an afternoon of screeching or even the company of Miss Fleming, interesting as she was. He hoped to see Matthew Horn here. Horn was a very old friend, a fellow veteran of His Majesty’s army and, more to the point, one of the few men to survive Spinner’s Falls.
MELISANDE SAT ON a narrow chair and tried to concentrate on the young girl singing. If she sat very still and closed her eyes, she knew the awful panic would recede eventually. The trouble was, she hadn’t anticipated how much comment the news of their precipitous engagement would excite in the ton. The moment they’d stepped into Lady Eddings’s town house, she and Jasper had been the center of all eyes—and Melisande had wanted to simply disappear. She loathed being the center of attention. It made her hot and sweaty. Her mouth went dry and her hands trembled. And worst of all, she always seemed to lose the power of intelligent speech. She’d just stared dumbly when that horrid Mrs. Pendleton had inferred that Lord Vale must be desperate to’ve made Melisande an offer. Tonight, a half-dozen biting repartee would come to her as she lay sleepless in her bed, but right now she might as well be a sheep. She hadn’t anything more intelligent to say than baaaaa.
Next to her, Lord Vale leaned close and whispered hoarsely and none too quietly, “Do you think she’s a shepherdess?”
Baaa? Melisande blinked up at him.