Then she straightened her back again, smoothed her already smooth skirts, and ran her fingertips across her hair to make sure everything was in order. Thus settled, she began to leave the room, but as she moved, her foot struck something. A silver button lay on the flagstones, hidden by her skirts until she’d stepped forward. Melisande picked it up and turned it slowly in her fingers. The letter V was embossed in the silver. She stared at it a moment before hiding the button up her sleeve.
Then she walked from the church vestry.
“PYNCH, HAVE YOU ever heard of a man losing a bride and gaining a fiancée on the same day?” Jasper asked idly later that afternoon.
He was lounging in his specially made, very large tin bathtub.
Pynch, his valet, was over in the corner of the room, messing about with the clothes in the dresser. He replied without turning. “No, my lord.”
“I think, then, that perhaps I am the first in history to do so. London should put up a statue in my honor. Small children could come and gape whilst their nannies admonish them not to follow in my fickle footsteps.”
“Indeed, my lord,” Pynch replied in a monotone.
Pynch’s voice was the perfect tone for a superior manservant—smooth, evenly deep, and unruffled—which was just as well since the rest of him wasn’t much like a superior manservant at all. Pynch was a big man. A very big man. Shoulders like an ox, hands that could easily span a dinner plate, a neck as thick as Jasper’s thigh, and a big bald dome of a head. What Pynch looked like was a grenadier, a heavy infantryman used by the army to charge breaches in the enemy line.
As it happened, a grenadier was exactly what Pynch had originally been in His Majesty’s army. That was before he’d had a slight difference of opinion with his sergeant, which had resulted in Pynch spending a day in the stocks. Jasper had actually first seen Pynch in the stocks, stoically receiving spoiled vegetables to the face. This sight had so impressed Jasper that immediately upon Pynch’s liberation, Jasper had offered him the position of his batman. Pynch had readily accepted the offer. Two years later, when Jasper had sold his commission, he’d also bought out Pynch and Pynch had returned to England with him as his valet. A satisfactory series of events all around, Jasper reflected as he stuck a foot out of his bath and flicked a droplet of water from his big toe.
“Have you sent that letter to Miss Fleming?” He’d dashed off a missive politely stating that he’d call on her brother in three days if she did not signify a change of mind in the meantime.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. Good. I think this engagement will take. I have a feeling about it.”
“A feeling, my lord?”
“Yes,” Jasper said. He took up a long-handled brush and ran it across the top of his toe. “Like the one I had a fortnight ago when I wagered half a reegered hguinea on that long-necked chestnut.”
Pynch cleared his throat. “I believe the chestnut came up lame.”
“Did it?” Jasper waved a hand. “No matter. One should never compare ladies to horses, in any event. The point I’m trying to make is that we are already three hours engaged, and Miss Fleming hasn’t yet called it off. You’re impressed, I’m sure.”
“A positive sign, my lord, but may I point out that Miss Templeton waited until your wedding day to break the engagement.”
“Ah, but in this case, it was Miss Fleming herself who brought up the idea of marriage.”
“Indeed, my lord?”
Jasper paused in scrubbing his left foot. “Not that I’d want that fact to leave this room.”
Pynch stiffened. “No, my lord.”
Jasper winced. Damn, he’d insulted Pynch. “No good would come of hurting the lady’s feelings, even if she did rather fling herself at my feet.”
“Fling, my lord?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Jasper gestured with the long-handled brush, spraying a nearby chair with water. “She seemed to be under the impression that I was desperate to be married and therefore might take a chance on her.”
Pynch arched an eyebrow. “And you didn’t correct the lady?”
“Pynch, Pynch, haven’t I told you never to contradict a lady? It’s ungentlemanly and a waste of time to boot—they’ll just go on believing what they want anyway.” Jasper scrunched his nose at the bath brush. “Besides, I have to get married sometime. Wed and beget as all my noble forefathers have done. It’s no use trying to avoid the chore. A male child or two—preferably with at least half a brain in their head—must be fathered to carry on the ancient and moldy Vale name. This way it saves me months of having to go out and court another chit.”
“Ah. Then one lady would do as well as any other in your view, my lord?”
“Yes,” Jasper said, then immediately changed his mind. “No. Damn you, Pynch, for your lawyerly logic. Actually, there’s something about her. I’m not sure how to describe it. She’s not exactly the lady I’d choose, but when she stood there, looking so very brave and at the same time frowning at me as if I’d spat in front of her . . . Well, I was rather charmed, I think. Unless it was the lingering aftereffects of the whiskey from last night.”
“Naturally, my lord,” Pynch murmured.
“Anyway. What I was trying to say was that I hope this engagement ends with me safely wed. Otherwise I shall very soon have a reputation as a rotten egg.”