The only reprieve from limbo was another letter from Georgiana expressing outrage over their sister Victoria’s situation. Having grown suspicious after too long a silence, Georgiana had gone for a surprise visit. What she’d found was their sister essentially held hostage in her own home. Victoria had threatened to petition for a divorce over her husband’s infidelity. He’d countered by threatening to have her declared mad and put away in an asylum.
She was utterly miserable.
Victoria followed her heart, and look where it landed her. All the more reason to welcome Montgomery’s absence.
The day of the garden party finally arrived, prompting a fit of feminine nerves. She could not tell whether she was anxious about her planned seduction of Fairford or hoping that Montgomery would show up. If he did…
Don’t be daft. Fairford would never invite him. Stiffening her resolve, she donned her selection: a gown of finest mint silk and creamy lace, its bodice exquisitely embroidered with birds, vines, and tiny jeweled flowers. Her hair was piled in curls atop her head with a few left loose to spill artfully over one shoulder. Designed for wear before tea, the gown’s décolletage was wide and shallow, displaying breadth of shoulders rather than depth of cleavage. It was modest, yet still somewhat provocative for the sheer amount of bare flesh it revealed.
In a word: perfect.
Her wayward thoughts drifted back to the night of the opera, reliving briefly her last conversation with Montgomery. It haunted her still.
If only he could see her in this gown, his dark eyes would fill with desire…
The image in the looking glass blushed, and she shook herself, furious. It was no use thinking such things! What was the matter with her? He was gone, and there was a conquest to be made.
Upon reaching Wollaton, they were welcomed by Fairford and his father, an elderly and kindly gentleman—just the sort of father-in-law she’d always pictured herself having.
Wollaton was beautiful and orderly. Perfection lay in every direction. She could easily imagine herself mistress of this place. She would have her own little section of the garden. Her children would play on the green beneath the spreading trees.
The vision was so vivid.
A moment later she realized that nowhere in it had she placed Fairford. And that is as it ought to be, she reasoned. Naturally, he would have business to attend to.
The party was typical of its kind: tea in the garden and plenty of inane chatter. She quickly learned that Miss Bidewell was again not in attendance. As Fairford was still officially courting her, the lady would no doubt be most unhappy to learn of her rival’s attendance. She wondered if Miss Bidewell knew her suitor was sending gifts to another woman. Perhaps her absence today was a protest?
Regardless of the reason for her not being here, Sabrina was relieved. It was much better to avoid another confrontation with her, if at all possible.
It wasn’t long, however, before her relief was replaced by irritation. Fairford had barely paid her any attention at all since his initial greeting. Keeping up her smile, she nattered on politely with the other guests until at long last, she felt a light touch on her shoulder.
“I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am that you have at last come to my home,” said Fairford. “When you sent back all of my gifts along with so many refusals, I feared I’d somehow offended you.”
“Not at all, my lord. Though the thought was appreciated, I simply couldn’t accept them for fear of giving the wrong impression,” she replied, her appropriately prim words at odds with the siren’s smile she deliberately wore.
“And what impression would that be?”
“Why, that I had accepted your suit, of course.”
“Would you not?”
“You have not asked.”
“And if I did? Would you then accept my gifts?”
She gave him a long, steady look before allowing one corner of her mouth to curl ever so slightly. “Perhaps.”
She turned and began walking.
He followed. “You must have a look at my latest acquisition, a rare blossom from the jungles of the Americas. I procured it from a man who barely survived an encounter with savage natives in order to obtain it.”
She smiled prettily. She would have been far more impressed had he been the one to face the jungle savages, rather than merely being the man who’d purchased a silly plant. She bit her tongue, wondering when she’d become so critical. He was a gentleman! Of course he wouldn’t be tramping about in the wilds of the world hunting plants, or anything else for that matter.
She could see Hen—Montgomery doing something like that, though, for all he was a gentleman from the top of his head to the soles of his feet…A small, strangled sound escaped her throat, and Fairford looked askance. She coughed a little and smiled sweetly, wroth at herself for thinking about him again.
They sauntered down the path, feet crunching in the carefully raked gravel, until around a corner there appeared a glass structure.
“A hothouse,” she murmured. Through the misted windows, she could just make out the colorful reds, pinks, and yellows of the blooms within.