Читать книгу Much Ado About You - Eloisa James - Страница 10

Lucius Felton was, like most men, enamoured of habit. When he journeyed to the Duke of Holbrook’s house, as he did every June and September to attend the races at Ascot and Silchester, he expected to find the duke sprawled in a chair with a decanter at his elbow and a copy of Sporting News in the near vicinity.

Sometimes the Earl of Mayne joined them; either way the talk circled comfortably around horses and brandy. All tedious subjects such as women, financial affairs, and family were avoided, not from some trumped-up idea of secluding themselves from the world, but because those subjects were tedious. By their advanced age of thirty-some, women had proved to be (except in certain circumstances) fairly wearisome companions.

Money came to all three of them with supreme ease, and money is only interesting when it is in short supply. As for family … since his own had eschewed contact with him for years, Lucius viewed the turmoils of other people’s families with some, if lethargic, interest. But after Holbrook had lost his brother, they had stopped discussing family as well.

Thus when Lucius descended from his carriage at Holbrook Court, he viewed with some severity the butler, who conveyed to him the news that the duke had unexpectedly become guardian to the four nubile young daughters of Lord Brydone, and with even less pleasure did he receive the news that Lady Clarice Maitland and her devil’s spawn of a son were at the table. The presence of Mayne was the only mitigating light in this dismaying turn of events. Mayne must be planning to run his filly Plaisir in the Silchester Gold Plate, which would provide a good opportunity for Lucius to test the paces of his own Minuet, running in her first race.

But as Lucius pulled on a clean shirt in the chambers assigned to him (not, he noticed with disapproval, the room to which he was accustomed because that apparently had been given to one of the nubile young misses), he rather thought that he might skip the Silchester and leave his stable master and jockeys to do the job on their own. He had several sweet deals brewing in the city. And if the duke’s house was no longer a bastion of male comradeship and comfort – and the presence of females had undoubtedly changed it to something more starched-up and far less comfortable — he might as well abandon his intent to attend the race and return to London in the morning. Or at least to the estate he owned an hour or so from here. He hadn’t visited Bramble Hill in some four months.

His manservant Derwent bustled in the door, having obtained a bowl of shaving water from the kitchens. Derwent had taken this news even more poorly than had his master; the company of women was distasteful to Derwent at the best of times, and the presence of so many marriageable ladies in the house had thrown him into a flurry of acid comments.

‘Apparently they haven’t a stitch to their backs,’ he said, brushing up a warm froth of soap, preparatory to shaving Lucius’s face. ‘One can only guess at the endeavours the poor duke will have to go through to hoist four females onto the market, and none of them marriageable in the least.’

‘Are they unattractive, then?’ Lucius asked, gazing at the ceiling so that Derwent could shave his neck in a clean stroke.

‘Well, Brinkley didn’t describe them as strictly unattractive,’ Derwent said, ‘but they came with only one or two garments and those most repellent, if you can believe it. And Scottish, you know, without dowries. The accent is fatal on the market. The poor things would have to be very lucky to take.’

Derwent gazed anxiously at his master. One didn’t have to think hard to realise that the Duke of Holbrook would be desperate to bestow his wards on all and sundry … including his oldest friends.

Felton was lying back calmly, but Derwent had a sense of doom. Doom. His left eye was twitching, and that always signalled an unfortunate turn of events. His eye had twitched unmercifully the day that the Duke of York fell off his horse in the midst of a victory parade two years previous; and then there was July of last year when the master entangled himself with Lady Genevieve Mulcaster. Derwent had been unable to see to his left side for a month and was nearly struck down by a wagon and four horses on High Street.

‘Finished?’ his master asked, opening his heavy-lidded eyes.

Derwent jumped, horrified to find that his hand had paused in midair, thinking about the travails of marriage. Goddesses, that was how Brinkley had described Holbrook’s young wards. He sniffed. Goddess is as goddess does, and no woman could do well enough for the master. He patted Felton around the chin with a soft towel.

Lucius stood up and began tying a neckcloth in deft folds. ‘I’m considering skipping the Silchester races,’ he told Derwent. ‘Under the circumstances.’

‘Precisely!’ Derwent agreed. ‘The circumstances will be difficult indeed for the poor Duke of Holbrook. We would do better to leave immediately. I shan’t unpack your bags, sir.’

Lucius threw him an amused look. ‘I’m not in the market for a wife,’ he said gently. ‘I consider myself able to resist the charms of Rafe’s wards for a night or two.’

‘I would never venture to comment,’ Derwent said with an air of studied carelessness, as he helped Lucius shrug into an evening coat of superfine wool.

‘Good,’ Lucius said. But then he relented. ‘Still, I thought it kind to divert you from such wholly unpleasant and unnecessary thoughts, Derwent.’

‘Very kind,’ the valet said with dignity, opening the door. ‘Extremely so.’

‘I am quite certain,’ Lucius added, ‘that should I become ensnared in the parson’s mousetrap someday, it will not be due to the presence of a few inexperienced Scottish lasses left without friends and family and thrust on the kindness of poor Rafe.’

‘Without a doubt, sir,’ Derwent said. His left eye was twitching like murder.

His master peered at him. ‘Are you quite all right? Your eyebrow appears to be developing a life of its own.’

‘Yes, sir. I am quite all right.’ And Mr Felton left, for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter.

Derwent went over to the mirror and picked up the silver bowl of spent shaving water. But his attention was caught by his own appearance in the glass. His eye was twitching something mortal; the price of being a sensitive soul, as his mother always said. But his moustache was so fine as to draw attention away from any particular element of his face. It swept out from his mouth and ended in an innovation all Derwent’s own: a waxed spade shape on either side.

Alas, Lucius Felton was resolutely conservative when it came to dress. No moustache. No facial hair whatsoever, as a matter of fact. The most he would allow his valet to do was to sleek his thick blond hair back from his face in a style that was most severe.

Derwent sighed. It was his fate to be an artiste in the service of a man with no sense of fashion.

And now, possibly, Felton would take a wife. Wives meant the end of pleasant jaunts hither and yon, as the race season dictated. Domestic life! It was enough to drive a man to tears.

* * *

Lucius strolled after Brinkley into the dining room, hoping against hope that Rafe wouldn’t see fit to place him next to Lady Clarice. The very idea of Clarice Maitland made the hair stand on the back of his neck.

He found Rafe seated at the head of the table, looking much the same as usual. His neckcloth was tied in a careless knot, his hair stood straight up at the back, and there was a glass of brandy in his hand.

But the rest of the table – Lucius almost stopped flat in his tracks. Derwent had said Rafe’s wards were not unattractive? Not unattractive? A woman with hair of a deep golden colour looked up and smiled at him … and the smile was enough to make him bolt the room. And there was a dark-haired, blue-eyed one, with the expression of a passionate saint, one of those early virgin martyr types whose face burns with emotion. He just caught himself from stepping backward.

‘Lucius!’ Rafe called, beckoning to him.

He walked over, calculating how soon he could leave. It was a good thing that Derwent did not plan to unpack his valises. The last place he wanted to be was amidst a nest of marriage-minded young ladies: he had enough of that on his rare appearances during the season. ‘I am very sorry to disrupt you, under the circumstances,’ he told Rafe. ‘I would not have intruded.’

Now that he was closer, Rafe didn’t look precisely the same as usual. For one thing, he appeared to be sober, rather than jug-bitten. And for another, there was a faint but distinct look of panic in his eye. The man would never escape without marrying one of these women, although the poor old duffer was so slow on the uptake when it came to women that he had probably only just discovered that fact.

‘I’m extremely pleased to see you,’ Rafe said. There was no doubt he was sincere: of course, drowning men always hoped a friend would throw them a rope. Or, in this case, Lucius had to suppose a wedding ring would offer the desired salvation.

Rafe turned to the young woman seated to his left. ‘Miss Essex, may I present an old friend of mine, Mr Felton?’

Miss Essex was presumably the eldest of Rafe’s four new wards. Lucius hadn’t seen her at first. She was not in the least like that sensual, glowing sister down the table, nor like the black-haired passionate one. Oh, she was beautiful: brandy-brown hair, cheekbones that the harshest sunlight couldn’t diminish. But it was her eyes, tip-tilted at the edges, serious, intelligent, clear blue, and sweet in her gaze …

She was smiling at him, and he was standing like a lummox without speaking. He bowed. ‘Miss Essex.’

‘How very nice to meet you,’ she said, holding out a hand. The ruffle at her wrist had been darned; at least Derwent’s information about the girls’ lack of dowries was correct, even if his assessment of their marketability certainly was not.

‘I am truly sorry to hear of your father’s death,’ Lucius said. ‘I met Lord Brydone a time or two and found him a gallant and merry-hearted gentleman.’

To his horror, Miss Essex’s eyes took on a little glimmer. ‘We are — ‘ She paused. ‘Papa was an excellent rider.’

‘Lucius, do have a seat. Brinkley has laid a place next to Miss Essex,’ Rafe said. ‘I shall introduce you to everyone else after the meal.’

‘I shall take it quite amiss if you do not personally greet me before seating yourself,’ Lady Clarice trilled from the other side of the table. ‘Dear Mr Felton, how are you?’ She held out her hand with a positive smirk of greeting.

Lucius gritted his teeth and walked around the table, kissing a hand that was thrust in his face with arch command.

Sure enough, Lady Clarice launched into her favourite topic without waiting for breath. ‘I met your dearest mother at the Temple Stairs just the other evening,’ she said, watching him like a hawk from behind her fluttering eyelashes. ‘We were both on our way to that production of All for Love everyone has been talking about. It was utterly lacklustre, not that it signifies. But the poor woman, how Mrs Felton has aged – so thin, so melancholy, so pale! Perhaps you have visited her recently?’ Her voice trailed off suggestively, even though she knew perfectly well that hell would freeze over before he darkened his parents’ door.

Lucius bowed again, saying nothing. If his mother was pale, it must have been from an attack of distemper.

But the loathed Lady Clarice wasn’t done yet. She grabbed his hand and clung to it. ‘From what I hear, Mrs Felton hardly leaves her bed. If only I could impress upon you the grief that assails a mother’s heart when her child strays from her side … the anguish is like no other!’

Lucius sharply withdrew his hand and bowed again, to make up for it. As he straightened, he caught Miss Essex’s eyes, across the table. She looked faintly surprised. Even though he’d long ago stopped caring much for his reputation amongst the ton, he felt a pulse of rage. Damned old hag, airing her ridiculous ideas about his family to the whole table.

‘Lucius is rather old to be tied to his mother’s apron strings,’ Rafe said, his normally lazy tones carrying a sting. If anything, Rafe loathed Lady Clarice more than Lucius did, since in the past year she had demonstrated a fixed determination to become the next Duchess of Holbrook, and nothing short of assault had dissuaded her of the notion.

‘Tied to one’s apron strings – well, I should hope not! My own darling son is a man grown, and wouldn’t countenance my interference. But’ — Lady Clarice reached for Lucius’s hand again, but he nimbly avoided her – ‘a mother needs to see her son occasionally, if only to revivify the wellsprings of her heart and being!’

Lucius opened his mouth to utter some commonplace, but Rafe nipped in. ‘Why, Maitland,’ he said, looking down the table at Lady Clarice’s hell-raker of a son, ‘I had no idea that you were such a useful chap. Here you’ve been running about resuscitating your mother’s wellsprings when we all thought you were doing little more than following the races!’

Rafe’s comment was intolerably rude. It was intolerably drunken. It also gave Lucius time to retreat back around the other side of the table and sit down beside Miss Essex, revising his initial assessment of Rafe as sober: in fact, the man was utterly cast-away. Awkward, what with his wards at the table, but not unexpected.

One of Maitland’s qualities, however, was that he didn’t take offence quickly — a trait that had probably kept him alive during a lifetime crammed with well-earned insult. He merely laughed at Rafe’s jibe and returned to regaling the bottom of the table with a story about the horse called Blue Peter, whom he’d just won in a wager. ‘His hocks are just right, squarely set, beautiful knee, facing square. He’s young still, but he’ll take a good fifty starts for me, and win a number of those!’ His eyes were shining. He leaned toward the black-haired sister, the only one showing any real interest in his tale, and said, ‘For tuppence, I’d race him this year, though he is a yearling. He never puts a foot wrong, flies along as sweet as a flea on a duck’s back.’

‘What a charming analogy,’ the blonde sister put in. The sharp irony in her voice made Lucius raise an eyebrow: all that honeyed lushness hid an intelligent mind.

Maitland didn’t even spare her a glance, just kept his eyes on the passionate black-haired sister. ‘A yearling beat a three-year-old at Newmarket Houghton last spring.’

‘At what weight?’ the blonde sister asked sceptically.

‘Five stone,’ Maitland said, finally turning to her.

The passionate black-haired missionary was nodding as if stars were circling Maitland’s head. In fact, it seemed to Lucius even after only a few seconds’ observation that Lord Maitland was the likely object of that sister’s particular religion. An odd choice at best, and one that would cause Rafe considerable trouble, if it went beyond calf-love.

‘Charming,’ the blonde sister said. ‘I suppose I have never considered you in the role of an innovator, Lord Maitland. I was under the impression that racing yearlings was not an accepted practice.’

Lucius swallowed a grin and turned back to Miss Essex, who was talking to Rafe. She was wearing one of the most awful garments he’d ever seen, a shapeless black thing that made her appear to have a gorgeous bosom – and a stomach exactly the same size. The dress went out below the collarbone and just forgot to go in again.

She had a slender white neck, though … and slender shoulders too: he could just see their outline through the dull fabric. And from what he could see, her bosom appeared to be real, although the stomach was just an illusion. Under that black cape of a dress, she was —

She turned from Rafe and caught him looking. Her eyes flared. ‘I gather you are particularly close to your mother?’ she asked sweetly.

A faint smile curled Rafe’s mouth. An English miss would never broach such a topic with him, not even in a fit of pique. He was far too big a fish to risk offending; all he’d had from young ladies for years were buttery smiles. ‘Alas, my mother and I have not spoken these nine years,’ he said. ‘That circumstance makes our closeness debatable.’

Miss Essex drank the rest of her champagne. ‘I would venture to say that you are in error,’ she said, in a conversational tone. ‘My parents are both gone, and I would give much for a chance to speak to either of them — just one time.’

Her voice didn’t shake, but Lucius felt a pang of acute alarm. ‘Ah, but it would be different if we shared mothers,’ he said quickly.

‘Why so?’

‘ ‘Tis my mother that chooses not to speak with me,’ he said, and wondered at himself. Most of the ton, Lady Clarice amongst them, believed the shunning went the other direction. It must be something to do with Miss Essex’s clear blue eyes. They gazed at him with such curiosity that it was hard not to answer, even though he routinely avoided questions about his parents with dexterous efficiency.

‘How could you know after nine years?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps she is longing to see you. If she is bedridden a great deal of the time, I’m certain that you don’t have opportunities to meet accidentally.’

‘We live merely two houses apart. If Mrs Felton had the inclination to see me, it would be a moment’s work to send me a message,’ Lucius remarked.

She looked shocked at that. An innocent, this Scottish girl. Probably she would be a huge success on the market: there were few enough ladies with her beauty combined with that bone-deep sense of honesty.

‘Two houses apart? And you don’t speak?’

‘Precisely,’ Lucius said briskly. ‘But surely you are correct. Perhaps one of these days we shall meet accidentally, and all will be well.’ He wasn’t going to tell some chit of a girl that he had bought a house in St James’s Square precisely so that such meetings would happen. He had never told a soul how many times his mother had indeed accidentally encountered her only son … and let her gaze slide away as if she’d encountered a particularly repellent rodent.

Miss Essex appeared the stubborn sort, though, and leaned toward him to make another comment. Luckily, Lady Clarice commanded both their attentions.

‘My son’s lovely future wife will be visiting us tomorrow,’ she was saying. ‘I am persuaded that you know her, Mr Felton, since you are quite cultured, are you not? Miss Pythian-Adams is quite the most cultivated young lady of the hour. Apparently the Maestro of the Opera House remarked that Miss Pythian-Adams has a voice to rival Francesca Cuzzoni!’

‘I’m afraid that my reputation for cultivation must have been exaggerated,’ Lucius said, as a footman placed turtle soup before his place.

Tess stole a glance at him. Mr Felton clearly considered their conversation about his family to be over. She didn’t believe for a moment that his mother didn’t wish to effect a reconciliation: the poor woman probably dampened her pillow every night, longing for her cruel-hearted son.

One only had to take a look at the line of his jaw to know that Mr Felton’s pride was as fierce as the north wind. If he inherited that trait from his father, it was no wonder the family was split asunder.

Then Lady Clarice’s voice caught her attention again, and Tess realised with a shudder that it was Imogen who was receiving the brunt of Lady Clarice’s description of her son’s betrothed. Lady Clarice must have caught the glances that Imogen kept sending Maitland.

She had captured the attention of the entire table now, although her comments were still markedly addressed to Imogen. According to her future mother-in-law, Miss Pythian-Adams had the most superb carriage, the most intelligent mind, and the most exquisite sensibilities of any living young woman.

‘She sounds charming,’ Imogen said, clutching her glass so tightly that Tess hoped it wouldn’t break.

‘Oh, she is,’ Maitland put in. ‘Miss Pythian-Adams is quite, quite charming. Any woman with five thousand pounds a year is, by definition, a dazzler.’

There was an unholy edge to his voice that made Tess uneasy. Surely that wasn’t an appropriate thing to say about one’s betrothed?

‘Dearest,’ Lady Clarice said to her son, ‘that was unworthy of you. While it is true that Miss Pythian-Adams is quite fortunate in having such a generous dowry — left to her by her maternal grandmother, the Duchess of Bestel — your lovely fiancée is far more than merely an heiress. Miss Pythian-Adams is cultured in every way. I declare, I have been all a ruffle, thinking what I can do to keep such a cultivated young lady amused during this visit! It’s not as if I could teach her a new tatting stitch, after all; she has had her sketches of the Roman Coliseum printed in The Ladies’ Magagne?

Imogen was holding up remarkably well. ‘What an honour,’ she commented, taking a deep draught of champagne.

‘I don’t suppose you had superior tutors in the art of sketching up in Scotland,’ Lady Clarice commented kindly. ‘Miss Pythian-Adams combines true ability with the very best instruction. I’ve heard her sketches compared to those of the great Michevolo himself!’

‘I believe you may be referring to Michelangelo,’ her son put in. He was getting a tight-lipped look that reminded Tess of the petulant tempers he indulged in when his horse didn’t perform as he wished at the track.

Mr Felton leaned slightly toward her, and said, ‘Alas, it appears that the course of true love is not quite smooth.’

‘A cliché,’ she told him.

‘I didn’t say that it never runs smooth,’ he said. ‘But I stand corrected, Miss Essex, and shall quote you no more Shakespeare.’ His eyes had a wicked twinkle to them. Probably because Mr Felton’s place had been added later, the footmen had placed his chair at an improperly close distance to her own. She felt as if his hard physique was positively towering over her. The sensation was not quite pleasant: it was rather unnerving, in fact.

Tess pointedly turned her gaze back to Lady Clarice, who was still talking of Miss Pythian-Adams’s visit. ‘She must see the ruins at Silchester. After all, it is one of the very finest Roman ruins, and so close to here. I’m quite certain that she will be able to regale me with its provenance and – and all manner of interesting facts about it!’

Her son cut in with an acid comment. ‘I suspect you are no bluestocking, are you, Miss Imogen?’ he asked. ‘There’s nothing more tedious than a woman with her nose in a book.’

Tess was certain that Mr Felton was still looking at her; it was as if she could feel his eyes on her face. She turned her head and was instantly caught by his gaze. His eyes were dark and curious, with something so intense about them that she felt it almost like a blow.

‘I’m afraid that my sisters and I have had little opportunity -’ Imogen began.

‘Of course not,’ Lady Clarice broke in. ‘Raised in the backwoods of Scotland as you were. Why, it’s not fair even to compare a young lady with Miss Pythian-Adams’s refinement and — to be frank — her advantages to a young lady of Miss Imogen’s background.’ She beamed at Imogen, although to Tess’s mind there was something of the cat’s greeting to a mouse in her smile. ‘You are a perfectly charming young lady, my dear, and I cannot allow my son to slight you in this manner.’

‘Lady Clarice,’ Rafe said, his voice only slightly slurred, ‘I have heard the most extraordinary rumour about one of our neighbours. Now surely you can tell me the truth of it… is it indeed the case that Lord Pool has embarked upon elk farming?’

But Lady Clarice was not to be deterred by such a weak ploy. She gave him a stern glance and returned to the fray. ‘You see, Draven,’ she trumpeted to the table at large, ‘it wouldn’t do to slight this sweet child by implying that anyone in the ton might compare her to Miss Pythian-Adams. We are not so unkind, not at all! We in the ton accept every gentleman or lady for what he or she is, and we do not judge on the opportunities he or she may not have had.’

‘That is very kind of you, Lady Clarice,’ Imogen said bravely, into the curdling moment of silence that followed.

Draven Maitland stood up with an abrupt scraping of his chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said through obviously clenched teeth, ‘I needs must garner a bit of culture before I grow a day older. Perhaps I can find myself an opera singer.’

And with that extraordinary bit of impudence, he smashed his way out of the room.

‘One might suppose that he meant that to be a cutting remark,’ Mr Felton said to Tess, imparting to this quite reasonable assessment a degree of disdain that would have made her curl up like a hedgehog had it been applied to her.

‘Perhaps Lord Maitland had an urgent appointment,’ she suggested with no conviction.

He threw her an amused glance. ‘As I understand it, his mother holds the purse strings and has selected a cultivated bride in an effort to overcome the influence of the turf. One can only assume after this display that he doesn’t agree with her tactics. Or,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘one might conclude that cultivation is wasted on the man.’

Lady Clarice was gently patting her mouth with a handkerchief. ‘My son,’ she said, in a clear, carrying voice, ‘has an artistic temperament. I’m afraid that sometimes his nerves get the better of him. But I expect that marriage to Miss Pythian-Adams will calm his tempestuous nature. She understands the artistic nature since she has one herself.’

Suddenly Rafe leaned in Tess’s direction, and said, ‘You four already know Maitland, don’t you? That’s right … you said – no, Imogen said …’ His voice trailed off as he looked down the table at Imogen. She was looking quietly at her plate, but there was a little smile playing around her mouth that said volumes.

Tess couldn’t think what to say.

Rafe blinked at her. ‘I gather that your sister Imogen was not competing with Annabel to become a duchess?’ Tess bit her lip.

‘Damnation, if this guardian business doesn’t look like more work than I anticipated!’ Rafe muttered.

‘Mr Felton, why are you visiting the depths of Hampshire?’ Lady Clarice asked. Her customary arch tone was a little strained — one must suppose that she felt the stress of her son’s departure – but she seemed determined to avoid comment on it.

Mr Felton put down his fork. ‘There is a race at Silchester in a few days. I intend to run two horses. I generally bring my horses down a week before a race and allow Rafe’s stable master to baby them.’

‘Rafe? Rafe?’ Lady Clarice said querulously. ‘OA. You mean His Grace. I am afraid that I simply cannot accustom myself to the easy manners of this generation.’

‘I’m afraid it is my idiosyncrasy rather than Lucius’s lack of manners,’ Rafe said. ‘I abhor being addressed by my title.’

‘Lucius? Ah, our dear Mr Felton,’ Lady Clarice said.

Tess watched, rather surprised. She had formed the impression that Lady Clarice would have nothing to do with those who were untitled.

Rafe bent his head close to hers. ‘Lucius is blessed with an income the size of the Prince Regent’s. There’s always the chance that she’ll be led astray by his estate and let go her dreams of being a duchess.’

‘Stop it!’ Tess whispered. ‘She might hear you!’

‘The excitement of being able to make sisterly confidences has likely gone to my head,’ Rafe told her, not even bothering to hush his voice.

‘That, or the brandy you’ve tucked away,’ Mr Felton put in.

So Rafe was drinking brandy! He had finished the glass given him when they sat down, and he was well near down in the next glass. But to Tess’s mind, the only sign that their guardian might be the slightest bit daffy was that his voice was even more growly than earlier, and he’d stopped flinging back the hair from his eyes. Instead, he just sat back, long legs spread before him, a lock of brown hair over his forehead, pushed back from the table in a most unducal fashion.

Lady Clarice leaned closer to him and smiled in a way that set Tess’s teeth on edge. ‘You poor man,’ she cooed. ‘You’re holding up under the strain of this invasion of females so well.’

‘Females never bother me,’ Rafe growled, ‘only ladies.’

Tess swallowed a grin.

‘Do you know your guardian well?’ came a voice from her left. ‘Not well,’ she said, turning reluctantly to Mr Felton. ‘I gather you have been friends for years.’ ‘Yes.’

Tess could see out of the corner of her eye that Rafe was waving his glass in the air, just a trifle unsteadily.

The butler, Brinkley, was making his way toward the top of the table with a decanter in hand and a disapproving expression on his face.

‘He handles his liquor well,’ Mr Felton said coolly, ‘but you might as well understand immediately, Miss Essex, that Rafe is not one to greet the evening without a copious draught of brandy.’

Tess’s eyes narrowed. Felton’s voice had the slight edge that she recognised; just so did the local nobility talk about her father’s ever-failing stables. It made her bristle all over. ‘I myself find abstemiousness remarkably tedious,’ she said, picking up her champagne and finishing the glass.

‘Your guardian will be euphoric to learn of your compatibility.’ Felton was obviously the sort of man who thought a sardonic expression was good enough for all occasions. He was overly large as well. Why, he must be all of fifteen stone and it looked to be pure muscle. He likely rode a stallion. Even his shoulders were a third again as wide as their guardian’s.

Thanks to being reared in a house cluttered by gear and periodically swept by groups of horse-mad gentlemen, Tess could spot a horseman at ten paces. When the dibs were in tune, and the horses were running sweet — well, then a horseman’s life was beautiful. But when a horse had to be put down, or the downs were too mired for galloping, or -

She shook off the memory of her father’s fits of despair. The shortest way to inoculate herself against this Adonis — nay, any man – was to ask him about his livestock. There was nothing more tedious than a man in the fit of equine adoration. ‘Do you have a large breeding programme, sir?’

‘Small but select. I fear I give my stables far too much importance in my life.’

Precisely. ‘I would adore to hear about your stables,’ she continued, giving him a dewy-eyed glance. Now he would launch into a fetlock-by-fetlock description and -

‘Seven horses,’ he said. ‘Would you like them categorised by colour, by year, or -’ and he paused – ‘by gender?’

‘By all means, use whatever convention you wish,’ Tess retorted, forgetting to look dewy-eyed.

‘The females first, then,’ he said. ‘Prudence is a filly of two years: nicely built with a graceful neck. Chestnut. Her eyelashes are so long that I wonder if she can see to race.’

Tess blinked. His descriptions were certainly different from her father’s, which would have run along the lines of the filly’s parentage, markings, and breeding. She doubted Papa had ever noticed a horse’s eyelashes in his life.

‘Minuet is a filly too,’ Mr Felton continued, his eyes on Tess’s face. ‘She’s a beauty, sleek and black, with one of those tails that flows behind her when she runs, like water going downhill. She’s a thief, and likes nothing better than to steal a bit of grass or corn.’

‘Do you allow her to eat grass, then?’ Tess asked.

In reply, he asked, ‘Did your father have a specific eating programme for his horseflesh?’

‘They were only allowed to eat oats,’ Tess said. ‘Oats and apples. We used to make apples into apple-mash because the horses got so tired of plain apples. Papa was convinced that apples were key to good digestion, and that would make the horses run faster.’

Lucius thought that diet was absurd, if not abusive. Miss Essex might have agreed; she had lowered her eyes and was picking at her food with all the interest of an overfed sparrow.

For his part, Lucius had now distinguished Rafe’s wards one from the others. Annabel sparkled; she dazzled the eye and ear with her honey voice and honey hair. Imogen was like a shock to the system. Her beauty was paired with a pair of eyes so ardent that he was uncomfortable even looking at her and felt more than grateful that he wasn’t Maitland. That much emotion directed across the table must make a man queasy.

But Miss Essex — or Tess, as Rafe was calling her — had as much beauty as the other two, and it was paired with a dry sense of humour that hid itself behind propriety. He couldn’t quite decide whether her humour or her mouth was the more remarkable. She had the look of the others about her; the sisters shared retroussé noses, high cheekbones, pointed chins, and thickly fringed eyelashes.

But Tess’s mouth was unique. Her lips were plump and of a lush, deep red. But the outrageous detail, the thing that made her mouth like no mouth he’d seen before, was the tiny, scandalously sensual black mole that marked just where a dimple might be. Hers was a hussy’s mouth, though not that of a common dasher. No, obviously virginal and obviously proper Miss Essex had the mouth of a woman who would become coquette to a king, a mouth by which a courtesan could make herself celebrated on two continents.

Lucius shifted in his seat.

Thank goodness Derwent hadn’t unpacked those bags. He was no sacrifice to be offered at the altar of Rafe’s obligations to his wards. Although, in the presence of Miss Essex, one could almost imagine —

Lucius came to himself with a start. What in God’s name was he doing? Hadn’t he decided, after last year, to forgo the dubious pleasures of marriage?

He didn’t have enough to offer a woman, and especially a woman like this. She was laughing again, a husky laugh that didn’t belong to a virgin. The very sound sent warning prickles up his spine.

He turned away.