“Perhaps. Perhaps you want to flit from tree to tree in a shadowed forest, eluding both beast and poor, poor man. What do you think?”
“I think you don’t know me very well.”
And he turned and looked at her as she stared back at him, amused, but with her hand still tightly gripped on the carriage’s side. “No, I suppose you’re right.”
He did want to know her, though, he realized, this vexing creature who refused to show fear.
“Are you happy with the arrangements your brother and I came to?” he asked. The first banns had been called yesterday, and they would be married in another three weeks. Many ladies would not like such a short engagement. “I must tell you that we tussled long and hard. At one point, I thought our men of business would come to fisticuffs. Fortunately, your brother averted the crisis with the quick application of tea and muffins.”
“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.
He rolled his eyes. “Her.”
He tilted his head at the cleared space next to the harpsichord where Lady Eddings’s youngest daughter stood. The girl actually sang rather well, but the poor thing wore enormous panniers and a floppy bonnet, and she carried a pail of all things.
“Surely she’s not a chambermaid?” Lord Vale wondered. He’d taken their notoriety in stride, laughing loudly when he’d been cornered by several gentlemen before the musicale. Now he jiggled his left leg like a small boy forced to sit at church. “I’d think she’d be carrying a coal shuttle if she were a chambermaid. Though that might be rather heavy.”
“She’s a milkmaid,” Melisande murmured.
“Really?” His shaggy eyebrows drew together. “Surely not with those panniers?”
“Shh!” someone hissed from behind them.
“I mean,” Lord Vale whispered only a little lower, “wouldn’t the cows trod on her skirts? Don’t seem practical at all. Not that I know all that much about cows and milkmaids and such, but I do like cheese.”
Melisande bit her lip, fighting down an unusual urge to giggle. How strange! She wasn’t the giggling sort at all. She glanced at Lord Vale out of the corner of her eye only to see him watching her.
His wide mouth curved, and he leaned closer, his breath brushing her cheek. “I adore cheese and grapes, the dark, round, red kind of grape that burst in one’s mouth all sweet and juicy. Do you like grapes?”
Although the words were perfectly innocent, he said them with such a deep drawl, that she was hard pressed not to blush. And she suddenly realized that she’d seen him do this before: lean close to a lady and whisper wicked things in her ear. She’d watched him do it innumerable times over the years to innumerable ladies at innumerable parties. But this time was different.