Vale stood across the terrace with a group of three older gentlemen. Melisande watched as her husband threw his head back and laughed at something one of the gentlemen said. His throat was strong and corded, and something in her heart clenched at the sight. In a thousand years, she would never grow bored of watching him when he laughed so uninhibitedly.
She hastily glanced away so she wouldn’t be caught making cow’s eyes at him. “Your garden is lovely, my lady.”
“Thank you,” the other woman said. “It should be, considering the army of gardeners I employ.”
Melisande hid a smile behind her teacup. She’d found before her marriage that she greatly liked Vale’s mother. The dowager countess was a petite lady. Her son looked like a giant when he stood next to her. Nonetheless, she seemed to have no problem in setting him or any other gentleman down with merely a pointed stare. Lady Vale wore her softly graying hair pulled into a simple knot at the crown of her head. Her face was round and feminine and not at all like her son’s, until one came to her eyes—they were a sparkling turquoise. She’d been a beauty in her youth and still had the confidence of a very handsome woman.
Lady Vale eyed the pretty pink and white pastries that sat on a dainty plate on the table between them. She leaned a little forward, and Melisande thought she might take a cake, but then the elder lady looked away.
“I was so glad when Jasper chose to marry you instead of Miss Templeton,” Lady Vale said. “The girl was pretty but overly flighty. She hadn’t the temper to keep my son in hand. He would’ve been bored with her within the month.” The dowager countess lowered her voice confidentially. “I think he was enamored of her bosom.”
Melisande checked an impulse to glance at her own small chest.
Lady Vale patted her hand and said somewhat obscurely, “Don’t let it worry you. Bosoms never last. Intelligent conversation does, though the majority of gentlemen don’t seem to realize it.”
Melisande blinked, trying to think of a reply. Although perhaps one wasn’t needed.
Lady Vale reached for a cake and then seemed to change her mind again, picking up her teacup instead. “Did you know that Miss Templeton’s father has given his permission for her to marry that curate?”
Melisande shook her head. “I hadn’t heard.”
The dowager countess set her teacup down without sipping from it. “Poor man. She’ll ruin his life.”
“Surely not.” Melisande was distracted by Vale taking leave of the group of gentlemen and sauntering in their direction.
“Mark my words, she will.” The countess suddenly darted out a hand and snatched a pink cake from the plate. She set it on her dish and glared at it a moment before looking at Melisande. “My son needs warmth, but not gentleness. He hasn’t been the same since he returned from the Colonies.”
Melisande had only a moment to register these words before Vale was upon them.
“Lady wife and lady mother, good afternoon.” He bowed with a flourish and addressed his mother. “Might I steal my wife for a stroll about your lovely gardens? I had a mind to show her the irises.”
“I don’t know why since the irises have stopped blooming,” his mother replied tartly. She inclined her head. “But go. I think I’ll ask Lord Kensington what he knows about the palace scandal.”
“You are kindness personified, ma’am.” Vale proffered his elbow to Melisande.
She rose as her mother-in-law muttered, “Oh, pish” behind them.
Melisande’s lips curved as Vale guided them toward a pea-gravel path. “Your mother thinks I’ve saved you from a terrible fate in a marriage to Miss Templeton.”
“I bow to my mater’s wonderful common sense,” Vale said cheerfully. “Can’t think what I saw in Miss Templeton in the first place.”
“Your mother says it may’ve been the lady’s bosom.”
“Ah.” She felt him look at her, though she kept her gaze on the path ahead. “We men are pitiful creatures made of clay, I’m afraid, easily distracted and led astray. A lush bosom may have indeed fogged my innate intelligence.”
“Hmm.” She remembered the parade of women who had been his lovers. Had they all had lush bosoms as well?
He leaned toward her, his breath brushing her ear, making her shiver. “I would not be the first to mistake quantity for quality and reach for a large, sugary cake, when a neat, small bun was in reality more to my taste.”
She tilted her head to glance at him. His eyes were sparkling, and a smile played around his mobile lips. She had trouble maintaining a stern expression. “Did you just compare my form to a baked good?”
“A neat and delectable baked good,” he reminded her. “You should take it as a compliment.”
She turned her face away to hide her smile. “I’ll consider it.”
They turned a corner, and he abruptly pulled her to a stop in front of a clump of greenery. “Behold. My mother’s irises, no longer in bloom.”
She looked at the plant’s lobed leaves. “That’s a peony. Those”—she pointed to some plants with sword-shaped leaves farther down the path—“are irises.”
“Really? Are you sure? How can you tell without the flowers?”
“By the shape of the leaves.”
“Amazing. It’s almost like divination.” He stared first at the peony and then the irises. “Don’t look like much without the flowers, do they?”
“Your mother did say they weren’t in bloom.”
“True,” he murmured, and turned them down a new path. “What other talents have you hidden from me? Do you sing like a lark? I’ve always wanted to marry a girl who could sing.”
“Then you should’ve asked about it before we wed,” she said practically. “My voice is only fair.”
“A disappointment I shall have to bear with fortitude.”
She glanced at him and wondered what he was about. He sought her out, almost as if he were courting her. The thought was disconcerting. Why court a wife? Perhaps she was seeing more than was there, and the possibility frightened her. If she hoped, if she let herself believe he actually might want her, then the fall when he turned away again would be even more terrible.
“Perhaps you can dance,” he was saying. “Can you dance?”
“Naturally.”
“I am reassured. What about the pianoforte? Can you play?”
“Not very well, I’m afraid.”
“My dreams of evening musicales by the fireplace are crushed. I’ve seen your embroidery, and that’s quite fine. Do you draw?”
“A little.”
“And paint?”
“Yes.”
They’d come to a bench at a turn in the path, and he carefully dusted the seat with a cloth from his pocket before gesturing for her to sit.
She sat slowly, marshalling her defenses. A rose arbor shielded the seat, and she watched as he broke off a blossom.
“Ouch.” He’d pricked himself on a thorn and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
She looked away from the sight of his lips around the digit and swallowed. “Serves you right for mangling your mother’s roses.”
“It’s worth it,” he said, too close. He’d braced a hand on the seat and leaned down to her. She caught the scent of sandalwood. “The prick of the thorns only makes attaining the rose that much more gratifying.”
She turned and his face was only inches from hers, his eyes a strange tropical color that never occurred naturally in England. She thought she saw sadness lurking in their depths. “Why are you doing this?”
“What?” he asked idly. He brushed the rose against her cheek, the softness of the petals sending a shudder down her spine.
She caught his hand, hard and warm beneath her fingertips. “This. You act as if you’re wooing me.”
“Do I?” He was very still, his lips only inches from hers.
“I’m already your wife. There’s no need to woo me,” she whispered, and couldn’t keep the plea from her voice.
He moved his hand easily, though she still had her f
ingers wrapped about his. The rose drifted across her parted lips.
“Oh, I think there’s every need,” he said.
HER MOUTH WAS the exact same shade as the rose.
Jasper watched as the petals brushed against her lips. So soft, so sweet. He wanted to feel that mouth beneath his own again. Wanted to part it and invade it, marking it as his own. Five days, she’d said, which left another still to go. He’d have to practice patience.
Her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink, her eyes wide above the rose, but as he watched, they lost focus, and her lids began to drift down. She was so sensitive, so responsive to the smallest of stimuli. He wondered if he could make her come simply by kissing her. The thought quickened his breath. Last night had been a revelation to him. The luscious creature who’d invaded his room and taken charge was every man’s erotic dream. Where had she learned such sensuous wiles? She’d been like quicksilver—mysterious, exotic, slipping away from him when he’d tried to grasp her.
Yet he’d never noticed her before that day in the vestry. He was a stupid, blind fool, and he thanked God for it. Because if he was a fool, then so were all the other men who’d passed her by at innumerable balls and soirees and never taken the time to look. None of them had noticed her either, and now she was his.
His alone to bed.
He had to fight to keep his smile from turning wolfish. Who would’ve thought chasing one’s own wife would be so arousing? “I have every right to woo you, to court you. After all, we had no time before we were married. Why not do it now?”
“Why bother at all?” she asked. Her voice sounded dazed.
“Why not?” He teased her mouth again with the rose, watching as the flower pulled down her lower lip, revealing the moist inner skin. His groin tightened at the sight. “Should not a husband know his wife, cherish and possess her?”
Her eyes flickered up at the word possess. “Do you possess me?”
“I do legally,” he said softly. “But I don’t know if I do spiritually. What do you think?”
“I think you don’t.” He pulled back the flower to let her speak, and her tongue touched her bottom lip where it had been. “I don’t know if you ever will.”
Her frank gaze was a challenge.
He nodded. “Perhaps not, but that won’t stop me from trying.”
She frowned. “I don’t—”
He placed his thumb across her mouth. “What other talents have you not told me of, my fair wife? What secrets do you keep hidden from me?”
“I have no secrets.” Her lips brushed his thumb like a kiss as she spoke. “If you look, you’ll not find any.”
“You lie,” he said gently. “And I wonder why.”
Her eyelids dropped, veiling her gaze. He felt the moist heat of her tongue against his thumb.
He caught his breath. “Were you found, fully formed, in some ancient spot? I fancy you as one of the fey, strange and wild, and completely enticing to a human male.”
“My father was a simple Englishman. He would’ve scoffed at the thought of fairies.”
“And your mother?”
“She was from Prussia and even more pragmatic than he.” She sighed softly, her breath brushing his flesh. “I am no romantic maiden. Just a plain Englishwoman.”
He very much doubted that.
He took his hand away, caressing her cheek as it left. “Did you grow up in London or in the country?”
“The country, mostly, though we came to London to visit at least yearly.”
“And did you have playmates? Sweet girls to whisper and giggle with?”
“Emeline.” Her eyes met his, and there was a vulnerability there.
Emeline lived in the American Colonies now. “You miss her.”
“Yes.”
He brought the rose up to absently brush her bare neck as he tried to remember details of Emeline’s childhood. “But you did not know her until you were nearly out of the schoolroom, yes? My family estates adjoin hers, and I have known both her and her brother, Reynaud, since the nursery. I would’ve remembered you had you been with Emeline then.”
“Would you?” Her eyes flashed with anger, but she continued before he could make a defense. “I met Emeline when I came to visit a friend in the area. I was fourteen or fifteen.”
“And before that? Who did you play with? Your brothers?” He watched as the rose brushed her collarbone, then moved lower.
She shrugged. The rose must tickle, but she didn’t bat it away. “My brothers are older than I. They were both away at school when I was in the nursery.”
“Then you were alone.” He held her gaze as the rose dipped between the upper curve of her breasts.
She bit her lip. “I had a nanny.”
“Not the same as a playmate,” he murmured.
“Perhaps not,” she conceded.
When she inhaled, her breasts pressed a little against the rose. O, fortunate flower!
“You were a quiet child,” he said, because he knew it must be true.
Even with the stories he’d heard yesterday from her aunt, he knew in the main that she would’ve been a quiet child. A nearly silent child. She held herself contained. Her limbs under strict control, her body small and neat, even though she wasn’t a little woman. Her voice was always well modulated, and she stayed at the back of gatherings. What childhood had made her so determined not to be noticed?
He leaned closer to her, and even though the sweet scent of roses surrounded them, he smelled spicy oranges. Her scent. “You were a child who kept her inner thoughts secret from the world.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know me.”
“No,” he conceded. “But I want to know you. I want to learn you until the workings of your mind are as familiar to me as I am to myself.”
She drew in her breath, pulling back almost as if in fear. “I will not become—”
But he laid a finger against her lips and then quickly straightened away again. He could hear voices on the path they’d just come from. A moment more and another couple rounded the corner.
“Pardon,” the gentleman said, and at the same time Jasper realized it was Matthew Horn. “Vale. I had not thought to meet you here.”
Jasper bowed with irony. “I have always found it instructive to walk my mother’s gardens. Just this afternoon, I have been able to teach my wife the difference between a peony plant and an iris.”
A sound that might have been a muffled snort came from behind him.
Matthew’s eyes widened. “Is this your wife, then?”
“Indeed.” Jasper turned and met Melisande’s secretive brown eyes. “My heart, may I present Mr. Matthew Horn, a former officer in the 28th Regiment like myself. Horn, my wife, Lady Vale.”
Melisande held out her hand, and Matthew took it and bent over it. All quite proper, of course, but Jasper still felt an instinctive need to lay his hand on Melisande’s shoulder as if to claim ownership.
Matthew stepped back. “May I present Miss Beatrice Corning. Miss Corning, Lord and Lady Vale.”
Jasper bent over the pretty chit’s hand, suppressing a smile. Matthew’s presence at the salon was explained, and his motives were similar to Jasper’s. He was in pursuit of the lady.
“Do you make your home in London, Miss Corning?” he asked.
“No, my lord,” the girl said. “I usually live in the country with my uncle. I think you must know him, for we are neighbors of yours, I believe. He is the Earl of Blanchard.”
The girl said something else, but Jasper lost it. Blanchard had been Reynaud’s title, the one he should’ve inherited on his father’s death. Except Reynaud had been dead by then. Captured and killed by the Indians after Spinner’s Falls.
Jasper focused on the girl’s face, really looking at her for the first time. She was chatting with Melisande, her countenance open and frank. She had a fresh, country appearance, her hair the color of ripened wheat, her eyes a contented gray. Tiny sandy freckles dotted her upper cheeks. She had no
title herself, but Matthew was still reaching high if he thought to court the niece of an earl. The Horns were an old family but not titled. Whereas the Blanchard name went back centuries, and the earldom’s seat was a sprawling feudal mansion. The girl had said she lived in that mansion.
In Reynaud’s home.
Jasper felt his chest tighten, and he looked away from Miss Corning’s expressive face. No use to blame this girl. She would’ve been in the schoolroom six years ago when Reynaud died on a fiery cross. It wasn’t her fault that her uncle had inherited the title. Or that she now lived on the estate that had been Reynaud’s birthright. Still, he could not bear to look her in the face.
He held out his arm to Melisande and interrupted the conversation. “Come. We have an afternoon engagement, I believe.”
He bowed to Matthew and Miss Corning as they made their farewells. He didn’t look at Melisande, but he was aware that she watched him curiously, even as she laid her hand on his arm. She knew there was no afternoon engagement. It occurred to him—finally, belatedly—that in searching out her secrets, he ran the risk of revealing his own, far darker ones. That, simply, must never happen.
Jasper covered her hand with his. It was a gesture that appeared husbandly, when in reality it was instinctive. An urge to capture and keep her from fleeing. He couldn’t tell her about Reynaud and what had happened in the dark woods of America, couldn’t tell her how his soul had been fractured there, couldn’t tell her of his greatest failure and his greatest grief. But he could hold her and keep her.
And he would.
“. . . AND DIDN’T HE look right gormless, his arse hangin’ out for all to see?” Mrs. Moore, Lord Vale’s housekeeper, finished her tale by slapping the kitchen table with a loud thump.
The three upstairs maids collapsed together in a heap of giggles, the two footmen at the end of the table nudged each other, Mr. Oaks gave a deep bass chuckle, and even Cook, whose face normally wore a pinched expression, let a smile show.
Sally Suchlike grinned. Lord Vale’s household was a real change from Mr. Fleming’s. There were more than twice as many servants, but under the guidance of Mr. Oaks and Mrs. Moore, they were more friendly, almost like a family. Within a couple of days of starting here, Sally had made friends with both Mrs. Moore and Cook—who was a shy woman under that stern demeanor—and her fears of not being liked, not being accepted, were put to rest.