“Pretty lady,” Jewel said, staring up at his neighbor.
“Why, thank you, Miss…”
“Jewel,” the girl supplied.
“Lady Jewel,” Ford clarified. “My brother’s daughter.”
“Ah,” Lady Trentingham murmured. Some of the confusion cleared from her face. “I’m glad of your acquaintance,” she said with a graceful curtsy, for all the world like they were meeting in Whitehall Palace.
Jewel mimicked the motion. “I’m glad of your ac-ac—”
“Acquaintance,” Ford said helpfully.
But apparently Jewel didn’t take it that way. She fixed him with a malevolent green glare. “I can say it.”
“Of course you can.” Palms forward, he took a small step back. “Forgive me.”
“All right.” She turned to the woman, focusing on something in her hand. “What’s that?”
“Don’t point, baby,” Ford said. Though his twin sister forever accused him of being oblivious, he did know his manners.
Lady Trentingham knelt by Jewel’s side. “It’s a bottle of perfume. I brought it for the lady of the house. And I suppose”—she looked to Ford for confirmation—“that’s you?”
He nodded his agreement as Jewel squealed. “For me?”
“For you, sweetheart. Would you like to smell it?”
“Oh, yes,” his niece breathed. She waited, dancing from foot to foot while the woman removed the stopper and handed her the bottle.
Jewel waved it under her nose. “It’s lovely, my lady!” Tipping the bottle, she wet her fingers and dabbed the potion on her neck, wetting some of the overgrown greenery in the process.
“You must use only a little,” Lady Trentingham warned her, “or you’ll smell like a field of flowers.”
“I like flowers.”
“Then you must come and visit Trentingham Manor.” She rose to her feet, smiling at Ford. “My husband enjoys gardening.”
“I’ve heard that of the earl.” Everyone had heard that of the earl. And standing in his own shambles of a garden, knowing what Lady Trentingham and her husband must think every time they saw it, made Ford want to squirm.
“Who is caring for Lady Jewel?” the countess asked.
“I am, now. Her nursemaid fell ill, so I sent her home.”
“Alone?”
“No, with my coachman and two outriders.”
Amusement flickered on her face. “I meant, are you caring for Lady Jewel on your own?”
“Oh.” Feeling thickheaded, he cleared his throat. “I suppose I am.”
“And how are you getting along?”
His neighbor had a straightforward way about her that Ford found refreshing. Heaven knew Tabitha hadn’t been so.
“Well, I’ve had Jewel for…” He twisted around to peer at the sundial. “…it’s going on eighteen hours. And no disaster has befallen her yet, so although I haven’t managed to find time for anything else, I reckon I’m doing all right.”
Lady Trentingham’s laughter tinkled through the tangled vegetation. Her gaze turned contemplative. “I have a son.”
“Do you?” he prompted, feeling more thickheaded still.
“Rowan. He’s six years of age, and his favorite playmate is away from home for the month—perhaps I’ll bring him over to play. That might give you a bit of a respite.”
“A boy?” Jewel interjected.
“A kind one,” the woman assured her. “He doesn’t have maggots.”
Jewel looked dubious. But she also looked lonely. And as far as Ford was concerned, Lady Trentingham could be his savior. An angel sent from heaven. A fairy come to wave her wand and sprinkle magic dust.
“I shall bring Rowan tomorrow,” she decided. “He has lessons in the morning, but perhaps after dinner.”
“He’s welcome for dinner,” Ford offered. Breakfast and supper, too. Anything to keep his niece occupied so he could work. He was so close to finishing his design…
He must have looked as desperate as he felt, because his neighbor released a tiny, unladylike snort.
“After dinner,” she confirmed, hiding a smile as she turned to make her way back to her carriage.
“HOW DID IT GO, milady?” Anne asked Chrystabel as the coach set off for Trentingham.
“Fine,” she assured her maid.
Perfect, she added silently.
Now she just had to make plans to keep both Rose and Lily busy tomorrow. As well as herself. Violet—her wonderful, willful, bookish daughter Violet—would be the one to take Rowan to visit Lady Jewel.
Picking dead vegetation off her skirts, Chrystabel smiled. She’d met young Ford Chase before, but this visit had confirmed it. If ever a perfect husband existed for Violet, it was the charming, slightly preoccupied but ambitious Lord Lakefield. These two needed each other.
Her daughters were dead set against her arranging their marriages, and well Chrystabel knew it.
But a resourceful mother could always find a way.
FIVE
“PLEASE WAIT, Margaret,” Violet told her lady’s maid the next afternoon. “If all goes well, I’m going to leave Rowan here and come back for him later.”
She stepped down from the carriage and grumbled all the way to the front door of the large, if shabby, Lakefield House. She couldn’t fathom how she’d ended up here, escorting her reluctant young brother to play with a strange little girl.
Mum’s convoluted explanation had made sense at the time, but how was it that suddenly Rose and Lily both needed to be measured for gowns, and she didn’t? True, she hadn’t been clamoring for new clothes like they had—she’d never really cared about such things—but Mum had always been careful to treat her three girls evenly.
At the bottom of the chipped stone stairs that led to the entry, she pulled Rowan out of the bushes where he was hiding. He promptly scurried to hide behind her instead. With a sigh, she mounted the steps and raised the knocker.
Before she had a chance to bang it down, the door swung open, and she stumbled forward and nearly fell into the house. She was saved from that indignity by someone’s hands clasping her shoulders. Warm hands, keeping her upright. They belonged to a young man—a footman?—and when she looked up, his face was only inches from hers. She nearly gasped.
In all her life, she’d seen relatively few men up close—close enough to
