have the chance to be civil to Jessica. She was otherwise occupied when you arrived.'
'I shall make my bow,' he said. 'Beyond that I will not go.'
'Just a word of advice for the future,' his grandmother said, patting his arm. 'Jessica is my guest, Charles, and is to be treated with the proper decorum. You must not offer her
Twice is quite enough. She will begin to find you tedious if you risk a third.'
'She told you about last night, then,' Rutherford said with some contempt, reaching out and opening the study door. 'I might have known that she would go running bearing tales.'
'Not by any means,' she said. 'But I am not quite in my dotage, boy. When a gel disappears with my grandson for almost half an hour and returns with an angry glint in her eye and a mouth that looks quite thoroughly kissed, I do not conclude that they have been discussing Latin literature.'
'She refused me again,' he said. 'She sees that she can gain more from clinging to you, it seems.'
'And quite right too,' she said. 'You should try to eliminate that spiteful inflection from your voice when speaking of such disappointments, Charles. You are a man of close to thirty years, not a spoiled schoolboy, m'dear.'
'Sir Godfrey was unable to spend Christmas with us at Hendon Park last year,' Lady Hope was telling Jessica. 'His father was ill, and he felt obliged to go to his sick bed. But he is to come this year. We often invite close friends, you know, even though it is mainly a family Christmas. I believe you have made an impression on Sir Godfrey, my dear Miss Moore. As you have with several other young men. And that is as it should be. You are very lovely. If I were ten years younger, I should be positively jealous of you.'
'You are very kind,' Jessica said. 'Everyone has been kind. I did not expect to have visitors today after only one appearance in public.'
'Oh, there is nothing at all strange about that,' her companion said, reaching out and patting Jessica's hand. 'Even I, my dear, had my fair share of admirers during my first Season. The fact that Papa is a duke probably had something to do with that, of course. I was never a beauty.'
Jessica smiled, but she was not given the chance to frame a reply.
'Oh, you do not need to pity me,' the older woman said with a little laugh. 'I knew at a very young age that I would never be pretty. Faith was, you see, and when people used to call her pretty and then turn to me and say I was handsome-always with a little pause before the word, my dear-I knew what they meant. I have never allowed the fact to disturb my sleep. I once loved, you know.'
'Did you?' Jessica found herself warming almost despite herself to this nervous, talkative woman. All the other guests had taken their leave.
'He was very dashing,' Lady Hope said. 'And he loved me in return. Now is not that an amazing fact? He was killed in Spain.' She gave Jessica a quick smile before her face became serious again. 'He was a soldier, you know.'
'I am so sorry,' Jessica murmured.
'You need not be.' She patted Jessica's hand briskly again. 'There would have been the devil to pay when he came home to claim me. Papa would not have willingly allowed me to wed a soldier.'
'I am still sorry,' Jessica said. 'You must have suffered.'
'Suffering strengthens the mind,' the other woman said. 'Sir Godfrey would be a good catch for you, Miss Moore. He is a kindly man and only a couple of years older than Charles. About my age, in fact. He will try to fix your interest at Hendon, I would not wonder.'
Jessica blushed. 'I really am not thinking about marriage at all,' she said.
'Oh, nonsense!' said Lady Hope. 'We all think of marriage, my dear, whether we like to admit it or not. Usually I pretend that the maiden state suits me very well. But I will confess to you that I would very much like to have met another gentleman to whom I could have given my affection. I would like to have a man to call my own. And a child. Oh, I would like to have just one child, Miss Moore. Now is that not a foolish notion at my age? The child would not know whether to call me Mama or Grandmama.' She laughed.
'I pray you will have your wish, Lady Hope,' Jessica said, smiling.
. 'Sir Godfrey has been to Greece,' Lady Hope said. 'He traveled through Russia and even went to Constantinople. Is not that a marvel, now? He could not make the Grand Tour, you see, because of the wars. He will tell you about his travels if you really insist that you are interested. Otherwise, he will not even mention them. He is afraid of boring his listeners. Now is not that a foolish thing?'
The door opened at that moment and the dowager duchess entered with the Earl of Rutherford. Jessica felt as if someone had robbed her of breath. She did not quite know whether she should look at him or pretend that she had not noticed he was in the room. She chose the former.
'Hope?' he said, bowing. 'Miss Moore? I trust you are not overtired today after last evening?' He flushed slightly.
'Thank you, no, my lord,' she said. And she discovered that they were stranded, looking determinedly into each other's eyes, with an audience of two looking on, and nothing to say. She felt her own color rise.
'Sir Godfrey has invited Miss Moore and me to join him in a visit to Astley's Amphitheater tomorrow, Charles,' Lady Hope said, without seeming to realize what an awkward situation she had relieved. 'I do believe he intended to ask just Miss Moore, but I was sitting next to her, you see, and he felt obliged to ask me too. Was not that a foolish notion? However, dear Miss Moore would have needed someone to chaperone her, so I daresay it is just as well that he did ask me too. I am certainly old enough to be a quite acceptable chaperone, am I not, Grandmama? And I am most gratified to be asked. It must be all of ten years since I last saw the acrobats.'
'You will enjoy the outing, Miss Moore,' Rutherford said stiffly, handing his grandmother to a chair. 'The magicians and the clowns were always my favorites when I was a boy.'
'You must go along too, Charles,' the dowager said. 'It does not seem fair that Sir Godfrey should have two ladies all to himself.'
'I believe I have a luncheon engagement tomorrow, Grandmama,' he said quickly.
'No, dear boy,' she said. 'That is for the day after. I distinctly recall your telling me so.'
'Sir Godfrey did mention that he would ask you to make up numbers,' Lady Hope said. 'Did he not, Miss Moore?'
Jessica murmured agreement.
'Then it seems that I will have the honor of seeing you again tomorrow, Miss Moore,' the earl said, bowing in her direction. 'Hope? You are ready to leave? Shall I walk you home or would you like to ride in my curricle?'
'Oh, the curricle, by all means, Charles,' she said, getting to her feet after patting Jessica's hands. 'I rarely have the chance to ride in one these days. Most people seem to assume that someone of my age should be bundled up inside a closed carriage. Is not that foolish?' She laughed and bent to kiss the dowager's cheek.
Jessica felt that the plum-colored bonnet with the curled pink feather was rather too grand to wear to the circus, but the dowager duchess had assured her that it would do very nicely. And it did match exactly the warm pelisse that she was planning to wear over her pink wool dress. It still seemed strange to her to have a dressing room full of brightly colored, fashionable garments, some for the morning, some for the afternoon, some for informal evening wear, some for formal evening wear. Life had been dull but blessedly uncomplicated when she had used to rise in the morning to don a gray dress and confine her hair into its bun.
She was dawdling, she knew. She should have been downstairs five minutes ago so that she would not have to keep Sir Godfrey waiting when he brought his carriage for her. She was looking forward to going to Astley's, of course she was. It seemed delightfully frivolous to be setting off for an afternoon's entertainment by acrobats, clowns, performing horses, and magicians. She had never seen anything like it. She was not at all sure that Papa would have approved.
But she was not looking forward to the afternoon for all that. She would have thoroughly enjoyed the prospect of going with Sir Godfrey and Lady Hope. She liked them both. Sir Godfrey was an amiable gentleman and had the gift of keeping a conversation alive without either boring his audience with a monologue or demanding too much in the way of speech from them. And she liked Lady Hope, who appeared to have little confidence in either her looks or her charms, though she possessed both.
