Jessamine froze. Two gentlemen were exiting a white stucco town house about midway down the block. A curricle stood in the road, a tiger at the horses’ heads.
Could she and Megan back down Albemarle before being observed? Even as the thought raced through her mind, it was too late. Both men stopped speaking, their gazes drawn toward them.
As the only other individuals on the pavement, there could be no mistaking who had drawn their attention.
For a moment Jessamine had the hope that Mr. Marfleet wouldn’t recognize her since he was not wearing his spectacles. But before she could turn back from whence they’d come, Megan broke into a smile and walked boldly toward the gentlemen.
Usually Jessamine appreciated Megan’s more outgoing personality, but at that instant she wanted nothing better than to yank her back. Her worst nightmare had come to pass.
Gritting her teeth as she imagined Mr. Marfleet’s knowing smile, Jessamine followed Megan. As they drew close enough to be recognized, Mr. Marfleet’s eyes widened in visible surprise. He recovered quickly. Saying something to the other gentleman, he stepped forward.
Touching the brim of his tall beaver, he inclined his head to each one. “Good day, Miss Barry, Miss Phillips. What a pleasant surprise to see you here.”
Megan’s smile widened. “We were just returning home from our morning walk and we took this route instead of continuing on Piccadilly to return to Bond Street. It . . . it’s quieter.”
A perfectly reasonable excuse, but to Jessamine’s ears it sounded contrived. Her face heated at the thought that he would think they were hunting out his residence.
“I see. How nice.” He turned to Jessamine, and too late she remembered her spectacles. Her cheeks flamed. All she could do was brazen it out, staring back at him without blinking. Except for an initial blink of his own, he gave no sign that he noticed anything different about her appearance. Instead, he turned to the other gentleman, who had approached them and stood smiling. “May I present my brother, Sir Harold Marfleet?”
They murmured their greetings as Mr. Marfleet explained to his brother that she and Megan were in London for the season. Sir Harold was indeed handsome, as Lady Bess had said. Closely cropped golden hair curled beneath a tall beaver. His cravat was perfectly stiff with a few careful creases below his cleft chin. His dark-blue coat of superfine outlined broad shoulders. Buckskin breeches molded muscular thighs. Shiny black boots with a width of white tops completed his outfit. He appeared a dashing London buck, and made her think Brummell would have approved in his day.
Her observation turned to Mr. Marfleet, who wore a more somber black coat and breeches and crumpled cravat. He looked like a poor parish vicar. Her father would doubtless approve.
“Are you staying far from here?” Sir Harold asked.
“We are staying with Lady Beasinger on Weymouth Road in Marylebone,” Megan replied.
“That’s quite far.” He glanced at his curricle. “I would offer to take you home but it only seats two. I could call for the carriage.”
She and Megan protested at once, telling him they enjoyed walking, being used to it in the country.
He tilted his head, eyeing them through a quizzing glass. “You have no maid accompanying you?”
“No. I mean, she—we left her at home. We are used to going about on our own at home.” Megan tossed her curls. “She protests after a mile of walking, and it became quite tiresome.”
“London can be a dangerous place with its cutthroats and pickpockets. You must have a care,” Sir Harold said in a serious tone, though the twinkle in his blue eyes belied his brotherly admonition.
“We are quite careful where we go,” Jessamine said, bringing both men’s attention to her. Again, she remembered her spectacles and wished she could hide behind Megan.
“We go out early too, before the streets become too crowded,” added Megan.
“Bond Street can be a bit unsavory for unaccompanied females in the afternoon. I should stay away from there unless you are in a carriage.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you,” Megan murmured.
Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat. “Did you receive my mother’s invitation?”
“Yes,” they both answered at once, then fell silent as if they’d answered too eagerly. Jessamine determined to let Megan do the talking from then on.
Megan continued in a calmer tone. “Thank you. Lady Bess—that is, Beasinger—our hostess, received it. It was very thoughtful of you.”
Ruddy color suffused his pale cheeks. “I thought perhaps being new in town you might not have many acquaintances.”
“London is a town that depends wholly on introductions,” his brother put in. “Depend upon it. My mother knows everyone worth knowing. If she approves you, the invitations shall pour in.”
Sir Harold’s words would have been insulting if they hadn’t been delivered with humor in his crinkling eyes. “What have you seen in London since you arrived?” he asked.
As Megan described some of their outings, Jessamine wished there were some way of discreetly removing her spectacles. But all she could do was look at her friend, studiously avoiding the eyes of the two men. When she stole a glance at Mr. Marfleet, she found his gaze upon her. Quickly she averted her own.
“You must go to the theater and Astley’s Amphitheatre,” Sir Harold said. “Don’t you agree, Lancelot?”
“Yes, I should think you’d find those amusing.”
Sir Harold chuckled. “If you asked him, he would have you sitting at the Royal Institute or Somerset House listening to stuffy lectures all day.”
Jessamine eyed Mr. Marfleet. Was he interested in scientific pursuits? He sounded more and more like her father.
“My brother exaggerates. I find as much amusement in a night at the theater or circus as anyone.”
Feeling a stir of compassion for his obvious discomfort, Jessamine volunteered, “This is only our second visit to London, but both times I have fallen in love with the parks. I thought London would be nothing but buildings crowded together, but I am amazed at the number of parks and squares. And Kensington Gardens is lovely.”
“Have you been to any of the botanical gardens?” Mr. Marfleet asked her.
She shook her head, embarrassed to have the focus back on herself.
“Lancelot fancies himself an amateur botanist,” his brother said. “Our house is filled with exotic specimens he brought back from India.”
“You were able to bring back plants?” Megan asked. “Jessamine’s father would jump at the chance to see them.”
Once again she was the recipient of Mr. Marfleet’s slate-blue gaze. “Your father is a botanist?”
“My father is a vicar. Botany is only a hobby.”
“As with me. Botany is but an interest. I would be delighted to show your father my specimens if he ever is in London.”
“My father rarely travels.” She despised herself for her short answers, but she would give him no encouragement. The last thing she desired was a suitor who was both a clergyman and a botany enthusiast.
Let him set his sights on Megan. With that resolve, she shifted her attention to her friend.
“Those scraggly plants are worth their weight in gold, considering Lancelot almost died procuring them,” Sir Harold said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “I suppose we should be thankful for that fever, otherwise he’d still be over there preaching to the heathens. If Mama and Papa have their way, he is back to stay, settled in a cozy vicarage for the rest of his days.”
As a pause descended, Sir Harold stepped back. “Well, I must be off. Are you sure I cannot offer you a ride? It will be no trouble to call for the carriage.”
As they continued to insist it was unnecessary, Sir Harold said, “At least let my brother escort you. It won’t do to go unaccompanied on Bond Street—not at this hour.” He glanced at his pocket watch again and shook his head. “The Bond Street beaux will be emerging by now.”
When Jessamine began to protest, he added, “He hates driving with me anyway. I’m off to Tattersall’s to see a horse. Lancelot would be no help at all there. You’ll be doing me a favor by taking him off my hands.”
Before Jessamine could think of a graceful way to refuse, Megan replied, “If you put it like that, Sir Harold, we should be grateful of your brother’s company.” She hastened to assure Mr. Marfleet, “Even if only for a short way. We really don’t want to put you out.”
With a few more assurances, they finally were off. Mr. Marfleet walked between Megan and Jessamine.
When they turned onto Bond Street, Jessamine had to admit she was glad of his escort. The wide thoroughfare had filled with pedestrian and carriage traffic. It was the most fashionable place for shops. Neither she nor Megan had yet tired of looking in all the windows. As they made their way along the crowded pavement, it soon became impossible to walk three abreast. Mr. Marfleet took the cobbled street, allowing the two of them the flagstone pavement.
His action contrasted sharply with the behavior of the young dandies Sir Harold had warned them about, who strutted along the pavements arm in arm, ogling the young ladies through their quizzing glasses, unmindful of pushing older matrons onto the street.
“Tell us more about your time in India,” Megan said. “What made you decide to go as a missionary?”
Mr. Marfleet studied the knob of his walking stick a moment before replying. “I can best attribute it to a sermon I heard the Reverend Charles Simeon give while I was at Cambridge.” He glanced at them, adding lightly, “It quite changed my life.”
“Changed your life? However so?” Megan looked at him, her curiosity no more keen than Jessamine’s unspoken one.
He flushed, his smile abashed. “I didn’t mean to imply I had received a bolt of lightning. Simply that the rector’s exhortation about the need to take the gospel to the ends of the earth convicted me in such a way I’d never felt before, as if I were hearing Jesus’s commission to reach the lost for the first time. I was sent to several outposts—Serampur, Danapur, Cawnpore—all in northeast India.”
“How awe inspiring,” breathed Megan. “When did you decide to go into the church?”
“It was either that or the law, as a second son, you know,” he said with a quirk of his lips. He had a mobile face, every nuance of self-disparagement or irony reflected in an expression of his lips or eyes. Against her will, Jessamine found herself studying it, even as his words drew her attention.
“My brother could have gone into my father’s business,” Megan said. “He was a merchant in Bristol, but the war ruined his business. My brother chose instead to run off to the navy.”
Mr. Marfleet took their arms as they crossed the street. “The war gave many young men the opportunity to advance. That is,” he added with a wry grimace, “if they survived. I’m sorry, I hope your brother is all right.”
Megan smiled. “He is quite all right, thank you for your concern. He left the navy after being wounded and taken prisoner some months in a French jail near Calais. He is with the British Embassy in Paris now, serving under the Duke of Wellington.”
Jessamine listened to her best friend recite the accomplishments of Rees Phillips, pride evident in her voice. Poor Megan, who had to be so careful of Jessamine’s feelings when they were together, now had someone to whom she could openly boast about her brother.
“That must be an interesting career. I’d never thought of it myself, but perhaps as a lawyer, I could have made my way in the diplomatic field.”
“My brother was in Paris at the liberation with Wellington, and then he was invited to Vienna for the congress under Lord Castlereagh. His wife is French, which is of great benefit, he writes, both in Vienna and Paris.”
Mr. Marfleet quirked an eyebrow. “He met someone while he was in France?”
“Actually, he met her while they both lived here in London a couple of years ago. Mother and I were both stunned when he wrote us a letter after arriving in Paris last summer that he had met up with her again and was planning to marry her. She had returned to France shortly before the war ended. We haven’t seen him since he left England—and have not met her at all.”
“It sounds like a romantic tale.”
“Indeed it does.” Megan’s eyes sparkled. “If you knew my brother, you would say he is the least romantic person in the world!”
Their conversation scraped against Jessamine’s heart like a dull knife, abrading her scars afresh. Why should Rees want a poor country girl, who was only passably pretty when he could have Lady Céline Wexham, by all accounts an exotic, dark beauty? With all the accompanying wiles of a Frenchwoman, Jessamine was sure.
She had lost track of Megan’s conversation with Mr. Marfleet and had to stop abruptly when Megan thrust her arm in front of her, pointing to a shop window. “We have a commission for Lady Bess—our hostess,” she explained to Mr. Marfleet. “If you could wait for me a moment while I run into this linen draper’s?”
She included Jessamine in her apologetic smile. “You wouldn’t mind keeping Mr. Marfleet company so he doesn’t get bored if I’m delayed? You know how Lady Bess says I have an eye for color?”
Megan left her with little choice but to murmur, “Very well,” even as she fixed her eyes on the shop window, remembering how she was wearing her spectacles. Would Mr. Marfleet make an observation on them?
As soon as Megan entered the store, an awkward silence descended between them. Jessamine pretended to study the display of fabrics and notions.
Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat.
Wondering if he meant to get her attention, she lifted her gaze. A tentative smile hovered around his lips. “You wear spectacles.”
She stared at him. A polite gentleman would not have noticed. “I should think it obvious,” she said between her teeth.
Color suffused his cheeks once more. If she were as outspoken as he, she’d point out how his skin reflected every emotion he felt.
“I—I beg your pardon. It’s just that you weren’t the night I spoke to you. I just find it interesting because . . . because of the fact that I do too.”
Did he think that implied they had anything else in common?
She turned back to the shop window. Unfortunately, it only gave her a reflection of her oval spectacles. She quickly looked down, mortified at her predicament. Why did this gentleman make her feel so gauche and ill-mannered?
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You didn’t.” She kept her gaze fixed on a beaded handbag displayed against a velvet backdrop.
“I find it refreshing to see a young lady wearing spectacles instead of groping about half blind.”
“Is that why you are not wearing yours?” she asked, giving him a pointed look.
He twisted his lips. “Harold does not allow himself to be seen in public with me if I do. That’s why I wasn’t wearing them at the rout, but then I had to put them on to search for Lady Abernathy.”
“I see.” She fought to keep from smiling at his awkward explanation. “Lady Bess is the same with me,” she finally admitted. “She makes it sound like the gravest sin to be seen wearing spectacles in public. I’m only a trifle shortsighted so I don’t really need them unless I want to focus on something particularly.”
“Mine comes from years of too much study, poring over books till the wee hours.”
Jessamine shrugged. “I haven’t any such excuse, although I help my father with his botanical notes and sermon notes and prayers for services.”
His light red eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Are you interested in botany too?”
She turned away from his scrutiny to study the passersby, regretting her words. She did not want him to think they had anything in common. “I like flowers. My father takes it to the scientific level.”
“I should like to meet your father. He sounds a very interesting man.”
“He is a very good man.”
Another silence fell between them. After a moment, Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat. “Miss Phillips speaks very fondly of her brother.”
“Yes,” she answered shortly, dreading to have to discuss Rees with this gentleman. Striving to keep her voice devoid of emotion, she added, “He is her only sibling, so it is natural.”
He gave a wry laugh. “I confess I don’t think I could speak in such glowing terms of Harold, nor he of me—not that we are not fond of each other. We have seen so little of one another since our school days.”
Her gaze returned unwillingly to him as he spoke. “He seems very different from you.”
His lips twisted. “I used to wonder if we were born of the same parents. He was the true Marfleet since he so resembled my father in both looks and temperament. I was the foundling my mother had rescued from the doorstep one wintry morn.”
Her heart caught at the wistful image of a young boy questioning his place in such an august family. “Do you think you could have been a . . . a foundling?”
His blue eyes took on a thoughtful look. “I tried to discover it for years but must confess I never found proof of it. Still, one never knows when a new fact may emerge.”
She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was making fun of her. But his eyes had a perfectly serious cast as he rubbed his chin, as if considering.
“I should think there would have been some clues along the way if you were really not your parents’ offspring.”
“My parents are quite closemouthed about many things, especially anything that hints of scandal. No,” he said, a speculative look in his eyes, “if there were clues, I didn’t find them. Perhaps I was left on the doorstep by a maid who didn’t want to give her baby up to the orphanage, hearing the horrors of that place. And she didn’t want to lose her job—”
“She would hardly be able to keep her condition secret in your household all those months.” As she realized the indecorous topic she was discussing with a young gentleman she scarcely knew, she clamped her lips together and turned away from him. “This is an unseemly subject.”
“You brought it up with your suspicions.”
“I?” She flashed him a look of outrage only to find his eyes filled with amusement. “You were making all that up.”
He tugged on an earlobe, looking sheepish. “I confess, no matter how uncertain my heritage, I’m afraid the proof of it is undeniable. A portrait of my grandfather hangs in the family gallery. I resemble him to a great degree, including my coloring. Thus, despite the more romantic appeal of being a foundling, I am only the ugly younger son of Sir Geoffrey Marfleet.”
“Younger and ruder,” she muttered, looking away again.
“You do seem to bring out the worst in me.”
“Then I would suggest you stay away from me. I do not like to be thought of as detrimental to a person’s conduct,” she ended stiffly. She wished she were better at parrying and thrusting his mockery.
“You are not detrimental. It is I who am at fault. Being away from civilized London society seems to have turned me into a person who cannot keep a proper rein on his tongue. I do beg your pardon once again.”
When she said nothing, he added quietly, “My time in India has also made me more keenly aware of the ridiculous. I don’t say this to boast. I am merely stating a tendency I don’t seem able to control since returning to England. India has made me see things from a different perspective. Manners and behavior I took for granted as the way they are supposed to be appear absurd to me now.”
As he spoke, her irritation diminished, replaced by a grudging fascination for what he said.
“I have lost the ability to behave as I should around young ladies—if ever I had the ability, which my brother is quick to point out I did not.”
She lifted her chin. “You don’t treat Miss Phillips with ridicule.”
His reddish eyebrows drew together. “Ridicule? It was not meant so, believe me. It was just . . . just that the situation appeared ridiculous and my tongue ran away with me, taking the matter to its conclusion.”
Jessamine pressed her lips, resolving to say no more to him. His explanation might satisfy—and even move her—but she was not disposed to render herself up to his ridicule another time. She had no interest in garnering the admiration of a vicar. She was grateful for the dinner invitation he had procured for them, but that was all.
“I see I have offended you,” he said gravely when she maintained her silence.
Before she could think of a suitably indifferent reply, Megan exited the shop, her face alight. “I haven’t kept you two waiting too long, have I?” She turned to Jessamine without waiting for a reply. “I found the shade of primrose Lady Bess desired. It matches the sample she gave me perfectly.”
“I’m glad.”
“Shall we continue on our way?” she asked Mr. Marfleet.
“If you are ready,” he answered courteously.
Jessamine searched for the slightest hint of mockery in his look or tone, but his demeanor looked as polite as his words sounded.
She gave a pointed look as if to say, See? You save your mockery for me.
He only lifted a brow in bland inquiry.
They resumed walking, Jessamine positioning herself on the far side of Megan, away from Mr. Marfleet. Let him continue the conversation with her friend, with whom he seemed to manage to control his mocking tendencies.
After bidding farewell to Miss Phillips and Miss Barry at their brick town house not far from Portland Place, Lancelot decided to return home on foot.
He needed the time a walk would afford to mull over his encounter with the two young ladies. He’d been surprised—pleasantly so—to find them on his street earlier. He’d been going back and forth about having asked his mother to invite them to one of her exclusive dinner parties.
He cared nothing for such things as pedigree and portion, but his parents did. After quizzing him for a good quarter of an hour on the two young ladies, his mother had finally agreed to the invitation. “I suppose I should be thankful you are evincing the slightest interest in any young lady who is of sound mind and limb.” She sighed, picking up her pen. “You are seven-and-twenty and still unmarried. Your brother will no longer have any offspring. What is to become of the estate if you don’t settle down and start a family?”
He turned off the familiar litany he’d heard all during his convalescence, thankful at least that his mother would issue the invitation.
As he walked along Oxford Street, he wasn’t sure whether to be put off or annoyed with Miss Barry. Miss Phillips was a pleasant companion, but there was something about Miss Barry that drew him. Whether it was her flashing green eyes which could as quickly show annoyance as a hint of humor, or whether it was the way she listened to his tale of the doubts of belonging to his family, she evinced empathy and a depth of understanding he had not yet encountered in a young lady of the ton.
But now he doubted his instincts, realizing he was probably reading more into her glances than they conveyed. The likeliest thing was that she despised him for his tendency to ironic humor. He hadn’t meant to tease her and regretted his words.
With a shake of his head, he tried to dismiss their conversation from his mind. He had too many other things to think about to get stirred up over a young lady making her come-out in London.
When he arrived home, he took up the journal he’d kept during his travels in India and went in search of his younger sister.
He went first to the solarium which their parents had built to satisfy his hobby of cultivating plants and hers of painting them.
Delawney sat on a stool before an easel in a narrow aisle hemmed in on either side with lush green foliage. Beside her stood a small table filled with brushes and tablets of watercolors.
“There you are,” was all she said as he walked between the potted plants, the moist air enveloping him.
“I hope I haven’t held you up.”
Instead of replying, she asked, “What do you think?” Moving aside, she held up her brush to allow him to view the watercolor she was working on.
It was a picture of the vine that grew from a pot she had placed beside the easel. Along its stem, a pink flower resembling a morning glory blossomed at intervals.
He’d brought it back from Bengal. “Exquisite,” he said, satisfied that she’d reproduced it accurately. “The colors are perfect.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I do.”
She let out a breath. “Good. I just need to put a few finishing touches on it.” She glanced up at him. “How are your notes coming?”
He grimaced. “Slower than your watercolors.”
“It’s because you are spending all your time chasing after Harold, trying in vain to stop him from his certain destruction.”
“Don’t say that!”
She raised an eyebrow at his retort.
“Nothing is ‘certain’ in this life,” he said more gently.
Her lips thinned in an uncompromising line. “You must let Harold squander his life as he wishes. Your preaching to him shan’t change him, you know.”
Lancelot contemplated the soft tones of the watercolor. “I can’t just stand back and see him run headlong to that destruction. It’s time he matured.”
She snorted. “Why should he? Mama turns a blind eye, and Papa thinks that’s the way any gentleman of the ton behaves.”
Lancelot ran a hand through his hair. “Actually, it was Papa who asked me to try and curb his excesses.”
“If he wants you acting as his guardian angel, it’s only to curb his behavior, not to stop it entirely.” She set her brush into the water jar and got up to stretch. “And Mama feels only a tragic sympathy, believing he is only trying to hide the failure of still being childless after so many years of marriage. What a burden,” she said with exaggerated sorrow.
Lancelot fingered the edges of his journal he’d brought with him. “Yes, since my return I feel an ever-increasing pressure to marry and fill the lack.”
Delawney picked up the brush and swished it in a watercolor to dab on a spot. “They have given up on me—besides which, a child of mine couldn’t inherit.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Any progress on that front? Mama hinted that you’d met someone the other night.”
Lancelot stared at his sister, feeling like a cobra caught by a snake charmer’s flute.