A spurt of annoyance rose in Lancelot’s chest at his mother’s indiscretion. “Don’t tell me you are going to join Mama and Papa in their campaign.”
Delawney chuckled. “If it means they leave me in peace, I shall do so wholeheartedly.”
His sister was an attractive woman, especially when she smiled. Her hair was a tawny shade like their mother’s, but she kept it carelessly pulled back in a knot, sometimes with only a pencil holding it up. She wore a faded muslin gown with a ruffled white kerchief along its neckline. A wide white apron splotched with watercolors covered most of her gown. Her fingers, nicely shaped, were stained brown and gray from the amalgamation of colors.
“What is it?”
He shook his head, realizing he’d been staring. “Nothing. I still fail to understand your refusal to go out into society at all.”
“If you don’t understand it, then it is useless to try to explain.”
“Just because I have little use for ton parties does not mean I renounce society completely. Our Lord commands us to take the message of salvation to everyone. How are we to do that if we shut ourselves from the world?”
She had no reply to that. His heart went out to her. She was not yet five-and-twenty, but it was doubtful she would ever marry. Instead of a young lady’s usual pursuits of parties, shopping, and outings, she devoted herself to her gardens and watercolors of every specimen she discovered, which at present included the ones he had brought back from India. She had eagerly assented to his plan to put everything into a folio to be published.
“Which plant should I attempt next?”
Seeing she wanted the subject changed, he opened his notebook, leafing through it to the page he desired. “I thought perhaps this one the natives call ‘tulsi.’” He walked over to the plant he referred to. It had grown to a few feet high and was now sprouting small pink flowers. “It’s very aromatic, and they use it in both cooking and religious ceremonies. It’s similar in coloring to the morning glory you just finished.”
She touched one of the spindly clusters of tiny whitish-pink flowers gracing a stalk. “Very well. I shall begin it as soon as I’m satisfied with the other.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
He smiled at her, and she returned his smile. Sometimes it felt as if she was the only one in the family he had anything in common with. “I shall be in my room endeavoring to do some more work on my notes, before the lecture at the Royal Society.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
Accepting the dismissal, he bowed and left her, glad that everything was right between them.
“A pity there was no time for new gowns,” Lady Bess said with a sigh. Jessamine had lost count of how many times Lady Bess had emitted an audible sigh in the stuffy hackney they had been obliged to hire for the drive to the Marfleet residence.
Across the shabby coach, Lady Bess eyed Megan and Jessamine through her quizzing glass in the fading light. “You do look very pretty, I’m sure. There is nothing like youth, which no gown or adornment can improve or take away from.” She sighed again, as if remembering her own vanished girlhood.
“The sea green suits your dark hair and green eyes,” she said to Jessamine, “and the pink your complexion and gray eyes,” she said with an approving nod at Megan.
They murmured their thanks to their hostess, even though she’d already given them the same compliment upon first seeing them this evening.
“The important thing is that Mr. Marfleet will find you charming,” Lady Bess said for the dozenth time. “I have been asking around about him, and he seems the opposite of his rakish brother. He’s had the best of education—Harrow, Eton, then Cambridge to take orders, as a younger son, naturally, and one who didn’t seem suited for the military.”
She paused, her lips making a small moue of distaste. “I did hear that it was while at Cambridge that he came under the influence of one of that Clapham Sect with all their evangelical zeal. The next thing, he tells his poor parents he is becoming a missionary and heading off to Calcutta or some such place.” She shuddered. “It’s a wonder—a miracle—he didn’t perish. Most do, you know. And some take their poor wives, who don’t last long.”
Jessamine couldn’t help smiling, contrasting Lady Bess’s account with Mr. Marfleet’s.
“Lady Villington-Rhodes—she’s cousin to Lady Marfleet—says the family didn’t expect him to survive the fever he succumbed to. He was all winter recovering on their estate in Hampshire. Did he look ill?”
“Yes,” said Jessamine at the same time Megan said, “No.”
Lady Bess looked from one to the other and smiled. “Ah, I see how it is. Well, at least you shan’t have to fight about him. Let us hope his mother seats you beside him, Megan. Perhaps there will be another young gentleman there for you, Jessamine. I won’t be satisfied till you both end the season with a betrothal.”
Giving them no chance to respond, Lady Bess pushed down the carriage window. “Good, we are almost there. It’s a pretty street, one I rarely travel since it is not a main thoroughfare.” She sat back against the squabs. “I wonder what the older brother is worth? I must inquire. A pity he’s married. As for your Mr. Marfleet, I was informed he has no living at present since he was in India. I should think his father would be able to find him a competence on one of his own estates. Likely they are all filled.” She shook her head, setting the lacy trim around her cap atremble. “I do hope his evangelical zeal has dimmed.”
Jessamine leaned toward the window just as the carriage came to a halt. They were behind a line of carriages making their way to the Marfleet residence.
Megan was looking out the other window. “I should say there are at least a dozen carriages, Lady Bess, and they look so grand. Some even have a crest on them.”
Lady Bess leaned forward once more, trying to see over her shoulder. “Can you see the color of the hammer-cloth or the footmen’s livery?”
“I see blue with gold on a carriage two ahead of us.”
Lady Bess pondered, sitting back and flicking open her peacock-feathered fan, which matched the color of her gown. “That could be the Earl and Countess of Withycombe or perhaps the Marquess of Grenfell.”
Unable to stifle her own curiosity, Jessamine put her spectacles on and peered out her window again. The coaches did indeed look grand, many with the coats of arms upon their doors and elegant liveried footmen on the footboards. Her heart began to thud as the reality of a dinner party sank in. “How many guests will there be, do you think? There seem to be an awful lot of carriages pulled up.”
Lady Bess closed her fan and said with satisfaction, “Any respectable dinner party will have at least a dozen guests. This one, by the number of coaches here already, will have at least twenty, I’d wager.”
A heavy, leaden sensation settled into the pit of Jessamine’s stomach.
“Twenty,” breathed Megan, excitement sparkling in her eyes.
Why hadn’t Jessamine pleaded indisposition and stayed home? Why had she insisted on a London season and not been content to remain in her small village where she knew everyone and was comfortable with them all?
“The baronet has a seat in the House of Commons, so there will be other members present, I’m sure. He is a Tory, so I wouldn’t expect any Whigs.”
Before Lady Bess could launch into another summary of all she’d gleaned in the past two days about the Marfleet family, the coach lurched again, sending her forward.
As she settled herself once more upon her seat, the coach moved only a short way before stopping. They waited in silence, tense. Even Lady Bess looked subdued, her fan clutched in her pudgy, beringed hands.
“At least we are not the first nor, hopefully, the last guests to arrive,” she said when the coach moved forward.
After a quarter of an hour of stopping and starting, their hired coach pulled in front of the entrance. Jessamine leaned over Megan’s shoulder, recognizing the fluted pilasters on either side of the door, which stood wide open this evening. A red carpet led down the steps onto the pavement to the carriage.
“Take off those hideous spectacles!” hissed Lady Bess.
Hurriedly, Jessamine complied, having seen enough, and stuffed them through the drawstring of her beaded reticule with shaking fingers. She quickly pulled the twisted silk cords closed just as a footman opened their door.
Wearing blue velvet livery and a powdered wig, he let down the step and handed out first Lady Bess then Megan and lastly Jessamine, who had deliberately hung back.
This would be her first real foray into London society. What would she say and do? How to behave? Would she meet someone to take her mind and heart off Rees Phillips for the first time since he’d dropped her for that Frenchwoman?
As these thoughts scurried through her mind like a mouse over a dining table, never stopping for long at any one dish, the footman handed her down, and she smoothed her gown before proceeding up the wide carpet behind her godmother and Megan.
Another footman met them at the door. He looked identical to the first, both tall and broad shouldered. He took their wraps, though Lady Bess retained her shawl, declaring one never knew when there would be a draft, even in the best of houses.
This footman led them up a wide, semicircular staircase to the first floor, where an older man, undoubtedly the butler, met them and took them into a room brightly lit by dozens of wall sconces and a chandelier hanging from the plastered ceiling.
He announced, “Lady Beasinger, Miss Barry, Miss Phillips.”
A sea of faces seemed to turn their way. How many were titled ladies and gentlemen, members of Parliament or high-placed officers, she wondered, spotting a red coat in the midst.
It was not quite a sea, she amended, seeing not a crowd but well over at least two dozen individuals. Lady Bess turned to greet their hosts. At the same time, Mr. Marfleet came up to them with a hesitant smile.
“Good evening.” He bowed to both Jessamine and Megan as Lady Bess spoke to Sir Geoffrey and his wife. “I’m glad you could come. May I present my parents, Sir Geoffrey and Lady Marfleet? And my sister, Miss Delawney Marfleet?”
Jessamine faced a distinguished-looking couple and a young lady at their side. She made her curtsy alongside Megan.
Sir Geoffrey reminded her of Sir Harold in a mature, fiftyish way, his dark blond, wavy hair graying at the temples. Still handsome, his chiseled features were ruddy as if he spent time out-of-doors, hunting perhaps. Blue eyes stared into hers, a blond eyebrow raised appraisingly.
Lady Marfleet was a tall woman with upswept hair a shade darker than her husband’s under a diamond and sapphire tiara. Miss Marfleet was tall like her mother, her hair a similar shade, but the resemblance ended there. She wore no jewels, and her hair was pulled back tightly, doing nothing to soften strong features like her father’s.
“How lovely to meet you two young ladies. Lancelot tells me this is your first season,” Lady Marfleet said in a cultivated voice.
As they murmured their polite affirmatives, Jessamine felt every detail of their toilette taken in by those seemingly warm brown eyes. Fleetingly she remembered her conversation with Mr. Marfleet about his being a foundling on the doorstep, and almost burst into laughter. She stifled it just as Lady Marfleet dismissed her and Megan with a slight movement of her patrician chin.
They followed Lady Bess farther into the room. The carpet was so plush that Jessamine’s slippers sank into it without a sound.
All around came the steady drone of voices. The room continued to fill with entering guests, the black or dark-blue coats of the gentlemen relieved by the brightly colored gowns of the ladies. She and Megan seemed to be the only ones in pale-colored gowns as befitted unmarried young ladies.
Everyone around them seemed to know one another in contrast to her and Megan, who stood huddled beside Lady Bess as chicks under a hen.
Mr. Marfleet appeared at her elbow. “Thank you for coming. I hope it doesn’t prove frightfully boring for you. They’re mainly my father’s guests, fellow MPs, you know.” He seemed ill at ease, and again she remembered their last conversation, this time remembering his words “ugly younger son of Sir Geoffrey Marfleet.”
Did he feel like an ugly duckling among his handsome parents and brother? Even his sister had a striking look about her, though she hid it behind an unfashionable coiffure and gown.
“My dear boy, we are tickled that you had your mother include us in your party,” Lady Bess told him. She had no qualms about lifting her quizzing glass to her eye and subjecting him to the same scrutiny his mother had given Jessamine and Megan.
His sister stood at his side, looking at Megan and Jessamine with frank curiosity.
Lady Bess’s quizzing glass focused on something beyond Mr. Marfleet’s shoulder. “Isn’t that Lady Gouldsborough? I haven’t seen her in an age. Not since she remarried.”
Mr. Marfleet turned a fraction. “Yes, it is she with Henry Dalton. She is Mrs. Dalton now.”
“I must say hello, if the two of you will keep the young ladies company for a moment?”
“With pleasure,” he murmured.
Lady Bess was off in a flurry of lace.
Megan giggled. “You mustn’t feel compelled to stay with us. We are quite accustomed by now to standing about not knowing a soul, are we not, Jessamine?”
Jessamine smiled with effort. She did wish at times that Megan weren’t quite so forthcoming about their lack of social standing. “Indeed.”
“Then you are in good company,” he returned with an easy smile that included them both. “Since my return to London, I scarcely know anyone.”
“And is not particularly desirous of remedying the situation,” his sister added.
He looked abashed. “Not particularly. You heard the despair in my brother’s tone, and now my sister betrays me.”
Megan looked around her. “Where is he, by the way?”
“Harold isn’t here. He rarely attends my mother’s dinner parties. He has his own town house—he and his wife.”
“I see. Is she in town?”
“No,” Miss Marfleet answered. “Lady Rosamunde Marfleet is at their country place in Hampshire. She prefers it to London.”
Megan nodded.
“If you think I am unwilling to go into society, my sister here is worse. The only reason she condescended to come to dinner this evening was that it is under her own roof and she must eat.”
“My brother exaggerates. He has the luxury of running off to places like India where he can escape British society, and then has the temerity to come back and criticize me.”
Jessamine blinked at the raillery between brother and sister.
Mr. Marfleet gave his sister a lopsided grin. “And yet the moment I return and am well enough to be on my feet, I obey the pater and accept invitations high and low.” He addressed Megan and Jessamine. “My sister stays ensconced in our solarium and paints. She is an accomplished watercolorist.”
Jessamine eyed her with new curiosity. Miss Marfleet shrugged off her brother’s words. “I am passable. But at the moment he flatters me, since he needs me to illustrate the dozens of plant specimens he brought back from India.”
Mr. Marfleet took no offense at her words, merely smiled indulgently and said, “She is very gifted in her abilities.”
Miss Marfleet raised her eyebrows with an expression of “you see?”
Jessamine said, “My father would love to see your paintings, I’m sure. He is . . . somewhat of an amateur botanist, though he does not travel. But he frequently experiments with new varieties of flowers in our small glasshouse at the vicarage.”
“I should like to see his collection,” Mr. Marfleet said at once.
“I’m sure it is nothing like what you have brought back with you.”
“If my brother has his way, he shall publish his findings in a folio,” Miss Marfleet said. “That is why I am doing my best to illustrate them for him.”
“How fascinating,” Megan said. “I look forward to seeing it. I can’t paint worth a straw, although it is an accomplishment all young ladies are supposed to have.”
“Since it is my only accomplishment, I do not feel any overweening pride in it.”
“You look very pretty this evening,” Mr. Marfleet said in the pause that followed, his glance encompassing both Megan and Jessamine.
Megan executed a curtsy. “Thank you, sir, but we feel quite dowdy ever since arriving in London.”
Jessamine envied her friend her easy manner.
“You wouldn’t feel so in India,” he said, “unless you felt overshadowed by the brightly-colored cloth some of the women attire themselves in. They can be quite pretty.”
“It must be terribly exotic,” Megan said.
“Even the colors of the land are intense. It’s such a vast area that the regions vary enormously.”
“I’ve heard it is very hot,” Jessamine said, just to contribute something.
“Except for the mountains to the north, yes, it is,” Mr. Marfleet replied. “That is why Europeans quickly succumb to the various diseases that are so prevalent. Our constitutions don’t seem able to withstand the oppressive heat.”
Before she could ask him anything about his health, his mother requested that they find their partners for dinner.
“I’m to escort you,” he told her, “and my friend Donald Emery”—he indicated another young gentleman who approached them—“is to escort you, Miss Phillips.”
The brown-haired gentleman bowed to Megan. “At your service, miss.”
“Thank you.” She returned his smile and placed her hand on his proffered arm.
Jessamine felt a pang. All Megan had to do was smile. It lit up her face and looked so genuinely warm that both men and women were won over. Jessamine knew the smile was sincere. By contrast her own smile felt as stiff as the plaster molding the ceiling.
“Shall we?”
“Oh—yes, thank you.”
Mr. Marfleet stood waiting, his bent arm held out. She placed her gloved hand atop it. He was dressed in a black coat and pantaloons, looking, except for his cravat, every inch a vicar. She should have spotted it immediately, she who’d grown up in a parsonage and had been around vicars all her life.
“You are very quiet this evening. I hope this company doesn’t intimidate you.”
She started at his words. He would think she was addlepated if she didn’t start paying attention to what was going on around her. “Not at all,” she answered tartly.
“Is it because you can’t see them?”
“What!” Her gaze flew up to his. He was wearing his spectacles, but they did not hide the amusement in his eyes.
She had a good mind to whip hers out of her reticule and put them on to show him she didn’t care a fig what she looked like. What a pair they’d make! But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
She looked straight ahead of her as they walked to the dining room. “I told you, I am not so shortsighted, as you perhaps”—she glanced sidelong at him—“and only wear my spectacles when I need to focus on some minute object in the distance.”
Before he could reply, she continued. “I didn’t wear them tonight since I didn’t expect to address those sitting across the dinner table, but then again, a gentleman who speaks to a lady he has not been introduced to perhaps expects his guests to do the same.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing his cheeks turn a ruddy hue.
“I have already asked your pardon about that,” he said in formal tones, all amusement erased from his eyes. “I don’t know why I did it. I can assure you I am not in the habit of addressing young ladies I have no acquaintance with.”
They arrived in the dining room, and Mr. Marfleet showed her to her seat. As she had expected, both she and Megan were seated near the foot of the table as their lack of rank demanded. She was surprised when Mr. Marfleet took his place beside her. She thought as son, he would be seated closer to the head of the table.
As if reading her mind, he cocked an eyebrow. “Did you not expect me to sit beside you when you are my guest?”
She felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t know what to expect, to be perfectly frank.” She sought Megan, who was sitting directly across the table from Mr. Marfleet. Mr. Emery sat beside her across from Jessamine. She smiled in their general direction before looking around for Lady Bess.
She made out her peacock-blue gown and fan farther down the table; Lady Bess was already feeling at home among her dinner companions from the sound of her voice. “Thank you for including Lady Bess in the invitation,” Jessamine said in a low tone to Mr. Marfleet.
“It was nothing. Besides, I could not very well invite you and Miss Phillips without a chaperon, could I? I am not so far gone from propriety, no matter how long I’ve been in India.” The wry humor had returned to his tone.
She fixed her attention on the table instead of replying to him. She did not wish to appear too friendly to him. It would do no good to encourage him. Her supposition that his interest lay in Megan must have been wrong, yet she did not want him to think she was available.
Everything on the table was exquisite from the white damask linen to the gilt-edged plates, heavy silverware, and fragile crystal goblets atop it. The center of the long table held crystal vases filled with arrangements of flowers cascading over their sides and ivy trailing along the tablecloth.
The footmen began serving the first remove, a creamy soup. There were many other dishes on the table, and Mr. Marfleet did his duty offering her a selection.
Accustomed around her father’s table to say grace before meals, she discreetly bowed her head and uttered a short prayer.
When she took up her fork, Mr. Marfleet said quietly at her left, “Amen. I’m sorry my parents do not generally say a blessing over the meal—especially not at a dinner party.”
“There is no need to apologize. I didn’t expect it of them.”
He swallowed a spoonful of soup and then said, “Your father is a vicar as well as an amateur botanist?”
“Yes,” she replied after taking a spoonful.
“That is perhaps why he named you as he did?”
She nodded cautiously, surprised that he had made the association.
“Jessamine. Yellow jasmine. Gelsemium sempervirens.”
“Or plain wild woodbine, not nearly so exotic.”
“But just as beautiful.”
She dabbed at her lips with a napkin, feeling uncomfortable with his notice. “My father’s passion—besides that for the Lord—is flowers. He loves the beauty of them. He has developed a couple of new varieties of roses and a peony.”
“I shall have to look up his name.”
“He hasn’t any renown. He hasn’t sought publication, and if I didn’t keep his notes straight, he’d probably have forgotten half of what he’s done.”
“He is a devout man? Forgive my asking,” he added quickly, “but being a member of the clergy does not guarantee devotion. I have found sometimes quite the reverse.”
“No, indeed,” she was quick to agree. “My father, however, is devout. That is perhaps why he has remained a lowly vicar in a small village when he could have moved to a bigger parish when the opportunity presented itself. But he knew his flock would be neglected . . . under the present rector.”
Mr. Marfleet nodded, as if understanding perfectly what she said without having to hear more. She knew her father would not want her to malign his overseer.
When she had eaten more of her soup, she ventured to ask, “Are you a member of the Clapham Sect?”
He set his spoon down, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Where did you hear that?”
She made a vague motion with her hand. “Lady Bess heard it somewhere and concluded it had something to with your having become a missionary.”
He toyed with the handle of his spoon before replying. “She was not far from wrong. I have been influenced by them, certainly, but am not myself a member. My greatest mentor, as I told you, Reverend Simeon, however, is a member of the Clapham Sect.”
As the first remove was cleared and a Dover sole served, Jessamine sat back. “How long were you in India?” she asked, telling herself that if she had to sit beside him through dinner, she might as well get to know him. He did appear to have led an interesting life.
“A little over two years. Not nearly enough to do anything that would seem on the surface to amount to much, in terms of souls won—especially when I was sick half the time,” he added with a grimace. “I can only trust that the Lord used me to plant seeds that may someday bear fruit.”
“It must have been very difficult, with India being so different from England.”
“Imagine if you can a land completely alien to our Christian world—not only in religious traditions but in every tradition we hold dear. A land where people have none of the modern advances we begin to take for granted. Everything is primitive, barbaric to the European eye—and yet, as a person representing the gospel, one is called to view the natives through the loving eyes of the Savior, who wants their salvation as much as our own.”
The more Mr. Marfleet spoke, the more he reminded her of her father, whose gentle character cared deeply about souls. Jessamine sighed. After her heartbreak over Rees, she did not want to wed a man who preached patience, resignation, and submission to God’s will above all else. All those virtues had brought her nothing but pain and a sense of wasted years.
It was clear her virtue was not enough to incite a man’s love. No, a woman of beauty and charm and other worldly allurements was what won a man’s heart.
A footman hovered between them, holding out a platter of thinly sliced roast beef, which Mr. Marfleet served her before serving himself. “I worked alongside some fine men who have sacrificed much to bring the gospel to the native population, among them Henry Martyn. He was a chaplain with the East India Company. Have you heard of him?”
“Yes, my father has mentioned him to me. He died there, didn’t he?”
He seemed impressed that she should know the name. “Yes. It is most unfortunate. He was still quite a young man. But in the short time he had, he accomplished an astounding amount, including translating the Scriptures into many languages and dialects of the region. His will be a legacy of long duration.”
“He must have been very dedicated.”
“Yes, all of the missionaries over there are—they and their wives. Many have perished.” He cut a slice of his meat. “I would still be there if not for the recurring fever.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a polite tone, although her spirits were sinking the more he spoke.
“I’m sorry, rather, to be boring you. I hadn’t meant to go on about being a missionary.”
“You weren’t boring me.”
His lips curved upward. “Your scowl suggested otherwise, unless it is something on your plate.”
She glanced down at the slices of roast beef on her plate. They were done to a turn, small roasted potatoes and onion beside them. “Everything looks delicious.”
“I am relieved. So, it must have been the conversation.”
She met his gaze, noticing the striking color of his eyes. His irises were a pale slate blue ringed in a deeper midnight blue. “No, it was not the topic of conversation. It was just that for a moment you reminded me quite forcefully of my father.”
He quirked a pale red eyebrow upward, but rather than explain, she picked up her fork and knife and began to cut her meat. It would do no good to attempt an explanation, since she didn’t fully understand it herself. All she knew was that she was dissatisfied with the life she had led up to now in her sheltered vicarage.
“You do not get along with your father?”
“I get along splendidly with my father.” That much was true as far as it went.
“Your tone of voice did not suggest a compliment.”
“It was neither a compliment nor insult. It was merely an observation.”
“I see.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him chew his meat.
Unwilling to pursue the topic of her father, she took the moment to turn to her other dinner companion. He was a middle-aged gentleman who was eating with relish. As if sensing her attention on him, he wiped his mouth with the napkin tucked into his collar. “Delicious roast. Lady Marfleet has the best table in Mayfair.”
“Yes, it is delicious,” she agreed and took another bite to show her agreement.
In a lull in the conversation around her, a distinct female voice reached her across the table.
“The Parisian citizenry has welcomed Napoleon with open arms.”
“Silly frogs,” the man beside her muttered in a tone of disgust. “You would think they’d had enough war.”
Sir Geoffrey directed his words to the lady. “Louis certainly proved his mettle, turning tail and sneaking off to Brussels.”
The company around them laughed.
Knowing that Rees was on the continent, Jessamine had been following the news of Napoleon’s escape from the island of Elba a few weeks ago. The newspapers had filled everyone with alarm as they predicted what he would do with the remnant of his loyal soldiers.
“Knowing Wellington is in Brussels should reassure Louis no matter how hot things get in Paris. Louis knows there is no better man if things come to war,” the man beside her said in a loud voice.
Another guest raised his fork and pointed it at them all. “I wager Napoleon is going to attack the Allies before they attack him.”
The lady exclaimed in horror, “Is he mad? He can have no troops left!”
“The French are a rabid lot—all glory, regardless of how few men he has left. Napoleon is a madman,” Sir Geoffrey said in disgust.
“I’ve heard the troops sent out to arrest him dropped their arms and joined him as soon as he appeared in France,” the lady said.
“Fools!” harrumphed the man beside Jessamine. “They deserve him!” He put a forkful of roast in his mouth and chewed with a vengeance.
Jessamine glanced to see how Mr. Marfleet was reacting to the topic and found him listening to each speaker. He smiled slightly at her but said nothing. The same way her father would have reacted, she thought. He rarely engaged in political disputes.
“What we’ve heard from the Foreign Office is that Napoleon is struggling to form a new government in Paris. Let us hope he is kept busy with that and has no time to think of war,” another gentleman said in a quieter, more reasoned voice. “Perhaps that will give Wellington time to get our army in order and join forces with the other allied troops.”
Jessamine remembered that Lady Bess had said members of Parliament would be present at the dinner, and she surmised that this gentleman was one.
Jessamine heard Megan’s voice. “My brother is in Brussels with Wellington.”
Jessamine’s breath caught. Rees was in Belgium? The last she had heard he was in Vienna with the congress. When had he gone to Brussels? She stared at Megan. How long had Megan known? Why hadn’t she told Jessamine?
Even as she realized why Megan would have said nothing, to avoid reminding her of Rees, Jessamine felt hurt. It was all Rees’s fault, she thought. He had come between her and her closest friend.
The lady who had started the conversation leaned across Mr. Emery and said to Megan, “La, my dear, if your brother is in Brussels, he’ll be having the time of his life. Brussels is nothing but a round of parties. Anybody of any consequence is there now. I have half a mind to cross the channel myself.”
“Then you don’t think there is any danger for him there? He is with his bride of a few months.”
“What is her name, my dear?”
“Céline de Beaumont, formerly the Countess of Wexham.”
The French name stabbed Jessamine’s heart, yet she couldn’t help straining forward to catch every word about the woman who had wrecked her dreams.
“Céline! I know her well, though I haven’t seen her since she left England for France. There was some talk at the time, but I’m sure that is all over. Who is your brother?”
“Rees Phillips. He is with the British delegation. He was working with Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna until Lord Wellington took over for him there.”
The lady nodded. “Your brother must be a special man to have won the Countess of Wexham.”
“He is. I haven’t met her. They have not returned to England since the peace.”
“Your brother is fortunate to be with Wellington in Brussels at the moment,” the lady said. “The duke is the darling of society from Vienna to Brussels. Your brother shall have a stupendous career—especially if he has Lady Wexham at his side.”
“I trust it is as you say.”
Jessamine strained to listen to their conversation about Rees and his bride, imagining the world Rees now inhabited, a world of parties and important world events among brilliant people, doing what he’d always dreamed of doing, with the beautiful countess at his side.
From the time she was seventeen, Jessamine had refused to look at another man, deciding she would wait until the day Megan’s older brother would notice she had grown up.
She had loved him since she was thirteen. The Phillips family had moved to their village when she was a young child. Megan and she had quickly become playmates, living next door to each other. Megan’s older brother, Rees, years older than the two of them, had been away fighting the French with His Majesty’s navy.
It wasn’t until he left the navy and begun working in London, when Rees was about twenty-five and Jessamine thirteen, that she had developed a tendre for him. He was such a handsome, good brother to Megan—kind and patient with his young sister, who was only eleven at the time. He was always bringing her a gift when he came home to visit, even though she knew from Mrs. Phillips that he didn’t earn much as a junior clerk in the Foreign Office and every penny he earned was for his mother’s and sister’s support.
Jessamine had grown to have the same respect and admiration for Rees that Megan had for her older brother, and wished her parents had given her an older brother too.
Jessamine’s respect and admiration had grown into love until she looked forward to Rees’s visits with a beating heart and trembling expectation that someday he might look upon her as more than his sister’s closest friend.
And that miraculous, longed-for day had arrived a few years ago. Rees had begun to look at her with a special something in his gray eyes.
She’d turned eighteen and he was well-nigh thirty. But to her he didn’t seem too old at all. On the contrary, he was grave and mature compared to the awkward, pimply young gentlemen at the local assemblies. Jessamine lived for Rees’s visits and for bits of news Megan read from his frequent letters home.
Her hopes had almost born fruition until that fateful day he’d met that Frenchwoman, Céline Wexham, an earl’s widow in London, under most suspect circumstances involving spying and intrigue, which she and Megan still didn’t know the half of. To the shock of them all, Rees found her again in France after the war.
He had put his career, his entire reputation at risk, since there had been rumors that Céline had spied on the British during the war. Jessamine could not imagine the serious, disciplined Rees throwing away all he’d worked so hard for for a woman, certainly not for Jessamine herself, she admitted with the same bitterness that had plagued her since she’d heard of his sudden marriage. Rees’s life had been one of self-denial and sacrifice as he toiled for years as a lowly clerk. What had this Frenchwoman done to make him behave like a madman? In less than a month, he had written from Vienna that he was married.
Jessamine stared unseeing as a footman removed her half-empty plate, as the familiar feelings of inadequacy flooded her. What could she, a nondescript country miss, have hoped to offer a distinguished man like Rees?
The conversation around her once more merged into a buzz of voices while the footmen cleared the removes and laid out clean plates and cutlery.
She looked over at Mr. Marfleet, but he was engaged in conversation with the lady on his left. Would he leave everything for love of a woman? She couldn’t imagine so. His life was tied to the Lord’s work.
Her gaze traveled over the table, lingering on each gentlemen. Could any of them leave everything behind—their families, their country—for the woman they loved?
Her gaze came to rest on the lady who had spoken to Megan. Perhaps for a woman as beautiful, intelligent, and charming as she. She imagined this was what the Countess of Wexham must look like—dressed in a red gown with a low décolletage, diamonds glinting in her dark tresses. Had she enthralled poor Rees with her female allurements the way this woman seemed to captivate the men sitting near her?
Jessamine remembered Mr. Marfleet’s words earlier in the evening: “You look pretty tonight.” Dry, insipid compliments, just as Rees’s had always been to her—the few he’d paid her. What would it be like to have a man gaze upon one with admiration and more, the way the men did to this woman?