“How could you be so thoughtless?” asked Lady Brightwell again. “To run out into the woods and lose your spectacles in such a careless manner?”
“I wasn’t thinking particularly clearly at the time,” Valentine replied.
She stood at the edge of Lady Brightwell’s bedroom, watching as a browbeaten lady’s maid put the final touches on Lady Brightwell’s hair. Felicity Brightwell lounged in a chair, her frothy pink evening gown glaringly at odds with the faded furnishings.
Valentine had been given a small room of her own on the third floor. A room that couldn’t be much larger than a medieval nun’s cell. It had a narrow little iron bed, a rickety washstand, and a wooden chest of drawers, which had given her a splinter in her finger the second she touched it. There was no mirror, of course. Not that she couldn’t guess what it would have revealed.
She’d dressed for dinner in a gown of serviceable gray silk. And it truly was her own gown. The village seamstress had made it for her three years ago in Hartwood Green. She could still remember how Papa had grumbled at the expense. But though it fit her a great deal better than Lady Brightwell’s shapeless sacks, it was still far from fashionable. The color was plain, the neckline overly modest, and it had a conspicuous lack of flounces and frills. Indeed, she feared she looked very much like what she was.
A vicar’s daughter.
She told herself she did not care. And why should she? What difference did it make if the guests here thought she was a drab little dowd? They were no friends of hers. And she’d never taken undue pride in her looks. Although…
Although she’d spent an inordinate amount of time brushing her hair to a flaxen shine and smoothing the wrinkles from her silken skirts, all the while wondering what Lord St. Ashton would think when he saw her.
No doubt it was a weakness inherited from her mother. How else to explain it? She was not a wanton. And Papa had raised her better than to lower her guard at the first advance of a practiced rake. Not that St. Ashton had advanced. Indeed, the more she reflected on their encounter the more she recognized how abominably rude he had been to her.
Except that he had given her his handkerchief.
And he had draped his greatcoat over her shoulders with something very like reverence.
Oh, what a fool she was to even entertain such thoughts! The Viscount St. Ashton had no interest in her. Well…perhaps he was mildly interested, but only in the way a cat might be interested in batting at an injured mouse. And she was not so naïve as to mistake cruel amusement for anything like genuine interest in her as a person.
Not for the first time, she called up an image of how he’d appeared when he approached her in the hall. Any resemblance to country gentry had vanished. Instead, he’d looked urbane and aristocratic. Altogether intimidating.
“And why were you away so long?” Lady Brightwell demanded. “It must have been an hour before you returned to the house.”
“Longer, Mama,” Felicity said under her breath. “For you summoned her and she couldn’t be found.”
“Longer than an hour?” Lady Brightwell gave a pout of displeasure. “Whatever could you have been doing for such a time?” She met Valentine’s eyes in the mirror of her looking glass. “I trust you were not dallying with one of the footmen.”
Valentine colored. “Indeed not, ma’am.”
It was not entirely a lie. The Viscount St. Ashton was no footman. And the two of them had certainly not been dallying.
“I suppose you were upset over that silly business with your little sketches.” Lady Brightwell sighed. “I warned you that Felicity was high spirited, didn’t I? I can’t think why you provoked her. Especially when she’s so overwrought about this business with St. Ashton.”
“I’m not overwrought, Mama,” Felicity objected. “Why should I be?”
“No reason, my darling. But do listen, I beg you. You must keep a tighter rein on your temper. These tantrums of yours are terribly unbecoming. I insist you apologize to Miss March so we can put the whole business behind us.”
Felicity folded her arms and scowled. It seemed, for a moment, as if she wouldn’t obey her mother. However, after a prolonged pout, she did as she was bid. “I beg your pardon, Miss March. But Mama is right. You shouldn’t have provoked me. If you’d only come when I called to you, I wouldn’t have lost my temper.”
A poor apology. A non-apology, in fact. Valentine bowed her head in silent acknowledgment.
“There now,” Lady Brightwell said, patting her curls into place. “We’ll speak of it no more.”
Valentine clasped her hands in front of her. She couldn’t so easily forget what had happened. Indeed, the very thought of thirty pages’ worth of her mother’s sketches and Bible verses damaged beyond repair was enough to bring tears to her eyes once again. But she’d resolved not to cry anymore. It accomplished nothing. She would do better to look to her future.
“Miss March?” Lady Brightwell gestured with an imperious hand. “Fetch my jewel case. I think I will wear my ruby necklace this evening. Or perhaps my brooch.”
Valentine obediently collected the small case of jewels and brought it for Lady Brightwell’s perusal. Felicity leapt up to join her mother, and the two of them were soon well occupied with the serious business of jewelry selection. Valentine withdrew to the corner of the room again as Lady Brightwell and her daughter preened in front of the glass.
They were as alike in looks as any mother and daughter could be. Both with the same sable hair and dark flashing eyes. Both with well-shaped figures and milky skin. The only dissimilarity, besides their obvious difference in age, was that Lady Brightwell had a perpetually vacant expression whereas Felicity always appeared as if she’d just encountered a bad smell.
Would St. Ashton truly consider marrying her? Lady Brightwell certainly thought he would. And Felicity shared her mother’s opinion. But when Valentine had talked with him earlier, he’d professed a dislike for Lady Brightwell and her daughter. Not that anything he’d said in the folly had been the truth.
“What about Miss March’s spectacles, Mama?” Felicity demanded. “You can’t let her go down to dinner barefaced.”
“There’s nothing that can be done about that now. We must all make the best of it.” Lady Brightwell rose from her chair and shook the skirts of her gown over her wire crinoline. “That doesn’t mean you’re absolved, Miss March. Tomorrow morning, you must go out into the woods and locate your spectacles. Pray they’re not lost or damaged, for I’ll have to take the cost out of your wages.”
Valentine opened her mouth to object and then promptly shut it again. There was no need to protest the unfairness of such a decree. St. Ashton had her spectacles, after all. He’d promised to return them to her at dinner. Though she didn’t see how he could. The likelihood of the two of them having a moment alone was less than zero.
“Mama, did you speak to Lady Fairford about the seating arrangements?”
“You have nothing to worry about, pet,” Lady Brightwell assured her. “You’ll be on St. Ashton’s right and Mrs. Ravenscroft will be on his left.”
Mrs. Ravenscroft was a well-preserved widow of fifty and, according to the Fairfords’ cook, Mrs. Gaunt, only attended the annual house parties to meet with Lord Horsham, her elderly married beau.
“That Mrs. Ravenscroft don’t engage in any of them lewd games her ladyship puts on,” Mrs. Gaunt had gossiped cheerfully as she sat with Valentine in the kitchen that afternoon sharing a pot of tea. “She’s only here for Lord Horsham and him for her.”
Mrs. Gaunt had told Valentine about the other guests as well, warning her which gentlemen she must stay away from at all costs and which of the ladies it would be best to avoid. Afterward, Valentine had felt guilty for sitting and gossiping with a servant. She was a gentlewoman and, as a lady’s companion, not technically a servant herself. It would not do to fall into bad habits. But Mrs. Gaunt had been so kind.
And her disclosures about St. Ashton had been impossible to resist.
“As handsome a devil as ever there was,” she’d said. “He’s not one who has to force anyone to his bed. They come willingly enough, by twos and threes, or so I’ve heard.”
“By twos and threes?” Valentine’s eyes had widened. “Do you mean…two and three ladies in his bed all at once?”
Mrs. Gaunt had given a knowing nod. “It was before my time, mind you. I only come here two years ago. But I heard the stories from every giggling housemaid who ever crossed his path.”
“Oh, but surely he doesn’t…?”
“Meddle with the servants?” Mrs. Gaunt had cackled. “No fear of that, dearie. He’s one of them lords as is too high in the instep for the likes of us.”
The likes of us.
Valentine had heard the words with a decided pang in her heart, knowing she’d been automatically included in the group of servants and other unsuitable females St. Ashton considered beneath him. Not that it mattered a jot. She hadn’t taken employment only to fall victim to some rake. She had a plan for her future. A respectable, virtuous plan that only required a small bit of money. The annual sum of her wages as a lady’s companion, in fact. In ten more months she would have it.
And then…
“St. Ashton will have nothing to say to Mrs. Ravenscroft,” Felicity said, her sullen voice recalling Valentine back to the present. “She’s a dried-up old crone.”
“She’s my age, my love,” Lady Brightwell said. “I hope you don’t think me an old crone.”
“No, but Mama, I thought I was to sit between St. Ashton and his father.”
“Perhaps tomorrow. He’ll be staying the week, I understand. Maria Fairford is up in arms. Her party games can’t commence while he’s present.” Lady Brightwell sighed. “It’s regrettable. Lord Penworthy’s here, and he and I have always been on especially good terms.”
“Mama!”
“Come, my love,” Lady Brightwell said, oblivious to her daughter’s scandalized gasp. “We must make an appearance in the drawing room before dinner. Miss March? Don’t dawdle.”
Valentine followed in their wake as they exited Lady Brightwell’s bedroom and swept down the stairs to the second floor. They arrived in the drawing room amidst a crush of other guests who were dressed in their evening finery. There were over a dozen gentlemen, ranging from their middle twenties to as old as seventy, if Valentine was any judge, while most of the ladies in attendance seemed to be upwards of forty. They made a merry party, all appearing to know each other and falling swiftly into murmured reminiscences of prior house parties.
“St. Ashton!” Felicity called suddenly. “Look, Mama! There he is with the Earl of Lynden.” She raised her hand and wiggled her gloved fingers. “St. Ashton!”
He towered head and shoulders over most of the gentlemen in the room. Valentine could easily make him out. For a moment, she considered ducking out of the drawing room and sprinting back upstairs. But it was too late. The Viscount St. Ashton was already making his way toward them.
He was clad in the most elegant evening attire she’d ever beheld. A fitted black evening coat and trousers, embroidered waistcoat, and snowy white linen that sparkled in the candlelight. His black hair was brushed into meticulous order, his side-whiskers trimmed short beneath the hard planes of his cheekbones. His face was composed into lines of fashionably bored indifference. Only his mouth betrayed any emotion. It was edged with what she could only describe as a sardonic smile.
It sent a shiver of unease through her.
“St. Ashton, how very bad of you to hide yourself away all afternoon,” Felicity chastised the viscount when he came to stand before them. “Didn’t you know I was here? You might have sent for me. We could have gone for a drive or taken a walk.”
St. Ashton greeted mother and daughter with civility, if not friendliness. “The weather would hardly have supported either,” he said.
“Nonsense. My mother’s companion was out walking in the woods earlier this afternoon.” Felicity glanced back at Valentine, who’d shielded herself from view behind the two much taller ladies. “Weren’t you, Miss March?”
An expression of surprise flickered across St. Ashton’s face and then was gone. “Ah, Miss March. I didn’t see you hiding back there.”
“My lord.”
“And were you out walking in the woods?”
She had the distinct impression he was amusing himself at her expense again. “I was. It was an exceedingly unpleasant experience.”
St. Ashton flashed a grin. “Hardly a recommendation. Wouldn’t you say, Miss Brightwell?” He didn’t wait for Felicity to answer. Instead, he offered his arm to her mother. “I beg your indulgence, ma’am. My father has a wish to renew his acquaintance with you and your daughter before we go in to dinner.”
Lady Brightwell beamed. “Naturally he would. Felicity, my pet, come along.”
Valentine hesitated, watching the three of them walk away. Once again, she considered bolting.
And once again St. Ashton thwarted her.
“You too, Miss March,” he said, not even bothering to look back at her.
“Oh, but he wouldn’t like to meet my mother’s companion,” Felicity said. She linked her hand through St. Ashton’s free arm, clinging to him like a limpet. “Won’t he be insulted, my lord? To be sure, I think he will.”
“You don’t know my father, Miss Brightwell,” St. Ashton replied.
Lord Lynden was seated close to the fireplace. With his hard, humorless features and iron-gray hair, he appeared far more intimidating than his rakish son. He rose at their approach, his mouth set in a grim line as Lady Brightwell introduced him to her daughter and her companion.
“Miss March,” Lord Lynden said.
“My lord,” she replied.
He gave her a long, penetrating look. “You’re from Surrey, I understand.” It was not a question.
Valentine felt for a moment as if the shabby drawing room carpet had been pulled out from under her slippered feet. She met the Earl of Lynden’s eyes. They were dark and unreadable. And yet, she hadn’t even the smallest doubt.
He knew.
“Yes, my lord,” she answered him. Her mouth had gone dry as cotton wool. She steeled herself for more questions, but the earl merely gave a thoughtful-sounding harrumph.
She prayed that he’d lost interest in her and, indeed, he seemed to do so. The remainder of his time in the drawing room was spent listening to Felicity and Lady Brightwell reminiscing about their last season in London. He didn’t pay Valentine any attention at all.
But any hope she had that the Earl of Lynden had forgotten her was swiftly dispelled at the moment Lady Fairford announced dinner.
“No need to bother with precedence,” she said with a shrill laugh. “We are quite informal here.”
“Miss March.” Lord Lynden offered her his arm. “I shall escort you into the dining room.”
Valentine’s palms grew damp beneath her gloves. She wished she were the sort of lady who swooned. If she were, she could have fainted dead away and been excused to her room for the evening. Instead, she put her hand lightly on Lord Lynden’s arm and allowed him to lead her in to the dining room.
Once there, he waited as she settled in her place.
And then, to her alarm, he took the seat beside her.
No gentleman who had just been cut off by his father should be obliged to endure a meal seated next to Felicity Brightwell. She talked and flirted and made thinly veiled remarks about what she might do when she was the Viscountess St. Ashton. Tristan responded with the dry, subtly mocking banter he employed with all the women who pursued him, all the while looking down the length of the table to where his father sat with Valentine March.
He’d expected to see her at dinner. What he hadn’t expected was to see her dressed in something besides that shapeless, bombazine nightmare Lady Brightwell insisted she wear. Not that Miss March was in the first stare of fashion. Not by any means. Her gown was abysmally plain and the style outdated by several years. Nevertheless, the gray silk neatly skimmed her figure, the scooped neckline showing a hint of flawless porcelain bosom, and the fitted bodice clinging to a narrow waist that, he suspected, he could easily span with both hands.
And then there was her hair.
She wore it in a loose chignon, accented with a cut glass pin. It was nothing like the padded rolls, false plaits, and jeweled combs adorning the other ladies’ elaborate coiffures. And yet, Valentine March’s pale golden tresses seemed to glitter in the candlelight, framing that lovely heart-shaped face that had so disconcerted him in the folly with a halo of radiant light.
An angel, Tristan thought grimly. He took a large swallow of wine, half listening to Felicity Brightwell as she chattered in his ear. For the first time, he acknowledged what had been troubling him since the moment he laid eyes on Miss March. That peculiar feeling—as if he’d just been flattened by a runaway train or struck by a bolt of lightning. That feeling with a blasted phrase attached to it. A phrase which, until earlier this afternoon, had seemed to him so damnably laughable. So utterly impossible.
Love at first sight.
The devil! He was two and thirty, not some green lad. He’d learned long ago not to mistake physical desire for something more. If only he hadn’t crossed paths with Miss March today. If only it had been a month ago. Even a week ago. His heart would have remained untouched, he was sure of it.
But today he’d been blue-deviled. He’d been… Curse and confound it! He’d been vulnerable. And then he’d seen her. And she seemed to be everything he most needed in the world. Innocence. Truth. Beauty. All wrapped up in one angelic little package.
He took another swallow of his wine.
“Both of the cousins were sent straight back to the country in disgrace!” Miss Brightwell exclaimed with a burst of gleeful laughter. “What do you think of that, St. Ashton?”
“A very diverting tale.” Tristan motioned for a footman to refill his wine.
“I should say so. It was the scandal of the season.”
He glanced down the table again at his father and Miss March. They appeared to be engaged in grave conversation. If it could be called a conversation. Miss March’s face was stark white and she’d hardly eaten a thing since they sat down. Every so often, he saw her nod or utter a monosyllabic reply.
What could his father be saying to her? Was he warning her to stay away from his dissolute son? Informing her that her innocence—her very status as a gentlewoman—was no protection against such an unconscionable rake?
Tristan’s fingers tightened around the stem of his wineglass in a reflexive spasm of anger.
Years ago, his father and brother had accused him of ruining a young virgin on the marriage mart. He’d denied it, of course. He’d even given his word that he’d never, nor would he ever compromise a young lady of gentle birth.
Neither had believed him.
Tristan could still remember the scathing letter John had written him. It had been filled with words like “honor” and “duty.” By the time John and his father realized that the young lady was no different from any of the other adventuresses and fortune hunters who’d been pursuing Tristan since he came of age, it was too late. Tristan had broken with them, parting on the very worst of terms, and leaving London to commence a several-year stint of drunken debauchery that would have shamed the devil.
The three of them were civil now, largely as a result of Elizabeth’s well-intentioned interference, but Tristan didn’t think he could ever forgive John and his father for their lack of faith in him.
And if his father intended to blacken his name to Valentine March…
But that was absurd. His father would never hold up a Sinclair to public scorn. Any Sinclair. Even one as disappointing as his eldest son.
“I daresay I won’t have another season next year,” Miss Brightwell said. “There’s no need for it. Mama thinks I’ll be married by the spring. What do you say to that, St. Ashton?”
“What can I say, Miss Brightwell?”
“Do you have particular plans for the spring?” She gave him a secret smile. “I’ll wager you do.”
“And you’d be right.” Tristan drank deeply from his glass. “I’ll be in Northumberland.”
Her brow creased. “Northumberland?”
“I have an estate there. Blackburn Priory. I’m to live there.”
“Ah, a country home. But you’ll be back to London for the season, won’t you? You wouldn’t want to be away from certain of your friends for too long.”
“My dear girl, I won’t be able to afford London next season, nor the season after that. I’m meant for the wilds of Northumberland, to molder away in a drafty house out in the middle of nowhere.”
Miss Brightwell froze in the act of raising her water goblet to her mouth. “You’re to live in Northumberland?”
“If one can call it living.”
“And what do you mean you can’t afford to reside in London? What nonsense. Everyone knows you’re as rich as Croesus.”
“Do they? How charming.”
“To live in Northumberland all the year long? Ha!” She laughed. “Who would do so? Not you, my lord. You would die of boredom.”
“Then perhaps I shall die, Miss Brightwell.” Tristan finished the last of his wine and beckoned to the footman for more.