“Oh, dear, poor Harold.”

“Poor Harold indeed, but what about me?”

“You are obviously a saint among men.”

“I am glad you realize it,” he said. “And the arrangements?”

“I am content with them,” she replied.

“Good.” He cleared his throat. “I should tell you that I’ll be leaving town tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Her tone was still even, but the hand in her lap had fisted.

“Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. I’ve been the recipient of letters from my land steward for weeks now. He informs me that my presence is desperately needed to settle some type of dispute. I can ignore them no longer. I suspect,” he confided, “that Abbott, my neighbor, has again let his tenants build on my land. He does it every decade or so—tries to expand his border. The man’s eighty if he’s a day, and he’s been doing it for half a century. Used to drive my pater mad.”

There was a short pause as he guided the horses into a smaller street.

“Do you know when you shall return?” his fiancée inquired.

“A week, maybe two.”

“I see.”

He glanced at her. Her lips were thinned. Did she want him to stay? The woman was as inscrutable as the Sphinx. “But I shall certainly return by our wedding date.”

“Naturally,” she murmured.

He looked up and saw that they were already at Lady Eddings’s town house. He drew the horses to a halt and threw the ribbons to a waiting boy before jumping from the carriage. Despite his swiftness, Miss Fleming was already standing when he rounded to her side, which rather irritated him.

He held out his hand. “Let me help you.”

She stubbornly ignored his hand and, still gripping the carriage side, gingerly lowered a foot toward the steps set beside the carriage.

Jasper felt something snap. She could be as brave as she wanted, but she need not spurn his help. He reached up and wrapped his hands about her slender, warm waist. She gave a breathless squeak, and then he was letting her go in front of him. The scent of Neroli floated in the air.

“There was no need for that,” she said, shaking out her skirts.

“Oh, yes, there was,” he muttered before tucking her hand safely into his elbow. He led her toward the imposing white doors of the Eddings town house. “Ah, a musicale. What a delightful way to spend an afternoon. I do hope there will be country ballads about damsels drowning themselves in wells, don’t you?”

Miss Fleming shot a disbelieving glance at him, but a formidable butler was already opening the door. Jasper grinned at his fiancée and ushered her in. His blood was running high, and it wasn’t at the prospect of an afternoon of screeching or even the company of Miss Fleming, interesting as she was. He hoped to see Matthew Horn here. Horn was a very old friend, a fellow veteran of His Majesty’s army and, more to the point, one of the few men to survive Spinner’s Falls.

MELISANDE SAT ON a narrow chair and tried to concentrate on the young girl singing. If she sat very still and closed her eyes, she knew the awful panic would recede eventually. The trouble was, she hadn’t anticipated how much comment the news of their precipitous engagement would excite in the ton. The moment they’d stepped into Lady Eddings’s town house, she and Jasper had been the center of all eyes—and Melisande had wanted to simply disappear. She loathed being the center of attention. It made her hot and sweaty. Her mouth went dry and her hands trembled. And worst of all, she always seemed to lose the power of intelligent speech. She’d just stared dumbly when that horrid Mrs. Pendleton had inferred that Lord Vale must be desperate to’ve made Melisande an offer. Tonight, a half-dozen biting repartee would come to her as she lay sleepless in her bed, but right now she might as well be a sheep. She hadn’t anything more intelligent to say than baaaaa.

Next to her, Lord Vale leaned close and whispered hoarsely and none too quietly, “Do you think she’s a shepherdess?”

Baaa? Melisande blinked up at him.

He rolled his eyes. “Her.”

He tilted his head at the cleared space next to the harpsichord where Lady Eddings’s youngest daughter stood. The girl actually sang rather well, but the poor thing wore enormous panniers and a floppy bonnet, and she carried a pail of all things.

“Surely she’s not a chambermaid?” Lord Vale wondered. He’d taken their notoriety in stride, laughing loudly when he’d been cornered by several gentlemen before the musicale. Now he jiggled his left leg like a small boy forced to sit at church. “I’d think she’d be carrying a coal shuttle if she were a chambermaid. Though that might be rather heavy.”

“She’s a milkmaid,” Melisande murmured.

“Really?” His shaggy eyebrows drew together. “Surely not with those panniers?”

“Shh!” someone hissed from behind them.

“I mean,” Lord Vale whispered only a little lower, “wouldn’t the cows trod on her skirts? Don’t seem practical at all. Not that I know all that much about cows and milkmaids and such, but I do like cheese.”

Melisande bit her lip, fighting down an unusual urge to giggle. How strange! She wasn’t the giggling sort at all. She glanced at Lord Vale out of the corner of her eye only to see him watching her.

His wide mouth curved, and he leaned closer, his breath brushing her cheek. “I adore cheese and grapes, the dark, round, red kind of grape that burst in one’s mouth all sweet and juicy. Do you like grapes?”

Although the words were perfectly innocent, he said them with such a deep drawl, that she was hard pressed not to blush. And she suddenly realized that she’d seen him do this before: lean close to a lady and whisper wicked things in her ear. She’d watched him do it innumerable times over the years to innumerable ladies at innumerable parties. But this time was different.

This time he was flirting with her.

So she straightened her back and cast her eyes down demurely and said, “I do like grapes, but I think I prefer raspberries. The sweetness is not so cloying. And sometimes there’s a tart one with a bit of a . . . bite.”

When she raised her eyes and looked at him, he was staring back thoughtfully, as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her. She held his gaze, whether in challenge or warning, she wasn’t quite sure, until her breath began to grow short, and his cheeks darkened. He’d lost his habitual careless smile—he wasn’t smiling at all, in fact—and something serious, something dark, was staring out of his eyes at her.

Then the audience burst into applause, and Melisande started at the crash of sound. Lord Vale looked away, and the moment was lost.

“Shall I bring you a glass of punch?” he asked.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “Thank you.”

And she watched him get up and saunter away, aware that the world had rushed back into her senses. Behind her, the young matron who had shushed them was gossiping with a friend. Melisande caught the word enceinte and tilted her head away so she could no longer overhear the murmurs. Lady Eddings’s daughter was being congratulated on her performance. A spotty youth stood next to the girl loyally holding her pail. Melisande smoothed her skirts, glad that no one had bothered to come talk to her. If she were allowed to only sit and observe the people around her, she might enjoy events like this one.

She turned her head and located Lord Vale in the crowd around the refreshments table. He wasn’t hard to find. He stood half a head taller than all the other gentlemen, and he was laughing in that open way he had, one arm thrown out, the glass of punch in his hand in danger of splashing in the wig of the gentleman next to him. Melisande smiled—it was hard not to when he was so boisterous—but then she saw his face change. It was a subtle thing, a mere narrowing of the eyes, his wide smile falling just sligh wang justtly. Probably no one else in the room would notice it. But she had. Melisande followed his gaze. A gentleman in a white wig had just entered the room. He stood talking to their hostess, a polite smile on his face. He looked almost familiar, but she couldn’t place him. He was of average height, his countenance open and fresh, his bearing military.

She looked back at Lord Vale. He’d started forward, the glass of punch still in his hand. The young man glanced up, saw Vale, and excused himself from Lady Eddings. He walked toward Vale, his hand extended in greeting, but his face was somber. Melisande watched as her fiancé took the other man’s hand and drew him close to murmur something; then he glanced around the room and, inevitably, met her eyes. He’d lost his smile somewhere as he’d crossed the room, and now his face was quite expressionless. Deliberately, he turned his back to her, drawing the other man with him. Just then, the young man in the white wig looked over his shoulder, and Melisande inhaled, finally remembering where she’d seen him before.

He was the man she’d seen weeping six years before.

Chapter Three

After the last crumb of meat pie was eaten, the old man stood, and a very strange thing happened. His tattered clothes fell away, and suddenly there stood before Jack a young, handsome man in shining white garments.

“You have been kind to me,” the angel said—for who else could he be but an angel of God? “And so I shall reward you.”

The angel drew forth a little tin box and pressed it into Jack’s palm. “Look inside for what you need, and it shall be there.”

He turned and was gone.

Jack blinked for a moment before peering inside the box. And then he laughed, for there was nothing inside but a few leaves of snuff. Tucking the little tin snuffbox into his pack, he set off along the road again. . . .

—from LAUGHING JACK

Three weeks later, Melisande hid her trembling hands in the full skirts of her wedding dress. Behind her, Sally Suchlike, her new lady’s maid, was doing some last- minute fussing with the skirts.

“Don’t you just look a treat, miss,” Suchlike said as she worked.

They stood in the enclosed church porch, just off the nave. The organ had already started inside, and soon Melisande would have to walk into the crowded church. She shivered with nerves. Even on such short notice, nearly all the pews were full.

“I thought gray was a bit dull when you picked it out,” Suchlike chattered, “but now it almost shines like silver.”

“It’s not too much, is it?” Melisande looked down worriedly. The dress was more ornamented than she’d originally wished, with pale yellow ribbons tied in small r, „bows all along the low round neckline. Her overskirt was pulled back to reveal the heavily embroidered underskirt of gray, red, and yellow.

“Oh, no. It’s very sophisticated,” the lady’s maid replied. She came around to face Melisande and frowned, inspecting her rather like a cook examining a haunch of beef. Then she smiled. “Lord Vale will be that taken with you, I’m sure. After all, it’s been ages since he last saw you.”

Well, that wasn’t quite true, Melisande reflected, but it had been several weeks since she’d seen the viscount. Lord Vale had left the day after Lady Eddings’s musicale and had not returned to London until yesterday. She’d even begun to wonder if he was staying away to avoid her. He’d been rather distracted at the musicale after talking to his friend, and he’d never introduced her to the man. Indeed, his friend had disappeared after talking to Lord Vale. But none of that mattered, she chided herself. After all, Lord Vale stood right now at the front of the church waiting for her appearance.

“Ready?” called Gertrude, who hurried in from the nave door and reached out to twitch at Melisande’s skirts. “I never thought I’d see this day, my dear, never! Married, and to a viscount. The Renshaws are a very nice family—no hint of bad blood at all. Oh, Melisande!”

To her amazement, Melisande saw that phlegmatic Gertrude had tears in her eyes.