The group’s laughter followed, for all seemed vastly entertained by the prospect of her being matched withhim. Jasper Everleigh. That insufferable man.
Matilda had not forgotten the ignominy of dripping weeds, nor the scandal of laughter ringing in her ears. She had thought herself rid of him for the day, at least. Yet here he stood, dimples at the ready, bowing as if fate had merely granted him another triumph.
“Your partner, my lady,” Jasper said, offering a hand. His tone was polite, but his eyes danced with mischief.
She ignored the hand and rose without it. “How very fortunate for me,” she replied, her voice cool enough to freeze the steaming tea.
The game began. Jasper was to act, Matilda to guess.
It was immediately clear that Jasper had no intention of making the task straightforward. He leapt into the center of the lawn and bent into a dramatic bow, sweeping an imaginary cape with a flourish.
“A highwayman?” Matilda guessed.
He shook his head, and then clutched his chest as though stricken with a mortal wound.
“A tragic poet?”
“No.” He staggered, fell to one knee, then sprang upright again, grinning all the while.
“A lunatic?” she tried and was rewarded by the company’s laughter.
He pretended to brandish a sword, fought an invisible opponent, and then struck a pose so exaggerated that Cordelia squealed.
“A fencing master?”
Another shake of the head. Jasper’s eyes flashed toward her, daring her to keep up. He mimed pointing at the horizon, hand to brow like a conquering hero surveying a battlefield.
“Alexander the Great?” she said flatly.
It was only followed by more laughter. Jasper grinned and carried on, his dimples deepening as he mounted an invisible horse with great ceremony, trotting in a circle.
“A general? A soldier? A knight? A… oh, for heaven’s sake, you look ridiculous!”
“Not as ridiculous as a lady who refuses to see what is before her eyes,” he murmured, low enough for only her to hear, though his smile never faltered for the rest.
Her cheeks burned. Her guesses grew sharper, her tone brisk, but none struck true. The others, watching in delight, offered no rescue.
At last the round ended in laughter and teasing, Evelyn declaring, “It was Don Quixote! Oh, Matilda, how could you not see?”
“Because His Grace appears to believe all performances require the energy of a circus,” Matilda retorted.
Jasper bowed again, careless and victorious. “If the lady cannot guess, I must accept the fault lies entirely in my enthusiasm.”
The company laughed anew. But Matilda, though she sat straight and silent, felt her heart thunder. She told herself it was indignation, nothing more. Yet his voice lingered, his grin tormented her, and the memory of pond water clinging to his hair the day before returned most unwelcomely.
She sipped her tea with the air of a woman determined never to forgive him. But her hands trembled ever so slightly on the cup.
Chapter Twelve
“Come, Robert, you must begin,” Evelyn urged, her eyes alight with mischief as the circle settled after dinner.
The Duke of Aberon looked at his wife as though she had asked him to stand upon the table and declaim poetry. “I cannot imagine why I must be the first victim,” he said dryly.
“Because you are host,” she replied, with the kind of calm certainty only a devoted wife could wield.
Jasper, who was until that moment lounging in his chair with an expression of polite boredom that concealed a restless energy, now watched the exchange with interest. Robert was not a man easily ruffled, but Evelyn’s smile had him cornered, and Jasper almost pitied him.Almost.
Robert finally turned to his duchess with a sigh. “Very well. Evelyn, if you could only eat one dish every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
