She just wished he were not quite so handsome. It would be very awkward to be trapped alone like this with any gentleman. But to be stuck with a handsome gentleman was embarrassing, to say the least. And a young gentleman, too. She was not used to young men. She felt uncomfortable with them. Most of Leonard’s friends had been older gentlemen. She had felt at ease with them.
And she had felt comfortable with him. She felt a sudden longing to have him there with her, large and imposing, with his shining bald head and his double chin and his large hands framing her face and his dry smacking kiss and his kindly smile.
Oh, dear, she did miss him quite dreadfully at times.
The orange gown had been his favorite, the Earl of Wetherby mused as he sat at dinner with Rosamund, making polite conversation. He had pictured Jude in it when he bought it, her large bosom bulging over the low décolletage, her green eyes squinting at him as she leaned forward to say something to him. Jude always leaned forward when she was wearing a low-cut dress. She knew it raised his temperature a few degrees. And he had imagined how the color would look with her auburn hair.
And now Mrs. Hunter was wearing it, and with her dark coloring, it looked quite magnificent. She did not lean toward him, of course, as she talked, but he could see the beginnings of a cleavage above the dress. And her breasts looked firm and alluring against the silk. Her hair was coiled higher on her head than it had been earlier in the day.
Jude would have looked like an expensive tart in the dress. Mrs. Hunter looked like a lady. Jude, of course, would not have worn the shawl. The girl had an endearing lack of concern for her own comfort when she was bent on luring him to bed. And she always had a flattering eagerness to get him there, though he paid her a regular monthly allowance regardless of the number of times she provided him with that essential service.
“You look very lovely, Mrs. Hunter,” he said, feeling that her enthusiastic praise of the very ordinary meal before them were becoming somewhat strained. “I trust you found everything you needed?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she assured him, her cheeks flushing becomingly. “Except a nightgown.” Her blush deepened. “I shall ask Mrs. Reeves if she can lend me one.”
“There was no nightgown?” he was unwise enough to ask, twisting the stem of his wineglass between his fingers.
“Yes, there was,” she said. “But not to my taste.”
His eyes strayed to her throat and that part of her chest visible above the gown. They were covered with red blotches.
“I am sorry about that,” he said.
“Is your sister a very young lady?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Both my sisters are older than I.” Oh, foolish words. Foolish, foolish words.
“Oh,” she said.
He smiled at her.
“Everything is new,” she said. “They are not your sister’s, are they?”
He twirled the wineglass, lifted it to his lips, and drank from it. She watched his every movement. It was most disconcerting. He wished there were a minstrel gallery with a full orchestra playing a gypsy dance. Or twenty guests sharing the table with them, all engaged in noisy argument.
“No, actually,” he said, and smiled again.
“Your mistress’s?” she asked.
He continued to smile. “Are you very shocked?” he asked.
She considered a moment. “No,” she said. “Why should I be? I do not even know you, sir, and I was not invited here. It would be foolish indeed to sit in moral judgment on you. Was she the one with the cold?”
"Yes,” he said.
“How sad for you,” she said, “when you had spent so much money on new things for her and had found such a secluded love nest. The bracelet too was a gift?”
“A parting gift,” he said. “I am getting married.”
“Oh, are you?” she said. “And are dismissing your mistress before you do? I am glad.”
What a strange conversation to be having with a lady whom he had met only a few hours before, the earl thought. She appeared to have forgotten her earlier embarrassment, a strange fact considering the turn their talk had taken. Her face had regained the animation he had noticed in his carriage. Her upper lip appeared to be a little fuller than the lower. It was slightly upturned—a most attractive feature. It made one want to reach out a finger to touch it or to lean forward to kiss it.
“And I am glad to meet with your approval,” he said.
“The nightgowns,” she said, leaning forward so that after all he could see the tops of rounded breasts as well as the beginnings of cleavage. She was laughing. “Would she really have worn them?”
He leaned back in his chair, his hand still stretched out to twirl his wineglass. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Perhaps for a few minutes,” he said.
