The man couldn’t disguise the hunger in his gaze. She must surely be aware of his feelings. But, from the look of her, she didn’t return them. Although, it was possible she viewed him as a way out of what must be comparative penury in her old farmhouse. Unless, of course, she had money from her parents. If only he knew more details. Perhaps he would have to interrogate Crawford, after all.
Harry nodded to Sir Julian. “Thank you for your invitation. I should be honored to accept.”
Had he just seen Lady Madeley’s gaze sharpen?
“In that case,” she said, laying a hand on her daughter’s arm. “For the sake of my daughter, I think a quiet dinner party might well be acceptable. The poor child has had no opportunity as yet to move in social circles. I had been intending to hold a ball this autumn prior to her London debut in the New Year, but that was before dear Geoffrey passed away so unexpectedly.”
Melissa did not look as though this was acceptable to her at all. Her lower lip jutted and she put a hand up to her mouth to nibble the finger of a glove. A gentle gesture from her mother brought that hand down again. But Melissa directed a fierce frown at Harry when her mother turned away.
Good heavens. The girl seemed to have very much taken against him. He had to wonder what he’d done to provoke such a malevolent look.
As for Sir Julian, he looked a little nonplussed, as though he’d been side swiped by a cannon ball, in fact. Had he been intending the invitation Lady Madeley had previously turned down to be only for her? Harry couldn’t be sure, but had a feeling that she’d only agreed to go once he’d said he would. But why?
Sir Julian plastered on a politely pleased expression. “What a charming idea. Of course Miss Madeley should come too. I can’t thinkwhy that didn’t occur to me earlier.”
Was that satisfaction, now, in Lady Madeley’s lovely blue eyes? Had she been worried the dinner at Thornby might have been a far too intimate tête-à-tête between just her and Sir Julian? From the look on the fellow’s face, that might well have been what he’d intended.
Harry, unused as he was to the vagaries of polite society, owned himself puzzled. At first he’d thought Sir Julian and Lady Madeley must be close friends as they’d arrived together, but all the signals he’d been getting suggested otherwise. The man had clearly not intended to invite either Melissa or himself and now was more than a little put out by having had his hand forced into doing so. The part of him that was still a schoolboy couldn’t help but rejoice that he was outfoxing such a man as this.
“Thank you, Sir Julian,” Melissa said, after a surreptitious prod from her mother, “but I don’t like to attend dinner parties.”
Lady Madeley’s knuckles whitened on her daughter’s hand, but she maintained her gentle smile. “It’s only that she’s not been to one before, Sir Julian. Nothing else. I know she will enjoy the evening.” She turned her gaze on Harry. “Especially if you are there, Sir Henry.”
What?
Harry stared. Was she trying to pair him off with her daughter, a girl straight out of the school room? An ingenue?
She was.
“In fact,” Lady Madeley said with an air of a fait accompli, “Why don’t you show Sir Henry around the gardens, Melissa? You’ll be able to tell him all about the different plants as you have such a good knowledge of them.”
Harry was relieved to see Melissa flash an angry glare at her mother, but she stood with good grace. “Of course, Mama.”
And he was obliged to take her out into the garden.
He picked up his cane and held out his arm, but, with a haughty frown, she raised her chin and ignored him, then stalked through thedoors onto the terrace. All he could do was follow in her wake.
With the weatherso fine for late September, the gardens were still glorious. Not that Melissa knew anything more about them than Megs or Mims did. Her passions had always been directed, as had theirs, towards horses and riding. She did, however, know her way around the garden paths, as she and her sisters had spent many happy hours running about in them when they were younger. As far as she knew, Megs still did, probably with Arthur the boot boy who was very much her best friend. Or he had been until the move.
And now she was going to have to talk to Cousin Harry and try to put him off thinking her a marriageable prospect. The thought that he might not even be looking for a wife totally escaped her. Wasn’t every man after a wife?
She’d already decided, despite Megs’ advice about how to get a man to dislike her, that honesty would be her best policy. To that end, she started as she meant to go on.
“I’m only doing this to please Mama,” she said, as soon as they were out of earshot of the house. “I can assure you that I would rather be at home with my sisters.”
The important thing here was to let him know she was not in the least bit interested. Apart from anything, he was just so old. And he walked with a cane. Like a really old man, even though he wasn’t anywhere near as old as Papa had been. But the cane was definitely off-putting.
She’d seen enough of what marrying an older man did to a woman and had no intention of repeating her mother’s mistake. Although, of course, there was only a fourteen-year age difference here whereas Mama had been twenty-three years younger than Papa. No matter. Fourteen years was still far too big a gap.
“You would?” Cousin Harry said, his eyebrows rising. “I must admit, they seem an interesting lot. I might myself prefer to be withthem than to have been forced to welcome the rather odious Sir Julian Horncastle into my home.”
Her eyes widened in shock. He wasn’t supposed to say things like that about people. Only children like Megs spoke their mind in such a blunt fashion, and then they were roundly told off. Perhaps his mother had never taught him that. She giggled. “He is rather unpleasant and has the most horrendous mad eyes. Why Mama puts up with him, I have no idea. She has some strange notion that she needs to be polite even to people she doesn’t like.”
She turned down a gravel path between bushes thick with deep pink camelias. At least she knew what they were. “My sisters and I think it her worst fault.”
Cousin Harry smiled. “When one considers all the faults she could have, it doesn’t seem to be a bad one. Politeness is to be praised, or so my sister Hester would have me believe.”
Melissa shrugged. “It has its place, I suppose.”
