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Emeline swallowed a bite of goose and glanced at her hostess. “Yes?”
“That is to say...” Lady Hasselthorpe looked down her long, elegant supper table at her guests, all of whom had paused to look at her. “Where do they come from?”
“From the cook! Ha!” a young gentleman exclaimed. No one paid him any heed, save the young lady at his side who giggled appreciatively.
Lord Boodle, an elderly gentleman with a thin, pale face under a rather stringy full-bottomed wig, cleared his throat. “I believe they are buds.”
“Truly?” Lady Hasselthorpe widened her lovely blue eyes. “But that seems most fanciful. I rather thought they might be related to peas, only more sour, if you understand my meaning.”
“Quite, quite, my dear,” Lord Hasselthorpe rumbled at his spouse from the other end of the table. One wondered sometimes how Lord Hasselthorpe, a thin, dour gentleman without an ounce of humor, had ever come to marry Lady Hasselthorpe. He cleared his throat ominously. “As I was saying—”
“Very, very sour peas,” Lady Hasselthorpe said. She was frowning down at the puddle of sauce that surrounded the slice of goose on her plate. A scatter of capers swam there. “I don’t know that I like them, really, sour little things. There they lurk in a perfectly plain sauce, and when I bite into one, it quite startles me. Doesn’t it you?” She appealed to the Duke of Lister, sitting on her right.
The duke was known for his oratory in Parliament, but now he blinked and seemed at a loss for words. “Ah...”
Emeline decided to rescue the conversation. “Shall we have the footman remove your plate?”
“Oh, no!” Lady Hasselthorpe smiled charmingly. Her blue eyes were exactly matched by the blue in her gown tonight, and she wore a tight necklace of pearls at her throat that highlighted her long, slim neck. She really was extraordinarily beautiful. “I shall just have to watch out for the capers, shan’t I?” And she popped a piece of goose into her mouth.
“Brave woman,” the duke muttered.
His hostess beamed at him. “I am, aren’t I? Braver than Lord Vale and Mr. Hartley, I think. They didn’t even come back from the village for supper. Unless”—she glanced inquiringly at Emeline—”they are hiding in their rooms?”
Actually, this was a subject that Emeline had been rather worrying about. Where could Samuel and Jasper have got to? They’d left directly after luncheon and had been gone for hours now.
But Emeline feigned a careless smile for her hostess. “I’m sure they’ve simply stopped at the village tavern or something similar. You know gentlemen.”
Lady Hasselthorpe widened her eyes as if uncertain whether she did know gentlemen or not.
“Actually.” Lister unexpectedly cleared his throat. “I believe Lord Vale is in the conservatory.”
Lady Hasselthorpe stared. “Whatever is he doing there? Doesn’t he know supper isn’t served in the conservatory?”
“I believe he is, ah”—the duke’s face reddened—“indisposed.”
“Nonsense,” their hostess said roundly. “The conservatory is a silly place to be indisposed. Surely he’d pick the library?”
The duke’s rather hairy eyebrows shot up at this statement, but Emeline only vaguely noticed. What was Jasper doing in the conservatory indisposed? He’d have to have been back to the house for some time to be in that condition, yet she hadn’t seen him. More importantly, where was Samuel?
“Have you seen Mr. Hartley?” she asked His Grace, interrupting his convoluted explanation as to why a gentleman might choose to indispose himself in the conservatory.
“I’m sorry, no, ma’am.”
“Well, they shall both have to miss their suppers,” Lady Hasselthorpe said merrily. “And go to bed without.”
Emeline tried to smile at this witticism, but she thought the smile didn’t quite come off. The supper lasted nearly another hour, and for the life of her, she had no idea how she replied to the conversation of her neighbors. Finally, after a course of cheese and pears that she could hardly bear to look at, the meal ended. Emeline lingered only long enough to be polite; then she hurried in the direction of the conservatory. She traversed a series of halls before her heels tapped on the slate floor that heralded the entrance to the room. A pretty glass and wood door kept the moist heat within the room.
Emeline pushed open the door. “Jasper?”
All she could hear was the tinkle of water. She grimaced in exasperation and closed the door behind her. “Jasper?”
Something clattered up ahead, and then she heard a male curse. Definitely Jasper. The conservatory was a long, keyhole-shaped building, the sides and ceiling made of glass. Here and there a few green plants in buckets gave the room its purpose, but mostly it was an ornamental folly. Emeline gathered her skirts to walk down the slate aisle. Near the end, she rounded a stone Venus and found Jasper lounging on a bench. Behind him a fountain was centered in the round space at the end of the conservatory.
“There you are,” she said.
“Am I?” Jasper’s eyes were closed. He was tilted to the side, his hair and clothes disarranged, and frankly, she didn’t see why he hadn’t toppled over yet.
Emeline placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him. “Where’s Samuel?”
