Page 66

“Good! This should be easy. We’ll launch the plan at my dinner, naturally. The important thing is the guests, and where they sit.”

She sat for a moment in silence.

“I’ll invite the Cables,” she said finally.

“Myrtle Cable?” Henrietta asked in disbelief. “You must be joking! Even my stepmother, who is the sweetest woman in the world, won’t have her to an intimate meal. Every other word she says is a biblical passage, haven’t you noticed?”

“Perfect,” Esme said with satisfaction. “And I’ll have the vicar too. We have a shortage of men, since Helene is returning tomorrow. As the head of the family, Darby will be at one end of the table, and that leaves you with no partner. The vicar can escort your stepmother. And he will surely frown on illicit goings-on within the parish.”

“I doubt it,” Henrietta said. “He’s not the interfering sort of vicar.”

“Pity,” Esme said. “Still, I’m sure Mrs. Cable will more than make up for his reticence. As for the letter, Carola will be particularly useful. Now here’s what we’ll do . . .”

< 23 =

An Island, a Nymph, and Thou

There was the menu to plan. The chef had requested yet another conference, as he was unable to obtain sufficient trout, and the menu would have to be changed. She needed to discuss precedence with the butler, and dinner cards with the housekeeper. Why on earth had she asked even one guest to the house? She was supposed to be in retirement, not giving supper parties. But it was too late. Fired by loneliness in the first month after Miles’s funeral, she had asked Carola to visit just as soon as the initial mourning period of six months was over.

Esme sighed and lay back on her bed again, looking at the list of guests. Perhaps there was time for just a short nap. After all, Carola wasn’t arriving until tomorrow. Her brain was so slow. She couldn’t seem to think what to do about the fact that she’d received a note from Rees Holland, Helene’s loathed husband. Darby must have invited him to stay, and that was a disaster, because Helene was arriving any moment. If Helene didn’t want to stay at the house due to Darby’s presence, Esme could just imagine how she’d feel when Rees himself made an appearance. 182 Eloisa

James

Perhaps she should wander down to the apple orchard. Marquess Bonnington was exquisitely aware of the intricacies of personalities and precedence. He was certainly the best person to consult about such matters. Unless he was busy digging a ditch, she thought with a drowsy chuckle. He wasn’t. Esme found the hut without any problem. It seemed snug enough, a little one-room structure at the very bottom of the gardens. It was made of rough-hewn wood, and smoke was wisping out of a little crooked chimney. She almost didn’t knock. Lord knows, the mistress of the house was not supposed to visit a gardener in his home. It simply wasn’t done. An image of Sebastian’s censorious face before he became a gardener flashed across her mind, and she pushed open the door without knocking.

He was sprawled on a rough bench to the side of the fire, head propped up on his arm, reading. The image of him caught in her mind: the comfort, and the ease in his long body. The intentness with which he was reading. The happiness that seemed to cling around him.

“A bucolic scene,” she said mockingly.

He looked up and didn’t instantly leap to his feet. Instead he sighed and put his book down, and then swung his feet to the floor in a leisurely sort of way. The proper marquess was well and truly gone, Esme thought with wonder. With a broad-shouldered gardener on his feet, the hut was suddenly much smaller. She managed to stop herself from drifting forward to touch his chest and see if it was as muscled as it appeared in a work shirt.

“Esme. What a delightful surprise.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, abandoning the idea of questioning him about precedence. Instead she strolled over to the bench and sat down. She would have reached for his book but there was no way around her stomach.

“The Odyssey,” he said, adding another log to the fire. Fool for Love

183

“My God, Homer? Why on earth are you reading that old stuff?”

“It’s not old stuff—merely the tale of a man trying to come home. But he keeps getting waylaid by strumpets.”

She cast him a needle-eyed glance. Could he possibly mean the innuendo that she read into that phrase? No. That would verge on rudeness, and Marquess Bonnington was never rude.

“Strumpets?” she asked. “It’s Odysseus, isn’t it? Doesn’t his ship run into a Cyclops? My impression was that the Cyclops was a one-eyed—and very male—monster.”

“True enough. But I happen to be reading about the time he spent trapped on an island as the slave of the nymph Calypso.” He didn’t even look at her, just gazed into the fire. He put his arm up on the mantelpiece and Esme feasted on the strength of that arm. God, but he was beautiful.

“What was he doing on the island?” she asked, giving herself a short silent lecture on the sins of lust.

“Oh, it appears he was a slave to the nymph,” Sebastian said dreamily. He looked at her now, and those eyes were absolutely wicked. “Obeyed her every command. And I gather from Homer that she relished his presence in bed. One can only imagine . . .”

“Yes,” Esme said thoughtfully. “Lucky Calypso.”

“Or lucky Odysseus. After all, she was his mistress, and he didn’t have to worry about anything. His only task was to fulfill Calypso’s wishes.” His voice was threaded with laughter and something else. Something rougher and altogether more disturbing than laughter.

“Well, I’d better go now,” she said brightly, standing up. “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable and I can see—”