The Courtship

Two

“Moreland! You will attend me! Hippolyta Morrisette has sent news!”

Her Grace’s trajectory into the breakfast parlor was checked by the need to turn sideways to fit her panniers through the doorway, though this did nothing to stop her prattling. “Not four days into the house party, and both boys are already much admired by several young ladies.”

George, His Grace, the Duke of Moreland, rose from his place at the table. “Good morning, Your Grace. I trust you slept well?” He tossed a meaningful glance at old Thomas standing at attention by the sideboard.

Her Grace’s lips thinned as she allowed her husband to seat her. “I slept abominably, though I find this morning there is cause for cautious optimism.”

She would not be silenced, not by the presence of a servant, not by the open door, not by anything less than the hand of Almighty God slapped over her mouth, and even then she’d give the Deity a struggle for form’s sake. Her Grace was a determined woman and always had been.

His Grace flicked a glance at one of his oldest retainers. “Thomas, if you’ll excuse us?”

The barest hint of commiseration showed in the old man’s eyes before he bowed once to the duke, again to the duchess, and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

“His knees creak, Moreland. You should pension him before he keels over in his livery.”

And lose one of few allies under the ducal roof? “Thomas serves loyally, Your Grace, and has some good years left in him. May I fix you a plate?”

Her Grace fluffed her skirts just so. “Please. I’ll have eggs, toast, ham, a portion of apple tart, and half a scone with butter and strawberry jam.”

Determination apparently built up an appetite, and yet the woman still had a fine figure—from what His Grace could gather. They’d had separate apartments for more than twenty years, and what happened in the early hours of the day behind the closed door of Her Grace’s dressing room remained a mystery.

As well it should.

His Grace needed two plates to hold the food his wife had requested. He set the plates down before her and took his place at the opposite end of the table. “What news have you had from Lady Morrisette?”

The duchess tucked into her breakfast, gesturing with her fork for the teapot. “I don’t know as I can trust Hippolyta Morrisette’s veracity, but she claims both Tony and Percy are quite as sought after as Quimbey himself.”

Then the boys were to be pitied. “Is that so?”

“You will not take that tone with me, Moreland. We need grandsons, and it’s my duty to ensure we get them. Criticize me for many things, but I am dutiful.” She glowered at him for a moment for emphasis—unnecessary emphasis—before returning to her meal.

They hadn’t started out sniping at each other. They’d started out two young, lusty people who’d hoped and prayed their parents had found them a suitable mate. And for a time…

And then little Eustace had fallen from his pony, and it had become clear that they’d buried marital happiness along with their firstborn son. Thank a merciful God the accoucheur had told the duchess that Tony was the last child she could safely carry. Ten years of Her Grace’s grim focus on marital duty had about given His Grace’s interest in procreation a permanent tendency to wilt.

Shrugging that thought aside, the duke tried for a tone that was conciliatory without being condescending. “You have become determined on grandchildren only since Twombly took a child bride, Your Grace. He should be shot for mistreating your sensibilities, but you’ll soon be surrounded by other gallants. Did Lady Morrisette mention any young ladies in particular?”

Her Grace stirred sugar into her tea with vengeance. “Twombly deserves his fate, marrying a mere girl. She’ll be the death of him, mark me on this, Moreland. And of course I will have other gallants, but Twombly was a fine dancer.”

Twombly was an aging hanger-on, not worthy of Agatha Venetia Drysdale Windham’s notice, though it was none of His Grace’s affair where or with whom his wife spent her time. Still, a husband was entitled to the occasional protective gesture.

“Shall I call him out for you when he’s back from his wedding journey?”

The duchess shifted on her seat. “Wouldn’t that be a fine thing if he prevailed, leaving me a dowager duchess with no grandsons? No, thank you, Moreland. And yes, Hippolyta says Lady Zephora Needham is spending as much time as possible with Percy and Tony, and Charlotte Pankhurst is pitching for whichever son is not escorting the Needham girl. Needham is an earl, but Pankhurst is in line for a marquessate, and those are not to be sneezed at. Pass the cream.”

His Grace obliged, and then—knowing it was folly—gave his wife the benefit of his thinking regarding the entire campaign to see the younger sons wed.

“You know, Pembroke may yet have more children. We needn’t be hasty with Percival and Tony, and might regret forcing their hands.”

Her Grace paused in mid-chew and raised her head, like a grazing animal scenting an intruder in its grassy paddock. “That useless twit Pembroke married will produce nothing but girls, Moreland. What use are girls, tell me?”

You were a girl once. I had rather more use for you then, and you for me.

“Girls provide the Crown an opportunity to modify the letters patent, to entertain the notion of special remainders, the viscountcy—”

“The Morefield viscountcy can be preserved through the female line, but why, why on earth, should this family revert to a lesser title when, for nearly two hundred years, a dukedom has been ours to command?”

Oh, woe to the duke who provoked Her Grace on the subject of “our” dukedom. While her eggs grew cold and His Grace’s digestion became tentative, Her Grace prosed on for a good five minutes about duty, chits, twits, and sons who ought to accept the guidance of a mother devoted—dee-voted, I tell you!—to nothing but their lifelong happiness.

“So,” she concluded with a stab of the butter knife toward her husband, “I’d prefer the Pankhurst girl, though the Needham heiress as a contingency plan will do nicely.”

A concerned father had to ask, regardless of the risks involved. “And what about Tony? Is he to have the contingency plan for his bride if Percy can win the Pankhurst girl?”

“Of course not.” Her Grace tore off a bite of scone and eyed it like a hawk might eye a lame mouse. “Gladys Holsopple has had two seasons, she has eight strapping brothers, and her mama assures me the girl is a very high stickler and well dowered too. She’ll do for Tony, though convincing him to take on a young lady so enamored of propriety will involve effort. I expect your support in this, Moreland.”

She popped the bite of scone into her maw and started chewing like a squirrel.

His Grace did not by word or deed give away certain information brought to his ears privately by loyal staff. “Somehow, my dear, I will convince Tony that a woman of unimpeachable character holds his best hope for marital happiness.”

“See that you do, and pass the butter, if you please.”

His Grace sent up yet one more prayer for the happiness of his younger sons and passed his duchess the butter.

A week in purgatory was a very long time, particularly when Michael was more enamored of the card room than any of the young ladies present. Esther told herself he was biding his time, waiting for the allure of Quimbey, Lord Tony, and Lord Percival to fade.

Which ought to occur in no less than three decades at the latest, provided each man developed a tendency to flatulence.

“Lady Zephora believes her bellpull is not working correctly.” Esther put as much apology into her tone as she could when she addressed the Morrisette butler. “I’m on my way to the kitchen to bring up another tea tray, for the young ladies have assembled in her drawing room this morning.”

Hayes did not roll his eyes. He smiled beneficently, maybe even consolingly. “These things do happen, Miss Himmelfarb. I’ll see to it and have a tea tray sent along posthaste.”

The bellpull was not broken, and they both knew it.

“I wouldn’t want to trouble the kitchen staff unnecessarily, Mr. Hayes. I’m on my way there, as it happens, and will cheerfully retrieve a tray for Lady Zephora.”

The smile lurking in his eyes disappeared, because now they both knew the object of Zephora’s complaint had been not only to criticize the house staff for a slow response to incessant demands, but also to force Esther to fetch and carry like a servant.

“If you say so, miss.” He gave her a deliberate formal bow and let her hustle along the corridor. Was it lying if the other party knew the falsehood for what it was? Esther hoped not, because another day—another hour—in purgatory would have her…

What had Lord Percival said? Howling like a wolf and wearing his wig backward.

She brushed aside the memory while she waited for the scullery maid—Patricia—to put together the tea tray. Percival Windham hadn’t so much as smiled at her in the past three days. He’d smiled at everyone else—servants, horses, dogs, debutantes, they all merited his smiles—while Esther had earned only a few brooding glances.

And she hadn’t set one slippered toe in the kitchen garden after dark. As the full moon waned, so had the glow of that encounter with Lord Percival.

Esther picked up the tray—the blasted thing was heavy—and headed for the maid’s stairs.

“Miss.” Patricia’s voice had Esther pausing. “Not them stairs.”

The front stairs, the ones used by family on their rare sorties to the lower regions of the house, would be longer, though Esther understood Patricia’s point: the maid’s stairs were for the help.

The damned tray was heavy. Esther shook her head and started for the maid’s stairs, only to understand halfway up that Patricia’s warning hadn’t been about appearances and self-respect, or not only about those things.

“Miss Himmelfarb.” Jasper Layton lounged on the first landing, elbows propped on the banister as he gazed down at her. “What on earth could cause a proper young lady to lurk on the back stairs so early in the day?”

Noon approached, but it was early by Sir Jasper’s standards. Without paint and powder, his appearance improved somewhat, though late nights in the card room had left dark circles beneath his eyes. Regardless of his toilet, he was still inclined to have his conversations with the tops of Esther’s breasts.

“Sir Jasper. If you’ll excuse me, Lady Zephora will not want her tea cooling. I’ll wish you good day.”

He shifted, lazily, just enough to trap Esther two steps beneath the landing. The superior position clearly appealed to him, too, so Esther let him enjoy it for a moment while she dropped her gaze to the tea tray.

He stepped aside, allowing her to pass, and then she realized why. With the tray in her hands, she faced a closed door on the far side of the landing. Her choices were to wait for Sir Jasper to open the door, to try to balance the tray on her hip and open the door herself, or to set the tray on the floor, open the door, and then pick the tray up.

While Sir Jasper ogled her backside, of course.

“A small dilemma,” Sir Jasper observed from much too close behind her. “You study the dilemma, while I study the opportunities it presents.”

A male hand slid around Esther’s waist. She closed her eyes and discarded options: she could scream, which would result in her being compromised if anybody heard her; she could stomp on the blighted man’s foot, which would anger him and not solve the problem; she could dump hot tea on his falls, which was social suicide though a nice thought to contemplate; or she could endure this small detour into hell.

A second hand joined the first, easing up over Esther’s ribs. “Instead of playing chambermaid to those ninnies in hair bows, you might consider more pleasant diversions with me, you know. I can be very considerate and quite discreet.”

He could also manage a fair impression of ants crawling over Esther’s skin. While he brushed his thumbs over the tops of her breasts and pushed his hips against her backside—thank God for her bustle—Esther sighed breathily.

“Lady Zephora has no patience, sir. To delay for even a moment will guarantee her enmity.”

“I can placate Lady Zephora.” His breath, reeking of the previous night’s overindulgence, came hot against Esther’s neck.

It was time to end this.

“Lady Morrisette has asked me to join her as soon as I’ve seen to the young ladies. If you’d get the door, sir. Please.”

Esther suffused the last word with pleading, but knew a moment’s real trepidation when Sir Jasper did not immediately do as she asked. He gave her breasts as much of a squeeze as her stomacher allowed, reached around her to lift the door latch, and stepped back.

“A man’s protection would offer you a great deal more than this servile existence, Miss Himmelfarb.” He stroked his crotch twice, his gaze on Esther’s breasts. “A great deal more.”

Gracious God. Esther did her best rendition of the flustered schoolgirl and ducked out of the stairway, kicking the door shut behind her with a shade too much force. Sir Jasper offered not marriage but ruin, and the cursed man no doubt honestly believed a few months of his favors were preferable to a respectable life with children.

Esther set the tray down on a sideboard and paused to consider her appearance in the mirror above it. Flushed, pale, angry.

Sir Jasper’s offer, not the first of its kind, was not preferable to decades of respectable marriage and motherhood—but was it preferable to decades of impoverished spinsterhood? To being shuffled around her siblings’ households as the poor relation? To growing old with her parents?

“I behold a vision, though not, I think, a happy one.”

Behind her in the mirror, an unpowdered Percival Windham, golden hair loose about his shoulders, was smiling perplexedly at her reflection.

Now, he chanced upon her? Now, when she wanted to cock back her arm and slap any man she saw on general principles?

She curtsied. “My lord. Good day.”

“It is no such thing when you’re consigned to carrying trays for the harpies populating this house party.” He stepped a little closer and lowered his voice. “We’ve shared a moonlit posset, Miss Himmelfarb, though you seem determined to ignore the memory.”

He was implying some question or other, while Esther wanted to… howl like a wolf, in part because they had shared a moonlit posset.

“Forgive me, my lord. I do not relish Lady Zephora’s tongue lashing when I appear belatedly with her tea tray.”

He came around to stand between Esther and her reflection, his lips pursed in study. “Hang Lady Zephora and the whole chorus. Something has you overset.”

At that precise, benighted moment, Sir Jasper emerged from the stairway and sauntered along the corridor.

He nodded at Lord Percival. “My lord.”

“Sir Jasper.”

Jasper paused and ran an insolent gaze over Esther while she stood silently by the sideboard. Bad enough to be ogled, but it hurt to endure such treatment where Lord Percival could see it. Esther did not know whom to hate for that hurting—Jasper, Lord Percival, or herself.

Sir Jasper took himself off after a pointed look at the tea tray. Had she been alone, Esther might have ducked back into the maid’s stairway and had a good cry.

Percival Windham turned an inscrutable gaze on her in the ensuing silence. “Esther Himmelfarb, was that weasel bothering you?”

The question held such quiet ferocity, Esther wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She nodded, because whatever else was true about Percival Windham, he hadn’t blamed her for Sir Jasper’s weaseling. “I should have known better than to use the maid’s stairs. He is a predictable nuisance.”

“You will not blame yourself for his bad behavior. Come along.” Lord Percival picked up the tea tray like it weighed nothing and winged an elbow at Esther. “You look tired, my dear, but I know you aren’t lurking in gardens of a late hour.”

Esther took his arm, recalling the muscles there only when she wrapped her fingers around them. “How could you know that?”

“I’ve made the kitchen garden my private retreat, but I’ve also repaired there in hopes of continuing our previous conversation. One needs allies. Witness your encounter with Sir Weasel.”

And because Percival Windham had dubbed himself Esther’s ally, she had his escort right to the door of Lady Zephora’s chambers. He even went so far as to take the tray into the sitting room, causing a flurry of billing and cooing among the ladies gathered there in morning attire.

Esther took a window seat, watching while Lord Percival dodged invitations to walk, to ride out, to share a private archery lesson with this young lady, or a meal alfresco with that one. As she contemplated a duke’s son having to duck and leap his way through a series of morning greetings, it occurred to her that for him, there was risk lurking not just at the top of the maid’s stairs but on every hand.

Which made the notion of him retreating to the kitchen garden, alone but for the moonlight, a very intriguing thought indeed.

“These things grow more tedious each year.” Lord Morrisette fastened his falls, missing a button on the left side. “The difficulty is the ladies make up the guest lists, and we gentlemen are left like orphaned pups, seeking any available titty, as it were.”

Percival did not respond to his host’s observation. The ladies had withdrawn, leaving the gentleman to make use of the chamber pots and the decanters, in no particular order.

“Any titty is better than no titty,” somebody observed from the opposite corner.

A philosophical discussion ensued as to the ideal shape for the female breast: large, small, soft, firm—all had their enthusiasts.

“The real quesh-tion.” Lord Morrisette blinked at his glass. “The more pertinent in-quire-ree is what shape ought the ideal female orifice follow? The assembled company will be pleased to know I’ve made a study on this.”

Spoons were rapped against glasses amid a round of cheers and jeers.

Percival hooked Tony by one elbow. “Let’s get some air, shall we?”

They left the room—ostensibly to smoke, to pass gas out of doors, or to chase housemaids—as a vote was proposed regarding the advantages of the inverted wine glass shape over the champagne flute.

“I thought nothing could be as stupid as drunken soldiers far from home and in need of a sound swiving, but I must revise my opinions.” As they headed away from the sound of male laughter, Tony sounded impatient, an odd circumstance for him.

“This is Kent,” Percival reminded him, steering him toward the stairs. “There is no greater concentration of the wealthy and aimless on the entire planet than in this county at this time of year.”

“So you’re not enjoying all the married women, chaperones, ladies’ maids, and other offerings? I could swear Hector Bellamy was trying to entice me into bed the other night with a chambermaid thrown in as sop to convention.”

Tony clearly did not find this amusing—neither did Percival. “You’re handsome, blond, and almost as tall as I am,” Percival replied, then directed Tony toward the kitchens. “I know a place where we won’t be disturbed, accosted, or propositioned.”

“As long as it’s not Canada.”

They emerged into the moonlit kitchen garden, only to spy Esther Himmelfarb seated on the bench against the wall.

She rose immediately and bobbed a curtsy. “My lords, I’ll bid you good night.”

Before Percival could signal Tony to take himself off, before he could detain the lady with anything approaching a witticism, she hared away amid a cloud of fragrance and maidenly shyness.

“Pretty girl,” Tony remarked, settling onto the bench. “She grows on one. Gladys said we ought to keep a lookout for her.”

Percy took the place beside him, though he couldn’t help cursing himself for bringing Tony along to this destination at this hour. “When did the fair Gladys pass along that sentiment?”

“We correspond, discreetly of course.”

One tended to underestimate Anthony Windham. Tony offended no one, he invited confidences, and—perhaps his greatest attribute—he was also capable of keeping them.

“What would you think of acquiring Esther Himmelfarb as a sister-in-law?”

Tony was silent a long time, which was better than had he burst out laughing.

“Her Grace would make her life hell,” he said eventually. “His Grace would accept her.”

An accurate assessment, as far as it went. “And you?”

Another protracted silence broken by the serenades of crickets, who knew nothing of titles and sang for their true loves every night.

“She’d do, Perce. You aren’t the frivolous younger son you were five years ago. Canada sorted you out, or something did. Miss Esther would follow the drum, did you ask it, and Her Grace would have to choose her battles with that one.”

“No, she would not.”

Tony’s observation and Percival’s own reply brought some order to the chaos of a man contemplating—seriously contemplating—holy matrimony for the first time. Percival sat forward on the bench, his elbows braced on his knees.

“At first, I merely thought myself smitten with Miss Himmelfarb’s good looks and self-possession. She’s so irreproachably Teutonic about the chin, you know. Stirs a man’s instincts, that chin.”

Tony maintained a politic silence, so Percy continued to work out his logic with words. “Esther Himmelfarb is lovely, but she’s also canny, and she’s resourceful. These are qualities to admire, qualities a lady with a title needs if she’s to manage well.”

And now it was time for an officer to gather his courage and confide in his little brother. “She said Starkweather had been judged by a court higher than the military, and I must not argue with its decision.”

“You told her about him?”

Percy nodded. The crickets sang, the scent of rosemary wafted on the breeze, and what had been a hunch in Percy’s mind, an instinct, solidified into an objective. “I came upon her after Layton had been pestering her on the stairs, and Tony, I had all I could do not to flatten the man right then and there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Insightful question. “Because until my ring is on her finger, such behavior would redound to Esther’s discredit… I’m also not sure she’d accept me.”

“And that,” Tony said slowly, “is why she would make an excellent Duchess of Moreland, should the day ever come.”

“Precisely. I must woo Esther, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about it.” The admission lay between them, a puzzling anomaly in their long history of late-night conversations wherein Percival typically parsed Tony’s confusions and blind turns.

“Bit of a puzzle,” Tony said, “when a gal don’t flirt, carry on, or cast any lures. You could try kissing her.”

“I expect Jasper Layton has made the same attempt, and likely others have as well.” She slept with a chair wedged under her door latch, considered all food and drink suspect, and trusted none of the ladies to guard her back, for God’s sake. A frontal assault was not going to win the lady’s heart.

“Sometimes answers come if we’re patient,” Tony said. “I’m waiting for Gladys to turn twenty-one.”

“How much longer?”

“Another bloody year, and her mama is making noises about an excellent match in the offing. Makes it difficult to twiddle one’s thumbs here in Kent when one’s love is twiddling hers back in Town.”

“So you write letters and twiddle and swill Morrisette’s brandy.”

“You’ll expect me to keep an eye out for Miss Himmelfarb, too.”

The image of Jasper Layton eyeing the lady with undisguised lust rose in Percival’s mind. “I’ll keep an eye out for her as well, and as for the wooing part, maybe something inspired will come to me.”

Percival Windham was the most aggravating specimen of an aggravating gender ever to attend an aggravating house party.

Why would he have brought Lord Tony to the kitchen garden, when he’d all but invited Esther to tryst with him there? Perhaps tryst was stretching it a bit—stretching it a lot—but a brother was a brother, and Lord Tony hadn’t shown any signs of departing the garden.

Esther had had two more days to observe Lord Percival, though from a distance. Ever since she’d appeared in Zephora Needham’s sitting room on Lord Percival’s arm, a silent conspiracy had arisen among the eligible young ladies. They might plunge daggers into one another’s backs in their attempts to win Lord Percy’s notice, but they were united in their determination to keep Esther from his lordship’s company.

“And when you’re done replacing the flowers in the front hallway and the green parlor, then you can check on the bouquets in the library, conservatory, music room, and upstairs corridors.” Lady Morrisette smiled broadly and folded beringed fingers on the blotter of her escritoire. “I do hope you’re enjoying yourself, my dear. These little tasks taken from my shoulders are such a help, and your mama was most insistent that I add you to the guest list.”

Like blazes. Mama had consented to send Esther only because Michael had already been invited and Lady Pott’s maid was nominally available to tend to Esther’s clothing.

“The company is wonderful, my lady, and I have always enjoyed working with flowers.”

Particularly when it would mean Esther had a sharp pair of shears in her hand. Sir Jasper was proving persistent, and the house party had two more weeks yet to run. She curtsied and collected a footman to accompany her to the conservatory, only to encounter Michael lounging on a bench under the potted palms.

“Michael, are you hiding?”

He got to his feet and aimed a pointed look at the footman.

“If you’d start on the roses?” Esther asked, passing the fellow the shears. He bowed and withdrew, though first he perused Michael in a manner not quite respectful.

“I am enjoying a moment of solitude. I’ve never met such a pack of females for dancing and hiking and promenading until all hours.”

Esther regarded her cousin with a female relation’s pitiless scrutiny. “You’re up until all hours playing cards, Michael. The young ladies have complained to this effect. And you’re losing.”

He sank back down on the bench. “You can’t know that. A gentleman expects a few losses when he’s wagering socially.”

That he would admit that much was not good. Esther took the place beside him. “If you socialized more and wagered less, I would not have such cause to worry.”

“I always come right sooner or later, Esther.” He assayed a smile that would not have fooled their nearly blind grandmamma. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

She could lambaste him, she could lecture him, or she could accept the olive branch he was holding out. “I have found some interesting poetry in the Morrisette library, and Quimbey is a wonderfully down-to-earth fellow.”

“Also a confirmed bachelor.”

“One more thing to like about him. Promise me you won’t play too deeply, Michael. You cannot afford the losses, and I cannot afford the scandal.”

“We are not widely known as cousins by this august assemblage, so cease carping, Esther Louise.” He rose and extended a hand to her. “I’ve seen Lord Tony Windham on your arm from time to time. Any chance you could reel him in?”

Like a carp? “He’s friendly, nothing more.” And he’d appeared more than once when Jasper Layton had come sidling about, a coincidence Esther was not going to examine too closely.

“You could try being friendly, Cousin.”

This went beyond bad advice to something approaching interfamilial treason. Esther propped her fists on her hips and glared at her cousin. “As far as these people are concerned, I have no dowry, my come out was two years ago, and I’m too tall. Do you know what friendliness would merit me in this company?”

Michael’s handsome features shuttered as Esther’s meaning sank in.

A banging of the conservatory door spared Esther whatever protest Michael would have made.

“There you are!” Lord Tony Windham covered the length of the conservatory in double time. “Miss Himmelfarb, I have need of your company this instant. Sir, you will excuse the lady. She has promised to walk the gardens with me immediately.”

He nodded at Michael, who offered Esther the merest glance to ascertain her consent before stepping back. “Miss Himmelfarb, good day. Lord Anthony.”

“Right, good day, good afternoon, good morning.” Lord Anthony linked his arm through Esther’s and lowered his voice. “Time is of the essence, my lady. You must attend to the flowers in the rose salon immediately.”

This was not the affable, smiling Lord Tony whom Esther had come to know in recent days. This was a fellow with urgent business on his mind.

“I must?”

“Indeed. It is of utmost importance that you do.” He hustled her along, not stopping until they were outside the door of the parlor in question.

The closed door.

“Lord Anthony, what’s afoot here?”

He opened the door and gave Esther a gently muscular shove. “My thanks for your company.”

The tableau that greeted Esther spoke for itself. In a dress far too low cut for daylight hours, Charlotte Pankhurst reclined on a chaise, while Lord Percival stood over her, looking exasperated.

“Miss Himmelfarb.” He bowed to her very low, his expression one of banked relief. “A pleasure to see you. Miss Pankhurst is feeling unwell, and I was just about to—”

The door from the blue salon next door opened abruptly, revealing Lady Morrisette and several of the other older women in attendance.

“I knew I heard voices!” Lady Morrisette’s shrill observation rang out over the room while her cronies crowded in behind her.

“It’s well you’re here, my lady,” Esther said before Charlotte could open her fool mouth. “I came in to check on the flowers and found Miss Pankhurst feeling poorly. Lord Percival stopped by and offered his aid when he perceived the lady was in distress. Perhaps the physician should be summoned?”

The distressed lady—for she clearly was distressed now—bolted to a sitting position. “That will not be necessary.”

Lady Morrisette rose to the challenge after the merest blink of frustrated disbelief. “Perhaps it was the kippers at breakfast, my dear. They don’t always agree with one. How fortunate his lordship and Miss Himmelfarb were here to render you aid.”

Charlotte’s expression turned from mulish to murderous as Lord Tony came sauntering in. “Greetings, all. Percy, the horses are being saddled as we speak, and you’re not yet in riding attire. Miss Himmelfarb, I believe you were to join us?”

This was farce, but from the look in Charlotte’s eyes, deadly farce.

Esther turned a dazzling smile on Lord Tony. “Just let me change into my habit, your lordship. Miss Pankhurst, I wish you a swift recovery.”

She curtsied to all and sundry, spared a dozen wilted bouquets half a thought, and sidled past Lord Tony into the hallway.

“Oh, Miss Himmelfarb!” Lady Morrisette’s voice jerked Esther to a stop as effectively as if Esther were a spaniel upon whose leash the woman had tramped.

“My lady?”

Esther’s hostess approached, glancing to the left and right as she did. “Charlotte is my goddaughter, and one can’t blame her for trying. I’ll understand if you have to depart early.”

What was the woman saying? “Are you asking me to leave?”

“Oh, good Lord, no.” Lady Morrisette’s smile was feral. “What ensues now should be very interesting indeed. I’m simply saying if you do decide your mother has an ague, for example, or your younger sister should come down with lung fever, then I will be happy to make your excuses to the company. I know my goddaughter, and she does not deal well with disappointment.”

A warning, then. “I appreciate your understanding. If you’ll excuse me, I must change into my riding habit.”

Lady Morrisette gave Esther a little salute. “Go down fighting, I always say. Enjoy your ride.”

The innuendo was cheerful, vulgar, and snide. Contemplating that Parthian shot, Esther felt as if she’d been the one to consume a quantity of bad kippers—and in the next two weeks, the feeling could only get worse.

Percival Windham did not believe in shirking his responsibilities. He boosted Esther Himmelfarb into the saddle, arranged her skirts over her boots, and remained standing by her stirrup.

“I am in your never-ending, eternal, perpetual debt, Miss Himmelfarb. I cannot thank you enough for your timely appearance in that salon. I’d received a note, you see, ostensibly from Lady Morrisette.”

Several yards away, Tony was fussing with his horse’s girth, no doubt sensible that the moment called for groveling.

“You should thank your brother, my lord, though I cannot think why he didn’t simply intervene himself.”

The lady’s words bore a slight chill, something more than politesse but less than indignation. This did not bode well for a fellow who’d reached the inescapable conclusion that he’d met his one true love.

“Had Tony come upon us alone in that room, he would have been honor bound to relate what he saw to our mother, Her Grace, and she would have been delighted to accept Miss Pankhurst as a prospective daughter-in-law. You see before you a man in receipt of nothing less than a divine pardon, Miss Himmelfarb, and you the angel of its deliverance.”

“That’s laying it on a bit thick, your lordship.”

Had her lips quirked? Was humor alight in her lovely green eyes?

“It is the God’s honest truth, madam. You will consider what boon I might grant you in repayment.”

He left her with that offer to consider—a stroke of genius if he did say so himself—and swung up onto his bay gelding. Two grooms mounted up on cobs, while Tony climbed onto a leggy gray.

“Would you like to see Morelands, Miss Himmelfarb? It’s not five miles east cross-country.”

“Lead on, your lordship. Any hour out of doors on such a lovely day is time well spent.”

Esther Himmelfarb rode with the casual grace of one who’d been put in the saddle early and often, and while her habit was several years out of fashion, her sidesaddle was in excellent repair and superbly fitted to her seat.

Five miles passed quickly, with Tony falling behind a dozen yards to confer with the grooms.

“Let’s take the next turning. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

At his suggestion, Miss Himmelfarb nudged her mare to the left, down a bridle path that ran between two high hedges.

They hadn’t gone twenty yards before she drew her horse up. “You wanted me to meet somebody in a graveyard?”

“I did, in fact.” He swung down, handed the horse off to a groom, and assisted the lady to dismount. She put her hands on his shoulders and slid to the ground, the closest they’d stood in days, close enough that his good intentions could be assailed by the scent of lavender and the feel of a slender female waist under his very hands.

“Come.” Percy grasped her gloved fingers in his. “Mrs. Wood bides here. This is the Windham family plot. All the best people are to be found in its confines.”

She gave him a look suggesting he’d gone barmy, but kept pace as he circled the small plot. Tony, may the Almighty bless and keep him, had signaled that he’d assist the grooms to water the horses at a small burn a furlong away on the other side of the hedges.

“When I was a small boy and periodically suffused with indignation, I’d come here to seek consolation. Peter always knew where to find me.”

He led her to a bench under an enormous oak.

“Peter would be the Marquess of Pembroke?”

“Tony still calls him Petey, if you can credit that.” He drew her down to the bench and kept her hand in his. He was not going to part with that pretty feminine appendage until Doomsday or something of equal magnitude required it.

“Who is the cherub? Eustace Penhaligon Drysdale Fortinbras Windham? That’s a lot of names for somebody who lived only… five years.”

“My older brother, though I never knew him. He fell from his pony, and that was that. Peter says Eustace was a daredevil but always laughing. My mother adored him, or so my father says.”

“It would break my heart to lose a child, and how your mother must have prayed for you and Lord Anthony, joining the cavalry and crossing the seas.”

In the quiet, pretty graveyard, their hands joined, he wanted to tell her that being with her, was comfortable in a way he hadn’t experienced in all his varied undertakings with the fair sex. Esther Himmelfarb’s company gave him a sense of coming home to a place he’d never been but always hoped existed.

“You would pray for your children, Esther. May I call you Esther?”

She did not withdraw her hand, but she pulled away somehow in silence. “When we are private, you may.”

“Are you going to remind me that we’re of different stations, Esther? Your grandfather was an earl. I’m a commoner, and I associate with whom I please.”

“I will pay for that scene in the rose parlor, your lordship. You will not. Commoner you might be, but I am to all appearances undowered. I did not take, I am plain, and I have not ingratiated myself to the people who matter.”

She was utterly convinced of her words, also utterly wrong.

“You are lovely. I’m glad you did not take, or some other fellow would have long since snatched you up, and I respect mightily that you have not ingratiated yourself with people who think they matter.”

She straightened, and Percival realized his tone was nearly argumentative.

“You mentioned a boon, your lordship.”

The female mind was not to be underestimated. “Don’t ask me to ignore you, my dear. You’ve proven that you’re a loyal friend, and don’t tell me you can’t use a friend too.”

Friendship was progress, wasn’t it? The exact dimensions of friendship with a female would be new territory for him, but the term seemed appropriate for the circumstances, and to Percival Windham, all females were deserving of beneficent regard, at least initially.

His new, reluctant friend was clutching his hand rather snugly, too. “I want you to teach me how to kiss.”

While Percival calculated whether he could peel off her glove and press his lips to her knuckles, Esther withdrew her hand and rose, pacing down a raked gravel walk to little Eustace’s headstone. To pursue, or to sit on the hard bench and drink in how lovely, how right, she looked among the Windhams of days past?

And how blessedly convenient her request was to Percival’s own plans for the lady.

He stuffed his gloves in his pocket and let himself stand behind her, close enough to drink in her lavender scent and to appreciate that, in riding attire, a woman was a more approachable creature indeed.

“You want me to teach you to kiss?”

She turned, the headstone at her back, which meant a marble angel’s outstretched wings protected them from view. “I want you to teach me much more than that, Percival Windham, but there’s a limit to my presumption—and to my folly. You are reputed to be proficient at kissing, and I would avail myself of your expertise.”

Kissing was wonderful folly, though when undertaken with this woman, it was also going to be in absolute earnest.

“Esther, if folly and presumption and those other obfuscations were not a consideration, what boon would you ask of me?”

She stared at a point several inches above his heart for a long, lavender-scented moment.

“I am a poor relation in training.”

Which made no sense, because upon inquiry, it turned out that Herr Jacob Himmelfarb was rumored to be quite well fixed. “And you’re a veritable hag, and children run from you when the moon is full.” He caught a strand of golden hair fluttering around her chin and tucked it back over her ear. “Ask me, Esther. I can deny you nothing.”

She stared at his chest so hard, she was perhaps trying to see his heart beat as it thundered between his ribs.

“Teach me to kiss, and I shall be content.”

No, she would not. If he had anything to say to it, she’d be burning with frustration and unspent lust.

Or perhaps, if God were generous and the lady willing, spent lust.

“We have an agreement.” He brushed his lips over her cheek, not touching her anywhere else. “I shall teach you to kiss in exchange for your having spared me a lifetime of marital misery. I do not regard this as an adequate boon to compensate you for your kindness and quick thinking, but it’s where we shall start.”

Blond brows drew down as she tugged off a riding glove and touched two fingers to the spot on her cheek where his lips had wanted badly to linger. “That’s it? You kiss my cheek and announce we have a bargain?”

“Your first lesson: anticipation or surprise should be part of any kiss that seeks to leave an impression. And rest assured, my dear, when it comes to kissing you, I shall be impressive indeed.”

He bussed her other cheek and drew away.

This did not appear to mollify the lady, nor was it intended to. “You have only two weeks, my lord. I hope the entire course of your pedagogy is not limited to lectures.”

Oh, how starchy she sounded. How determined.

“There will be practical instruction as well, Esther my dear.” And lots of it.