And suddenly, her cheeks turned a shade of pink that, while very fetching, clashed with the silk on the walls. To hide her confusion, she muttered, ‘That is good to know. The damage was confined, then, to some unimportant part of the house?’
And it was his turn to feel awkward. ‘Actually, it was to the ballroom. When I left, it was quite unusable.’
And her blush dissolved into a fit of suppressed giggles. ‘It devastates me to hear it, your Grace.’
‘I thought it might. I will leave you to your work, then. But if you need help in the matter of the upcoming event, you will call upon me?’
She smiled again. ‘Of course.’
‘Because I am just across the hall.’ He pointed.
‘I know.’ She had forgiven him. At least for now. He turned to leave her, and glanced with puzzlement at a lone remaining Meissen figurine, turned face to the wall and occupying valuable space on his wife’s bookshelf. He shook his head at the carelessness of the servants, and turned it around, so that it faced properly into the room. ‘I will send someone to have this removed, if it annoys you.’
She shook her head. ‘Do not bother. I have grown quite used to it.’
Chapter Thirteen
The night of the ball had finally arrived, and Adam hoped that his wife was not too overwrought by the prospect. He had nerves enough for both of them.
Clarissa would be there, of course. He combed his hair with more force than was necessary. Another meeting with her was unavoidable. He could not hold a party and invite his friend, only to exclude his wife. There was very little to do about Clarissa without cutting Tim out of his social circle entirely. And he could hardly do that. They had been friends since childhood. Tim’s unfortunate marriage to the shrew, and Adam’s regrettable behaviour over her, had done nothing to change it, although Adam almost wished it had. It would have been so much easier had Tim called him out and shamed him in public, or at least cut him dead. But the veneer of civility, when they were together at a social gathering, was a torture much harder to endure.
He hoped that the presence of Penny, and success of the evening, would cool the look in Clarissa’s eye.
There was a change in the light that fell upon the table, and a discreet clearing of a throat.
He looked up into the mirror to see his wife standing in the connecting doorway behind him.
He didn’t realise he had been holding his breath until he felt it expel from his lungs in a long, slow sigh. It was his wife, most certainly. But transformed. The gown was a pale green, and with her light hair and fair skin, she seemed almost transparent. As she came towards him, he imagined he was seeing a spirit, a ghost that belonged to the house, that had been there long before he had come.
And then the light from his lamp touched the gown and the sarsenet fabric shifted in colour from silver to green again, and the silver sequins sparkled on the drape of netting that fell from her shoulder to the floor.
Even her glasses, which had seemed so inappropriate and unfeminine when he first met her, completed the image as the lenses caught the light and threw it back at him, making her eyes shimmer.
His friends would not call her a beauty, certainly. She was most unlike all the other women who were lauded as such. But suddenly it did not matter what his friends might say. It only mattered what he knew in his heart to be true—she looked as she was meant to look. And now that he had removed her from whatever magic realm she had inhabited, he was overcome with the desire to protect her from the coarse harshness of the world around them.
She had reached his side, and tipped her head quizzically to the side. ‘Is it all right?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘Very much so. You are lovely.’
‘And you are a liar.’ But he could see the faint blush on her cheek as she said it.
‘You’re welcome. It is a most unusual gown. Vaguely Greek, I think, and reminiscent of the Penelope of legend. And therefore, most suitable for you. Are you ready to greet our guests?’
‘Yes.’ But he saw the look in her eyes.
‘And now you are the one who is lying.’
‘I am as ready as I am ever likely to be.’
‘Not quite. There is something missing. I meant to deal with it earlier, but I quite forgot.’
He removed the jewel box from where he had left it in the drawer of his dresser. ‘It seems, in the hurry to marry, that we forgot something. You have no ring.’
‘It is hardly necessary.’
‘I beg to differ. A marriage is not a marriage without a ring. Although the solicitors and banks did not comment, my friends must have noticed.’
She sighed. ‘You do not remember, do you? You gave me a ring, when we were in Gretna. I carry it with me sometimes. For luck.’ She pulled a bent horse nail from her fine silk skirts and slipped it on to her finger. ‘Although perhaps I need the whole shoe for it to be truly lucky. I do not know.’
He stared down at it in horror. ‘Take that from your finger, immediately.’
‘I had not planned to wear it, if that is your concern. It is uncomfortably heavy, and hardly practical.’
He held out his hand. ‘Give it here, this instant. I will dispose of it.’
She closed her hand possessively over it. ‘You will do nothing of the kind.’
‘It is dross.’ He shook his head. ‘No, worse than that. Dross would be better. That is a thing. An object. An abomination.’
‘It is a gift,’ she responded. ‘And, more so, it is mine. You cannot give it me, and then take it back.’
‘I had no idea what I was doing. I was too drunk to think clearly. If I had been sober, I would never have allowed you to take it.’
‘That is not the point,’ she argued. ‘It was a symbol. Of our …’ She was hunting for the right word to describe what had happened in Scotland. ‘Our compact. Our agreement.’
‘But I have no desire for my friends to think I would seal a sacrament with a bent nail. Now that we are in London, I can give you the ring that you by rights deserve.’
She sighed. ‘It is not necessary.’
‘I believe that it is.’
‘Very well, then. Let us get on with it.’
Another proof that his wife was unlike any other woman in London. In his experience, a normal woman would have been eager for him to open the jewel case on his desk, and beside herself with rapture as he removed the ring. The band was wide, wrought gold, heavy with sapphires, set round with diamonds. ‘Give me your hand.’
She held it out to him, and he slipped it on to her finger.
It looked
