day, ladies,” he murmured, his voice pleasing in a masculine way. “Lady Chastity,” he said as he removed his tricorn hat and bowed before her. “How lovely you look this morning. The walk has added an invigorating glow to your skin.”
Nothing. Not even the faintest fluttering in her belly. She had heard the other village girls—most of them older women—talk of Caleb Graham’s handsomeness. His desirability. Chastity saw it perfectly well. He was a handsome man, and his broad shoulders and chest belied a virile manliness that attracted the fairer sex. But nothing feminine stirred within her.
“Good day, sir,” was all she replied, for she was unable to make any idle or pleasant conversation with the opposite sex, however much she longed to possess the ability.
Chastity could not help but notice that his eyes had darkened as he replaced his hat atop his brown hair. Her aloofness was not what the baron was used to when he chatted with females. But Chastity was not blessed with the gift of artful flirtation. She didn’t know how. Didn’t understand it. Hers was a purity of the mind, soul and body. A paragon above the temptations of mortal man.
“Shall you attend the green this evening?” Caleb’s query was directed at her, while his gaze was firmly fixed upon her ample décolletage, which she discreetly covered with the corner of her silk shawl.
“I am afraid not. Do excuse us, sir, for we must be on our way.”
The censure in her voice startled him, causing an expression of maligned vanity to cross his features. “Well, then, good day,” he grumbled, and Chastity heard him mutter, “Frigid shrew” beneath his breath as he stabbed the ground with his walking stick and proceeded up the high street.
“Pay him no heed,” Prudence whispered next to her. “He doesn’t know a thing about you, and his assessment is wrong. Besides, I’ve heard stories about him. He’s not the sort you’d wish to set your heart upon.”
With a nod and a sigh, Chastity continued to stroll with her sisters down the cobbled street, taking in the bustling activity of the May Day preparations as she forced the interaction out of her mind. Caleb was handsome, so why couldn’t she bear to look at him, much less converse with him? Chastity feared she was the oddest female in Christendom. She most certainly was unlike any of the other young ladies of her acquaintance.
“You have such a way with the opposite sex,” her sister Mary chortled. “Would it hurt to bestow a smile upon one?”
Chastity did not take the bait. What did Mary know, she thought savagely. Mary didn’t realize the mental anguish Chastity suffered, the pain that came from knowing she wasn’t like other women. How would Mary feel if she were to discover that the desires of man and woman would never be hers to experience?
“Come, Chastity, you could have offered him a bit of encouragement. Caleb Graham has been hungering for you for a year, at least. Give the poor fellow a smile, or heaven forbid, a dance at the assembly rooms. Who knows, perhaps you might even enjoy shedding your mantle of purity.”
“Leave off, Mary,” Prudence demanded. “You’re just being hurtful and spiteful. Besides, it’s not done to stop in the middle of the road and talk to a man. It looks gauche and common, and Chastity was quite right to rebuff the baronet’s presumptive behavior.”
Mary sent Prudence a horrid glare. “A tip of the hat and a bland ‘good day’ is presumptive? Dear me, Prudence, you must come down from your tower room and live amongst the real world. I vow, you would have a fit of apoplexy at some of the things that have been whispered to me by the opposite sex.”
“Well, then,” Mercy said cheerily, changing the course of the conversation. “Shall we stop at the baker’s and have a Bakewell tart? I will buy them, for I have brought my pin money.”
Chastity glanced at her youngest sister. Mercy. The virtue of kindness, trying her utmost to make her sisters the best of friends, not to mention lessening the sting of Baron Graham’s painful assessment of Chastity.
“Come,” Mercy pleaded, “we shall all have a little sweet for the walk home.”
“We really shouldn’t dally,” Chastity replied. “Although, a quick stop for a tart to eat on the way wouldn’t be a bother, would it?”
Prudence, the second eldest, who was always restrained and temperate, declined. “None for me, thank you. But naturally the three of you may indulge.”
Chastity nodded in understanding before fixing her gaze on her three sisters. They were paragons. Everyone thought them utterly perfect. Yet each of them knew of the other’s desire to be anything but what they were. On the outside, they were ethereal models of the womanly ideal. Inside, they were empty vessels, trapped by the virtues they were born to embrace and embody.
“Well, come along, then,” Mercy said as she held her bonnet in place with her hand as a stiff wind gusted up, threatening to take it from her flaxen curls. “My mouth is positively watering at the thought of a tart.”
Within minutes they were in the cramped little baker’s, inhaling the fresh aroma of pastry and almonds and sweet-cream icing. “Oh, heavenly,” Chastity found herself murmuring. Her stomach rumbled in response to the scents. Or perhaps, she thought, glancing over her shoulder at Prue, who waited by the door, it was her sister’s long-denied belly she heard. She could see the hunger in Prue’s eyes, and Chastity tilted her head, indicating the wooden shelf where countless treats awaited them. Typical of Prudence, she pinched her lips and shook her head. Denial was all Prue knew.
“There,” Mercy announced, passing them each a tart as they stood outside the baker’s. She had bought one for Prue, but she refused it, so Mercy handed the tart to a small child who stood beside her mother, who was busy selling irises from a wicker basket.
“Oh, thank you, luv,” the woman said gratefully as her daughter reached for the tart and shoved it hungrily into her mouth.
“'Tis no trouble. The eve of May Day,” Mercy replied, “is not complete without a Bakewell tart.”
As Chastity smiled at the little girl, her gaze caught something radiant in the middle of the road. A man riding a pure white horse that was adorned with a glimmering gold bridle.
He was handsome, more striking than any man she had ever seen. He was tall and fair-haired, and his clothes appeared as though they were spun of gold gossamer threads. His tailoring was richly embroidered, embellished with layers of lace and cloth-covered buttons. He did not resemble a puffed-up peacock like so many gentlemen did in the current fashion. He was every inch a man, a feat nearly impossible to achieve considering his elaborately embroidered frock coat and waistcoat.
As his white horse trotted elegantly by, his eyes caught Chastity’s stare. The stranger inclined his head and moved along, forcing Chastity’s gaze to follow him as he made his way through the carts and carriages that littered the high street.
Who was he? she wondered, still entranced by the stranger. He didn’t live in the village. She would have seen him before now. Heavens, all the village women would have been talking about him. She would have seen him at the assembly rooms, or at a tea or luncheon or something.
As he made his way up the steep incline of the road, he glanced back at her once more over his shoulder. He did not stare at her like other men did, with a mixture of intrigue and lust. He was a gentleman. A polite gentleman.
But then he was gone, and Chastity realized that she had
