all means, use whatever convention you wish,’ Tess retorted, forgetting to look dewy-eyed.
‘The females first, then,’ he said. ‘Prudence is a filly of two years: nicely built with a graceful neck. Chestnut. Her eyelashes are so long that I wonder if she can see to race.’
Tess blinked. His descriptions were certainly different from her father’s, which would have run along the lines of the filly’s parentage, markings, and breeding. She doubted Papa had ever noticed a horse’s eyelashes in his life.
‘Minuet is a filly too,’ Mr Felton continued, his eyes on Tess’s face. ‘She’s a beauty, sleek and black, with one of those tails that flows behind her when she runs, like water going downhill. She’s a thief, and likes nothing better than to steal a bit of grass or corn.’
‘Do you allow her to eat grass, then?’ Tess asked.
In reply, he asked, ‘Did your father have a specific eating programme for his horseflesh?’
‘They were only allowed to eat oats,’ Tess said. ‘Oats and apples. We used to make apples into apple-mash because the horses got so tired of plain apples. Papa was convinced that apples were key to good digestion, and that would make the horses run faster.’
Lucius thought that diet was absurd, if not abusive. Miss Essex might have agreed; she had lowered her eyes and was picking at her food with all the interest of an overfed sparrow.
For his part, Lucius had now distinguished Rafe’s wards one from the others. Annabel sparkled; she dazzled the eye and ear with her honey voice and honey hair. Imogen was like a shock to the system. Her beauty was paired with a pair of eyes so ardent that he was uncomfortable even looking at her and felt more than grateful that he wasn’t Maitland. That much emotion directed across the table must make a man queasy.
But Miss Essex — or Tess, as Rafe was calling her — had as much beauty as the other two, and it was paired with a dry sense of humour that hid itself behind propriety. He couldn’t quite decide whether her humour or her mouth was the more remarkable. She had the look of the others about her; the sisters shared retroussé noses, high cheekbones, pointed chins, and thickly fringed eyelashes.
But Tess’s mouth was unique. Her lips were plump and of a lush, deep red. But the outrageous detail, the thing that made her mouth like no mouth he’d seen before, was the tiny, scandalously sensual black mole that marked just where a dimple might be. Hers was a hussy’s mouth, though not that of a common dasher. No, obviously virginal and obviously proper Miss Essex had the mouth of a woman who would become coquette to a king, a mouth by which a courtesan could make herself celebrated on two continents.
Lucius shifted in his seat.
Thank goodness Derwent hadn’t unpacked those bags. He was no sacrifice to be offered at the altar of Rafe’s obligations to his wards. Although, in the presence of Miss Essex, one could almost imagine —
Lucius came to himself with a start. What in God’s name was he doing? Hadn’t he decided, after last year, to forgo the dubious pleasures of marriage?
He didn’t have enough to offer a woman, and especially a woman like this. She was laughing again, a husky laugh that didn’t belong to a virgin. The very sound sent warning prickles up his spine.
He turned away.
Late that night
‘I’ve quite made up my mind to marry him,’ Annabel said. She was curled up against one of the posts of Tess’s bed, wearing a chemise so worn it had been consigned to bed clothing. She tugged the chemise over her bare toes: none of the sisters had owned bed slippers for years.
For once, Josie didn’t respond with sarcasm. ‘I suppose you mean the duke?’ she asked. She was curled against the opposite bedpost, a blanket pulled around her shoulders. She had clearly had a good cry after supper, but everyone was tactfully ignoring her swollen eyes.
‘I think you could do better,’ Imogen put in. She had burrowed straight into Tess’s bed and was curled like a sleek little cat against the pillows. ‘Our guardian obviously drinks more than he ought, and he’s lost his figure. To be blunt, Holbrook is a sot.’
‘That’s extremely harsh,’ Tess objected. ‘But while I hate to disappoint you, Annabel, it is my definite opinion that Rafe does not mean to marry.’
‘I was referring not to our esteemed guardian, but to the Earl of Mayne,’ Annabel said. ‘After watching Holbrook single-handedly empty a decanter of brandy, I decided I want a husband who is not yet pickled.’
‘Tess, don’t you think that Mayne deserves someone nicer than Annabel?’ Josie inquired innocently.
‘Extremely unkind of you,’ Annabel said. But she was grinning. ‘Believe me, Josie, if Mayne turns out to be as rich as our guardian, I will be kind to him all day. Why wouldn’t I? The only thing that makes me crotchety is poverty. Well, poverty and Scotland.’
‘I miss Scotland and -’ But Josie broke off and swallowed.
‘You can’t honestly say that you miss Scotland,’ Annabel said. ‘Not that soggy old house and the way it smelled like peat every time it rained. Have you ever seen a counterpane as lovely as this one?’ She smoothed the fabric with her hand. ‘My sheets are as fine as silk itself. I’ve never seen the like in my life. And look-’ She gestured upward.
All four sisters obediently stared up at the midnight blue canopy that graced Tess’s four-poster.
‘No water blotches!’ Annabel pointed out. ‘The roof doesn’t leak.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Josie objected. ‘There’s another floor above us, you know.’
‘As there was in the bedchamber I had at home,’ Annable argued. ‘Not to mention the attic above that. But there wasn’t a room in Papa’s house that didn’t have watermarks on the ceiling, even so. Sometimes I thought the nursery had a regular sieve for a roof. And why Papa never-’
‘Don’t say anything mean about Papa!’ Josie said. Her lips set in a firm line. ‘Don’t you dare!’
Annabel reached over and tweaked her little sister’s toe. ‘All right, you little termagant, I won’t.’
‘He’s not here to defend himself,’ Josie said, her voice arching high in a way that obviously embarrassed her. ‘I wish he were here. He would have laughed himself blue in the face over Lady Clarice.’
Imogen smiled faintly. ‘Hush about my future mother-in-law.’ But somehow the ancient jest that she would marry Maitland someday fell flat now that they’d actually seen the man in England, and met his mother, and heard of his engagement from lips other than his.
Tess bit her lower lip and scooted over a few inches so that she was sitting just beside Imogen. They had always known Imogen’s love for Maitland would come to nothing, but it was so hard to tell her so.
She met Annabel’s eyes and
