Jason nodded. “And a gown of heavy cambric, despite the prevailing fashion for muslins. Not just frumpish, but determinedly so. It can hardly have been straightforward to get such unappealing apparel made. All that being so, what I want to know is why.”
“Why she’s a frump?”
“Why Lenore Lester wishes to appear a frump. Not quite a disguise, for she does not go so far as to obliterate reality. However,” Jason mused, his gaze resting consideringly on Frederick, “obviously, she has gauged her intended audience well. From her confidence just now, I imagine she has succeeded thus far in convincing those who visit here that she is, indeed, as she appears.”
It was all too much for Frederick. “What makes you so sure she is not as she appears—a frump?”
Jason smiled, a wolf’s smile. He shrugged. “How to explain? An aura? Her carriage?”
“Carriage?” Frederick considered, then waved the point aside. “I’ve heard my mother lecture m’sisters that carriage makes a lady. In my sisters’ cases, it definitely hasn’t helped.”
Jason gestured dismissively. “Whatever. Miss Lester may dress as she pleases but she cannot deceive me.”
His confidence set Frederick frowning. “What about those spectacles?”
“Plain glass.”
Frederick stared. “Are you sure?”
“Perfectly.” Jason’s lips twisted wryly. “Hence, dear Frederick, there is no viable conclusion other than that Lenore Lester is intent on pulling the wool over our collective eyes. If you can disregard the impression her appearance invokes, then you would see, as I did—and doubtless Aunt Agatha before me—that beneath the rags lies a jewel. Not a diamond of the first water, I’ll grant you, but a jewel none the less. There is no reason Lenore Lester needs must wear her hair in a prim bun, nor, I’ll lay any odds, does she need to wear heavy gowns and a pinafore. They are merely distractions.”
“But…why?”
“Precisely my question.” Determination gleamed in His Grace of Eversleigh’s grey eyes. “I greatly fear, Frederick, that you will indeed have to brave the trials and tribulations of a full week of Jack and Harry’s ‘entertainments’. For we are certainly not leaving before I discover just what Lenore Lester is hiding. And why.”
NINETY MINUTES later, the hum of drawing-room conversation filling his ears, Jason studied the gown his hostess had donned for the evening with a certain degree of respect. She had entered quietly and stood, calmly scanning the throng. He waited until she was about to plunge into the mêlée before strolling to her elbow.
“Miss Lester.”
Lenore froze, then, slowly, using the time to draw her defences about her, turned to face him. Her mask firmly in place, she held out her hand. “Good evening, Your Grace. I trust you found your rooms adequate?”
“Perfectly, thank you.” Straightening from his bow, Jason moved closer, trapping her peridot gaze in his.
The facile words of glib conversation which should have flowed easily from Lenore’s socially experienced tongue evaporated. Dimly, she wondered why Eversleigh’s silver gaze should have such a mind-numbing effect on her. Then his gaze shifted, swiftly skimming her shoulders before returning to her face. He smiled, slowly. Lenore felt a peculiar tingling warmth suffuse her.
Jason allowed one brow to rise. “Permit me to compliment you on your gown, Miss Lester. I have not previously seen anything quite like it.”
“Oh?” Alarm bells rang in Lenore’s brain. Impossible not to acknowledge that her novel creation—a silk chemisette, buttoned high at the neck with long buttoned sleeves attached, worn beneath her version of a lustring sack, appropriately named as it fell in copious folds from a gathered yoke above her breasts to where the material was drawn in about her knees before flaring out to conceal her ankles—was in marked contrast to the filmy muslin or silk evening gowns of her contemporaries, cut revealingly low and gathered snugly beneath their breasts the better to display their figures. Indeed, her gown was expressly designed to serve a diametrically opposed purpose. Eversleigh’s allusion, thrown at her on the heels of his unnerving smile, confirmed her dread that, unlike the rest of the company, he had failed to fall victim to her particular snare. Disconcerted but determined not to show it, she tiled her chin, her eyes wide and innocent. “I’m afraid I have little time for London fripperies, Your Grace.”
A glint of appreciative amusement gleamed in the grey eyes holding hers.
“Strangely enough, it wasn’t your lack of accoutrement that struck me.” Smoothly, Jason drew her hand through his arm. “If I was asked for my opinion, I would have to state that in your case, Miss Lester, my taste would run to less, rather than more.”
His tone, his expression, the inflection in his deep voice, all combined to assure Lenore that her worst fears had materialised. What mischievous fate, she wondered distractedly, had decreed that Eversleigh, of all men, should be the one to see beyond her purposely drab façade?
Deciding that retreat was the only way forward, she dropped her gaze. “I fear I must attend my father, Your Grace. If you’ll excuse me?”
“I have yet to pay my respects to your father, Miss Lester, and should like to do so. I’ll take you to him, if you’ll permit it?”
Lenore hesitated, fingers twisting the long chain about her neck from which depended a pair of redundant lorgnettes. There was no real reason to refuse Eversleigh’s escort and she was loath to cry coward so readily. After all, what could he do in the middle of the drawing-room? She looked up, into his eyes. “I believe we will find my father by the fireplace, Your Grace.”
She was treated to a charming smile. With intimidating ease, Eversleigh steered her through the noisy crowd to where her father was seated in a Bath chair before the large hearth, one gouty foot propped on a stool before him.
“Papa.” Lenore bent to plant a dutiful kiss on her father’s lined cheek.
The Honourable Archibald Lester humphed. “’Bout time. Bit late tonight, aren’t you? What happened? One of those lightskirts try to tumble Smithers?”
Inured to her father’s outrageous remarks, Lenore stooped to tuck in a stray end of the blanket draped over his knees. “Of course not, Papa. I was merely delayed.”
Jason had noted how Mr. Lester’s restless gaze had fastened on his daughter the instant she had come into view. He watched as the old man’s washed-out blue eyes scanned Lenore’s face before peering up at him aggressively from under shaggy white brows.
Before her father could bark out some less than gracious query, Lenore stepped in. “Allow me to make known to you His Grace of Eversleigh, Papa.”
Mr. Lester’s steady gaze did not waver. If anything, it intensified. A sardonic gleam in his eye, Jason bowed gracefully, then accepted the hand the old man held out.
“Haven’t seen you in some years, I think,” Mr. Lester remarked. “Knew your father well—you’re becoming more like him with the years—in all respects, from everything I hear.”
Standing beside her father’s chair, Lenore studiously
