Lord Harry's Folly, Catherine Coulter [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

your loveliness and your goodness. I would feed you the finest of delicacies. Perhaps escargots from the finest French gardens, well cleaned and cooked, of course. One wouldn’t want to take a chance with your precious health.”

Had she gone too far? To her relief, Melissande sighed and seated herself in a graceful, languishing pose, and patted the chair beside her. Hetty cast a quick glance at Mr. Scuddimore, saw that his eyes were glazed in bewilderment, and said under her breath, “Come, Scuddy, sit down.”

“Nice house you have, ma’am,” Scuddy said. “I agree with Lord Harry. The draperies and furnishings are very nice. Er, maybe they’re not nice enough for you, but I’d take them, in a flash.”

“Thank you, Mr. Scuddimore. Ah, here is your sherry. Do allow me to pour for you, my lord.”

Hetty accepted the crystal goblet, her eyes never leaving Melissande’s face. “A toast to your eternal beauty, Aphrodite. But I am wrong. You’re a goddess in your own right. Aphrodite, bah. No, you’re now the goddess Melissande, goddess of beauty and grace.” She allowed the goblet to tremble ever so slightly in her hand, then raised it to her lips and sipped. She lowered the glass and gazed soulfully into the deep rich sherry. Her voice was intense with adoration. “But look at the depths of the color, ma’am, it glistens and glimmers with the lights of your hair. I beg you will forgive and understand my poor mutterings, dear Melissande, but these moments in your exquisite presence turn my very thoughts into water.”

Melissande made haste to reassure her slave.

“Oh no, my lord, your words are quite gratifying. Improvement would be nice, but you do well. It isn’t often that a gentleman such as yourself is so forthright and honest in his speech to me.”

It was fortunate that Hetty wasn’t sipping her sherry, for she would most assuredly have choked. So, my dear marquess, she thought gleefully, you don’t cozen your mistress with charming flattery. She is starving for it. A mistake, your grace. Now a woman will show you the way to your mistress’s heart.

“Beauty must always inspire truth, Melissande. Your face is the eternal food for gods, the gentleness of your person is the inspiration of the poets. Ah, dare I go on? No, I think not.”

Melissande was on the verge of placing herself in the slippers of the frail, weak heroine. For a brief moment, she even felt as though she could swoon in the most helpless fashion if this worshipful youth continued. If she swooned, she wondered if he would be strong enough to hold her. She controlled these fancies, and said, “Do tell me, Lord Monteith, you said you have viewed me from afar. Where, sir, was that? You see,” she added on a small sigh, “I’m not often out in company nowadays.”

“That is infamous. Dear ma’am, I cannot believe such a thing.”

Melissande lowered her vivid green eyes demurely and fingered the silken folds of her peignoir. “His grace, the Marquess of Oberlon, doesn’t care for the entertainment one enjoys at the theater or say, Vauxhall Gardens. At least not often. I must practically beg him.”

Scuddy leapt up, looking like a fox suddenly corned by the hounds. “The Marquess of Oberlon? Oh my God. Oh goodness. Oh, Lord Harry, say it isn’t so. We’ll be dead by morning.” Several drops of sherry splashed on Mr. Scuddimore’s red cabbage roses. He sputtered to regain his breath.

Hetty said easily, “Didn’t I tell you that our gracious hostess is a close acquaintance of Lord Oberlon, Scuddy? Well, no matter. Do sit down, Scuddy, and control yourself.” She chose to ignore the horror on Mr. Scuddimore’s face and turned quickly back to Melissande. “How very odd, to be sure. Why, Mr. Scuddimore and I often see his grace at White’s and, of course, riding in the park. But that, indeed, isn’t my concern, is it? Do forgive me, Melissande. You asked where we had drunk in your ethereal beauty, it was two weeks ago, at Drury Lane.” Pleased with herself for sowing seeds of discontent, Hetty willingly turned the topic. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Mr. Scuddimore wore a hunted look. He looked ready to write his will. She would tell him later that since he didn’t have all that many worldly goods to leave, he didn’t have to bother with a will.

Hetty was gratified to her toes when Melissande said suddenly, a warm glow in her eyes, “I believe I do remember remarking on you, my lord. Weren’t you seated in the pit, looking up at his grace’s box? Didn’t you smile at me? Ah, yes, I remember your smile, so very adoring.”

“Oh yes, adoring is just what I feel whenever I look at you, Melissande. I’m honored you remember me, for there were so many gentlemen vying to catch your eye, all of them adoring.” Hetty looked up at the ormolu clock on the mantel. Goodness, they had to leave. There was no way of knowing if Lord Oberlon would come tonight after he’d left Jack and Louisa. She quickly rose, Scuddy, scared to his toes, followed suit. Hetty managed to look chagrined and guilty and charming, a look that Millie had evaluated for her many times. “It was wrong of me to seek you out, Melissande, very wrong of me, yet I couldn’t help myself. Cupid’s arrow has pierced my breast. I know his grace such a proud, disdainful man wouldn’t be gratified if he discovered that one of your many adoring admirers had visited you unattended” Hetty let her voice trail off in meaningful silence, praying silently.

Melissande was much touched, more by Lord Monteith’s declared admiration of her person than by his concern over the marquess. She gazed at him under her lashes. He was much too young for her, admittedly, yet he was so much like the hero from her novel. She was far too experienced to believe that she would ever live under his protection,