The current fashion was for evening necklines to be low and off the shoulders, and Marissa’s was almost indelicately so, although a lace fall helped to disguise the fact she was baring so much flesh. The sleeves were mere scraps of cloth, clinging to her upper arms, while the narrow waist emphasized her hourglass figure, before the dress flared out in a great many yards of cloth. She wore her pearl drop earrings and matching necklace, a gift from her grandmother five years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, and the maid servant assigned to her by Morris had been more than competent when it came to dressing her glossy dark hair in a myriad of curls and braids, with ringlets caught up and cascading from a jeweled comb.
The dress had been designed and packed with George in mind, but George wasn’t here, and it was of Valentine she was thinking as she made her way down the stairs in her matching rose satin slippers.
Morris was waiting for her in the hall.
“Miss Rotherhild. Your grandmother advised cook that she will be taking her meal with Lord Jasper, in his sickroom.”
“Oh.” Marissa was taken aback. This wasn’t part of her plan. Suddenly thrown into confusion, she wondered if she should offer to take her own meal on a tray in her room. But before she could suggest it Morris spoke again.
“I’m to let you know that Lord Kent is still expecting you to join him for dinner. He has asked that it be served in the yellow salon. It is less formal than the dining room, and in the circumstances seemed more appropriate to the occasion.”
Did less formal mean more intimate? Marissa wondered.
“Shall I show you the way, Miss Rotherhild?” Morris inquired, his face expressionless, as still she hesitated.
“Yes, thank you, Morris.”
As she followed Morris’s sedate pace, Marissa tried to tell herself that she would have to deal with Valentine in private sometime, and it was best to get it over with. She’d worn the red dress thinking she’d be dining under the safety of her grandmother’s beady eyes, which would enable her to tease him and flirt and hone her skills, but without any fear of repercussions. In other words, she could play with fire without being burned. Now they were to be alone. What if he proposed to her again in that depressing way? Her brow wrinkled. More likely he’d want to send her back to London as quickly as possible, and then what would become of her plans concerning George?
Well, she wouldn’t go. This was supposed to be a house party and he was the host. It would be extreme bad manners to order the guests to leave. No, she was not leaving. Not until she’d accomplished what she’d come for.
In the yellow salon a small dining table and two chairs had been placed in the center of the room, where a candelabra threw a soft pool of light, leaving the remainder of the room in shadows.
Indeed, it was so shadowy that Marissa didn’t realize Valentine was waiting for her until he rose from an armchair by the window, a glass in his hand.
“Miss Rotherhild. As Morris will have told you, Lady Bethany has decided to dine upstairs with Jasper. I thought it more practical for us to eat here. I hope this arrangement is acceptable to you?”
He spoke with scrupulous politeness and Marissa answered just as formally. “Yes, thank you, Lord Kent, it is perfectly acceptable to me.”
As he walked into the candlelight she noticed he wasn’t smiling, and in fact there was a troubled look in his eyes to go with the straight line of his mouth. She wondered, cravenly, whether she was doing the right thing. But it was too late. She wasn’t going to change her mind now. So she would just have to set about changing his.
Morris cleared his throat, and Marissa noticed with amusement the slightly despairing glance he cast over his master’s evening wear. She made her own inspection. A fitted black jacket, as was the fashion, smooth across his broad shoulders; his white silk shirt was spotless and the frills attached to the front were smartly pressed, as were the cuffs; black trousers accentuating his long legs; his necktie…Ah, there was the problem. Instead of tying it about his throat, Valentine had left the white strip of cloth hanging loose, as if he had slipped it around his neck and then forgotten to do it up. Or just couldn’t be bothered.
Morris cleared his throat again and raised a hand to indicate his own immaculately tied necktie. Valentine’s brows came down in a warning frown.
“Morris, you sound as if you have a cold.”
Morris’s jowls quivered in defeat. “Do you wish the meal served at once, my lord?”
“Yes, I do, thank you, Morris.”
Morris turned away a broken man, and closed the door behind him.
Valentine drew out one of the chairs for Marissa and she took her place with a polite smile and waited for him to take his.
“I didn’t realize my grandmother was dining upstairs,” she said, hurriedly filling the silence. “I saw her earlier and she didn’t mention it.”
“If you are concerned at the propriety of our dining alone together, Miss Rotherhild, be assured that I did ask Lady Bethany’s permission and she had no objections.”
He’d asked her grandmother’s permission? If she’d ever believed Valentine to be a libertine or a gentleman with evil seduction in mind then his words would have set her mind at ease.
“I have dined in stranger situations than this, Lord Kent,” she said briskly. “On one of my parents’ expeditions we ate in an underground cave and then spent the night there, waiting for the weather to clear.” She paused, ready to enlarge on her story if he gave her the least encouragement.
But although he smiled in polite acknowledgement he did not resp
ond, and Marissa knew with a sinking heart that her fears had been well-founded. He was going to send her away—well try to. The silence between them grew longer, and when he finally began to speak it sounded to her as if his words were rehearsed.
“Actually, I am glad we have this moment alone, Miss Rotherhild. I wanted to talk to you privately.” He looked at her, the expression in his eyes hidden in the reflection of the candlelight.