The Perfect Lover (Cynster 10)

As one, they halted and looked down the shadowy path toward the temple.

A figure emerged from a minor path leading down and away from the house. A man, he started along the cross path toward them; stepping into a patch of moonlight, he looked up—and saw them. With no check in his stride, he stepped sideways, onto another of the myriad paths that riddled the dense shrubberries.

His shadow vanished. Leaves rustled, and he was gone.

An instant passed, then they each drew breath, faced forward, and walked on. They didn’t speak, nor did they catch each other’s eye.

Nevertheless, each knew what the others were thinking.

The man hadn’t been a guest, nor yet a servant or helper on the estate.

He’d been a gypsy, lean, dark, and handsome.

With his unruly black hair wildly disarranged, his coat undone, his shirttails loose and flapping.

It was difficult to imagine any innocent reason for such a man to have been up at the house, let alone leaving in such a fashion at such a late hour.

On the main lawn, they met Desmond, Ambrose, and Lucy, like them, heading back to the house.

Of Kitty, they saw no sign.

Well, then, miss!” Lady Osbaldestone sank into the armchair before the hearth in her bedchamber and fixed Portia with a knowing eye. “You may now confess to me what you’re about.”

“About?” Portia stared. She’d come to assist Lady O down to breakfast; standing in the middle of the room with the light from the window full on her, she found herself transfixed by her ladyship’s sharp gaze. She opened her lips to say she wasn’t about anything, then closed them.

Lady O snorted. “Indeed. We’ll save a lot of time if you just give it to me without any roundaboutation. You usually have your nose so high you don’t even notice the gentlemen about, yet yesterday you were not only studying them, you actually deigned to converse with them.” Folding her hands on the head of her cane, she leaned forward. “Why?”

Shrewd speculation gleamed in Lady O’s ink black eyes. She was old and very wise, steeped in the ton, the relationships and families; the number of marriages she’d seen and assisted in had to be legion. She was the perfect mentor for Portia’s new tack. If she chose to help.

If Portia had the courage to ask.

Clasping her hands, she drew breath and chose her words carefully. “I’ve decided it’s time I looked for a husband.”

Lady O blinked. “And you’re considering those here?”

“No! Well . . . yes.” She grimaced. “I haven’t any experience in this sort of thing—as you know.”

Lady O humphed. “I know you’ve wasted the last seven years, at least on that front.”

“I thought,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard, “that while I’m here, as I’ve decided I do want a husband, then it would be sensible to use the opportunity to learn how to go about selecting one. How to gather the information and understanding I will need to make an informed choice—indeed, to gauge what sort of attributes I should look for. What in a gentleman is most important to me.” She frowned, refocusing on Lady O’s face. “I assume different types of ladies would have different requirements?”

Lady O waggled a hand. “Comme çi, comme ça. I would say rather that some attributes are central, while others are more superficial. The central ones—the core of what most women seek—is not that different, woman to woman.”

“Oh. Well”—Portia lifted her head—“that’s what I hoped to clarify while here.”

Lady O’s gaze remained on her face for some moments, then she relaxed back in her chair.

“I saw you assessing the gentlemen last evening—which have you decided to consider?”

The moment of decision. She would need help, at the very least some other lady with whom to discuss things, a lady she could trust. “I’d thought Simon, James, and Charlie. They seem obvious candidates. And although I suspect Desmond’s interest is fixed on Winifred, I thought I’d consider him, too, purely as an exercise in defining suitability.”

“Noticed that, did you? How do you read Winifred’s reaction?”

“Undecided. I thought I could learn something by watching her make up her mind.”

“Except that she’s thirty and still unwed.” Lady O’s brows rose. “I wonder why?”

“Maybe she simply hadn’t thought of it before . . .” Portia caught Lady O’s eyes and grimaced. “She seems perfectly sensible, from all I’ve seen.”