“Still, I don’t suppose Mrs. Webb will have you darning in London. Oooh!” Melly hugged herself. “How I envy you, Clarissa! Just imagine being in the capital, surrounded by beaux and London swells—just like Mr. Lester.”
Clarissa lifted her head, blue eyes alight. “Indeed, I really can’t wait! It will be beyond anything great—to find oneself in such company, solicited by elegant gentlemen. I’m sure they’ll eclipse the country gentlemen—well—” she shrugged “—how could they not? It will be unutterably thrilling.”
The fervour behind the comment made Sophie glance up. Clarissa’s eyes shone with innocent anticipation. Looking down at the tiny stitches she was inserting in a tear in one of Jeremy’s cuffs, Sophie frowned. After a moment, she ventured, “You really should not judge all London gentlemen by Mr. Lester, Clarissa.”
Unfortunately, her cousin mistook her meaning.
“But there can’t be many more elegant, Sophie. Why, that coat he wore to the ball was top of the trees. And he did look so dashing this morning. And you have to admit he has a certain air.” Clarissa paused for breath, then continued, “His bow is very graceful—have you noticed? It makes one wonder at the clumsiness of others. And his speech is very refined, is it not?”
“His voice, too,” put in Melly. She shivered artistically. “So deep it reaches inside you and sort of rumbles there.”
Sophie pricked her finger. Frowning, she put it in her mouth.
“And his waltzing must just be divine—so…so powerful, if you take my meaning.” Clarissa frowned as she considered the point.
“We didn’t hear much of his conversation, though,” Melly cautioned.
Clarissa waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, that’ll be elegant, too, I make no doubt. Why, Mr. Lester clearly moves in the best circles—good conversation would be essential. Don’t you think so, Sophie?”
“Very likely.” Sophie picked up her needle. “But you should remember that one often needs to be wary of gentlemen of manifold graces, like Mr. Lester.”
But Clarissa, starry-eyed and rosy-cheeked, refused to accept the warning. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sure you’re wrong, Sophie. Why, with all his obvious experience, I’m sure one could trust Mr. Lester, or any gentleman like him. I’m sure they’d know just how things should be done.”
Mentally Sophie goggled. She was quite sure Jack Lester, for one, would know just how “things” were done—but they certainly weren’t the “things” Clarissa imagined. “Truly, Clarissa, trust me when I say that you would be very much safer with a gentleman without Mr. Lester’s experience.”
“Oh, come now, Sophie.” Puzzled, Clarissa eyed her curiously. “Have you taken him in aversion? How could you? Why, you’ll have to admit he’s most terribly handsome.”
When it became clear neither Clarissa nor Melly was going to be satisfied with anything short of an answer, Sophie sighed. “Very well. I’ll concede he’s handsome.”
“And elegant?”
“And elegant. But—”
“And he’s terribly…” Melly’s imagination failed. “Graceful,” she finally said.
Sophie frowned at them both. “And graceful. Yet—”
“And his conversation is elegant, too, is it not?”
Sophie tried a scowl. “Clarissa…”
“Is it not?” Clarissa was almost laughing, her natural exuberance bubbling through her recently acquired veneer of sophistication.
In spite of herself, Sophie could not restrain her smile. “Very well,” she capitulated, holding up one hand. “I will admit that Mr. Lester is a paragon of manly graces. There—are you satisfied?”
“And you did enjoy your waltz with him, didn’t you? Susan Elderbridge was in transports, and she had only a country dance.”
Sophie didn’t really want to remember that waltz, or any other of her interactions with Jack Lester. Unfortunately, the memories glowed bright in her mind, crystal clear, and refused to wane. As for his eyes, she had come to the conclusion that their image had, somehow, impinged on her brain, like sunspots. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could see them, that certain light which she trusted not at all in their deep blue depths.
She blinked and refocused on Clarissa’s face, suffused with ingenuous curiosity. “Mr. Lester is very…skilled in such matters.”
With that global statement, Sophie took up her needle, hoping her cousin would take the hint.
But Clarissa was not finished. Her arms sweeping wide to encompass all they had discussed, she concluded, her voice dramatic, her expression that of one convinced beyond doubt, “So we are agreed: Mr. Lester is a paragon, a maiden’s dream. How then, Sophie can you not yearn to find happiness in his arms?”
“Well—his, or someone like him,” Melly added, forever prosaic.
Sophie did not immediately raise her head. Her cousin’s question was, indeed, very like the one she had been asking herself before Clarissa and Melly had entered. Was what she felt simply the inevitable response to such as Jack Lester? Or was it— Abruptly, she cut off the thought. “Indeed, Clarissa,” she replied, shaking out Jeremy’s shirt and folding it up, “Mr. Lester is the sort of gentleman of whom it’s most unwise to have such thoughts.”
“But why?”
Sophie looked up and saw genuine bewilderment in Clarissa’s lovely face. She grimaced. “Because he’s a rake.”
There. It was said. Time and more that she brought these two down to earth.
Their reaction was immediate. Two pairs of eyes went round, two mouths dropped open.
Clarissa was the first to recover. “Really?” Her tone was one of scandalized discovery.
“No!” came from Melly. Then, “How can you tell?”
Clarissa’s expression stated that was her question, too.
Sophie stifled her groan. How could she explain? A subtle something in his eyes? An undertone in his deep voice? Something in his suave manner? Then she recalled she had known instantly, in the moment she had seen him framed in Lady Asfordby’s doorway. “His arrogant air. He carried himself as if the world were his oyster, the women in it his pearls.”
His to enjoy at his whim. Sophie had surprised even herself with her words.
Both Clarissa and Melly fell silent. Then, frowning slightly, Clarissa glanced up. “I don’t mean to doubt you, Sophie, but, you know, I don’t think you can be right—at least, not in this instance.”
Resigned to resistance, Sophie merely raised her brows.
Encouraged, Clarissa ventured, “If Mr. Lester were a rake, then surely Mama would not be encouraging him. And she is, you know. Why, she was perfectly thrilled to see him this morning—you know she was. And it was her suggestion he sit with us, beside you.”
That, of course, had been the other niggling concern that had been inhabiting Sophie’s mind. All Clarissa said was true; the only point Sophie was yet unsure of was what, exactly, her aunt was about. And that, as she well knew, could be just about anything. Given that Mr. Lester was a rake, one of the more dangerous of the species if her instincts were any guide, then Lucilla might just be grasping the opportunity to have her, Sophie, brush up on the social skills she would doubtless need once they were established in London. In the present circumstances, safe in the bosom of her family in their quiet country backwater, there was no real danger involved.
“Anyway,”