Unable to suppress a rakish grin at this forthright declaration, Jason brought his considerable charm to bear, softening his smile as he said, “I greatly fear you have misjudged me, Miss Lester.” His voice dropped in tone, a soothing rumble. “I would rather class you as one of the attractions of Lester Hall—the sort of attraction that is frequently seen but rarely appreciated.”
If it hadn’t been for the odd intensity in his curious grey gaze, Lenore might have taken his words as nothing more than an elegant compliment. Instead, she felt shaken to the core. Her heart, for so long safe beneath her pinafore, thudded uncomfortably. With an enormous effort she dragged her eyes from his.
And spied Lord Percy Almsworthy doggedly pressing through the crowd. He fought free and gained the stairs. Lenore could have fallen on his thin chest with relief. “Lord Percy! How delightful to see you again.”
“Hello, hello,” replied his lordship, trying to sound cheery as he tweaked his wilting collars up around his chin. “Damned crush, what?”
“I’ll get a footman to take you to your room immediately.” Lenore raised her hand, beckoning two footmen forward. “His Grace was just about to go up,” she lied, not daring to glance Eversleigh’s way.
“The grey suite, I believe,” came a low murmur from her right. To her surprise, Lenore felt long fingers close about her hand. She swung to face him but, before she could do more than blink, His Grace of Eversleigh raised her fingers to his lips and brushed a light kiss across their sensitive tips.
Jason paused to savour the flush of awareness that rose to his hostess’s cheeks and the stunned expression that invaded her eyes before reluctantly conceding, “Until later, Miss Lester.”
Skittering sensation prickled Lenore’s skin. Rocked, she simply stared up at him. To her consternation, a subtle smile twisted his mobile lips before, with a polite nod, he released her hand and, moving past her, ascended the stairs in the footman’s wake.
Speechless, Lenore turned to stare at his broad back, wishing she could have thought of some comment to wipe the smug smile from those silver eyes. Still, she reflected as her senses returned, at least he had gone.
Turning back to the hall, she was jolted from her daze by an aggrieved Lord Percy.
“Miss Lester—my room, if you please?”
Chapter Two
“WELL? HOW LONG do you plan to stay, now you’ve decided Miss Lester will not suit?”
Jason abandoned the view from his windows, his brows lifting in unfeigned surprise. “My dear Frederick, why the rush to so summarily dispense with Miss Lester?”
His expression bland, Frederick strolled forward to sit on the cushioned window seat. “Having known you since seducing the writing master’s daughter was your primary aim in life, my imagination does not stretch the distance required to swallow the idea of your marrying a frump. As Lenore Lester is undeniably a frump, I rest my case. So, how soon can we leave without giving offence?”
Taking a seat opposite his friend, Jason looked thoughtful. “Her…er…frumpishness was a mite obvious, don’t you think?”
“A matter beyond question,” Frederick assured him.
“Even, perhaps, a shade too obvious?”
Frederick frowned. “Jason—are you feeling quite the thing?”
Jason’s grey eyes gleamed. “I’m exceedingly well and in full possession of my customary faculties. Such being the case, I am, of course, considerably intrigued by Miss Lester.”
“But…” Frederick stared. “Dash it—she wore a pinafore!”
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