He was not even sure he could cling to the hope that she was sensible. He thought of her plans for Gerald and of her hiring herself a maid when she did not even know if the girl could dress hair, and had to make an effort to repress a grin.
He should feel alarm. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she was nothing even remotely like the ideal wife he had described to Gerald less than a week before.
“I think I look quite gloriously splendid,” she said to him, twirling before the full-length pier glass. “And I am determined to enjoy admiring myself while I may. I am quite sure that as soon as we set foot inside Lady Trevor’s house and I see all the other ladies, my vanity will be instantly deflated.” She laughed merrily.
Alice curtsied and left the room quietly.
“You will be the belle of the ball,” he said. “You look very lovely.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, curtsying deeply, “but you lie through your teeth. Oh, you match me, Miles. You are all silver and green. Did it take you forever to tie your neckcloth that way?”
“I have a valet,” he said, “who fancies himself an artist. Turn around.”
“Like this?” she said, turning her back on him and extending her arms to the sides.
“Like that,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his satin evening coat and drew out the diamond necklace he had bought that morning before returning home. He placed it about her neck and secured it. “A wedding present, Abby.” He kissed her just below the clasp of the necklace.
“Oh,” she said, fingering it and turning to look in a mirror. “Oh, it is beautiful. You bought it for me, Miles? As a wedding present?” She whirled about to look at him. “But I have nothing for you.”
He smiled at her. “One does not give gifts in order to receive something in return,” he said. “I wanted to buy you something.”
“Thank you,” she said, and her eyes were suspiciously bright for a moment. “No one has bought me a present for years.” She hesitated, took one step forward, threw her arms up about his neck, and kissed him hard on the lips. “And now I will be squashing you and earning the eternal enmity of your valet. I was wondering what to wear to fill the bare expanse between my chin and my bos . . .” She flushed. “I was wondering what to wear and realizing that I had only one choice—Mama’s old pearls, which are not real pearls at all, though they are a quite convincing imitation, and are too heavy and too long for this gown. Or nothing at all. No jewelry, that is. But now I have these. They are gorgeous, Miles. They must have cost you the earth.”
“The earth and half a star,” he said. “Shall we go?”
“If my stomach would just turn itself the right way up again,” she said, “and the bones return to my knees. I have never been so frightened in my life.”
“You, frightened?” he said, smiling. “Is it possible?”
“It is,” she said. “But I lied. I have been more frightened before—when I came to call on you that first time, though I was expecting the old earl, of course. I would have died outright if I had known it was you I must face. I thought you were his secretary at first. And on our wedding day. And when I had to walk into the drawing room alone to meet your mother and your sisters.”
He laughed and offered her his arm. “Let’s see you through one more ordeal, then,” he said. “Soon you will have faced all the terrors that life has to offer, Abby, and there will be nothing left to do but enjoy what remains of it.”
“There will be at least one more to face,” she said. “I once had to watch a woman suffer through labor pains and give birth.”
The earl looked down at her as she stopped talking abruptly. She was deeply flushed. Even her neck and bosom were rosy. He grinned at her, though she did not turn her head to note his expression.
And if she was frightened, he thought, then he was feeling decidedly nervous himself. Foolishly he had forgotten when he had accepted his invitation to Lady Trevor’s ball that she was Frances’s aunt. And as luck would have it, Frances had arrived in town in time for the event and it had suddenly been transformed into her come-out ball.
Nothing could be less fortunate or more awkward:Frances and Abigail making their debut into society on the same evening and at the same event.
He had called on Lord Galloway that morning. Lady Galloway and Frances had been nowhere in sight. But Lord Galloway had known about his marriage and was very civil in his congratulations. Nothing had been said about any imagined arrangement with Frances. Perhaps it was all in his mother’s head, he thought hopefully.