And that was when the miracle happened: the door of the salon flew open and there stood a strapping young man of twenty-two, Lord Richard Pfanzlig, the exact same “certain someone” Tess had alluded to.
Tess hadn’t planned this meeting; the spooky timeliness of his appearance raised the hairs on her arms. He looked windblown, flakes of snow glistening in his thick dark hair; his commanding nose shone red from the cold, and his cloak swirled dramatically around him.
Tess’s heart quickened, though he wasn’t here for her. She didn’t want him for herself or envy Jeanne (more than usual), but he cut a romantic figure, and Tess was not immune to romance, in spite of everything.
He whipped off his cloak, tossed it toward a chair, and missed, but no matter. All eyes were upon his finely fitted maroon-and-gold doublet, his trunk hose, and his shiny, shiny boots. Or maybe his eyes, which smoldered at Jeanne from across the room.
Jeanne couldn’t bear it. She squeaked and grew intent upon the shepherdess in her embroidery hoop. Tess sighed inwardly, praying her shy sister wouldn’t spoil this opportunity.
“I heard Lord Chauncerat intended to ask for your hand,” cried Lord Richard, clasping a fist to his chest. “Am I too late?”
So that was why he’d come. Tess resumed her stitching with some satisfaction. Lord Chauncerat, of course, had made no proposal; he was a Daanite, uninterested in women, but he kept it secret. Tess had found out, or more accurately, something in his gaze had reminded her of Cousin Kenneth and she’d guessed. For her silence, Lord Chauncerat had permitted her to take his name in vain and start the tiniest rumor that he might have a modicum of interest in Jeanne.
That was all it took at court. You put a copper coin in the gossip engine, every tongue polished it up, and it came out unrecognizably golden. By the time the rumor reached Lord Richard’s ears, it would’ve been inflated to ridiculous proportions. He’d burst in as if expecting to interrupt the wedding itself.
Jeanne wasn’t finding her voice. Tess bailed her out: “Indeed, Lord Richard, you have arrived just in time.”
His face lit up as if Jeanne herself had spoken, and not Jeanne’s oracle at the other end of the couch. Tess didn’t mind. She’d have plunged her hand into her sister’s back and moved her mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy’s if that would have helped.
Lord Richard crossed the room in three strides and dropped to one knee before Jeanne. The embroidery stand was in his way; Tess edged over and hooked it with her foot. Jeanne’s eyes widened as the frame drifted away, leaving her no choice but to meet Lord Richard’s eyes.
She looked at her hands. Tess cursed silently.
It wasn’t that Jeanne didn’t like this suitor; the problem was entirely that she did, rather a lot, and that she’d been raised on the strictures of St. Vitt to keep her desires severely under wraps. It was devilishly hard to encompass both.
Tess felt for her, but this was important.
Lord Richard took Jeanne’s hands—clever Richard!—and Jeanne looked up at last, flushing pink all over. She was beautiful even pink, Tess noted with some satisfaction. Richard seemed to think so, too, because he pressed her knuckles to his lips.
Tess tried not to watch, even though she was supposed to be the chaperone, guaranteeing that nothing got out of hand. Privately she sort of wished things would get out of hand, just a little. It would have eased her heart to think that even pure, virginal Jeanne was a mere mortal.
As if Lord Richard could read Tess’s mind, he released Jeanne’s hands and was back on his feet again, two yards of decency between them. Tess sighed.
“Jeanne,” he said gruffly, his heart evidently in his throat, “I want to marry you. Would you have a fellow like me?”
A rich, handsome fellow who seemed utterly smitten with her? Unless she was terribly stupid. Tess snipped a stray thread with her scissors; she hadn’t raised Jeanne to be stupid. She hadn’t made every mistake she could possibly make, hadn’t given everything up, so that Jeanne could sit there, saying nothing, as if she were stupid.
“Say yes, Nee,” Tess mumbled around the needle between her teeth.
Jeanne rose, her green day dress draping demurely around her, and curtsied to Lord Richard. There should have been no suspense, but Tess found herself sweating all the same, her eyes glued to the duo, tall and dark facing short and pale. Lord Richard fidgeted with a button on his doublet, which Tess found humanizing and endearing. If Jeanne should turn him down, it was going to take a lot of looking to find another suitor half this well suited.
In a voice so sure and strong that Tess couldn’t quite believe it was her sister speaking, Jeanne said, “Lord Richard, I would happily accept your offer, but do you understand my family’s situation? My father was unjustly stripped of his law license, and we’ve struggled ever since. I should feel ashamed to put too great a burden on your house, and so I cannot agree to marry you without being certain you know how many obligations come with me.”
Tess’s jaw dropped; this was not part of the script. That is, it was the truth—the family desperately needed Jeanne to marry for money—but it was nothing anyone would, or could or should, utter aloud. This was a game everyone played but no one acknowledged. Tess felt vaguely sick. She’d worried that Jeanne would look too mercenary, and here was Jeanne herself, laying it all out on the table.
Lord Richard, however, was smiling, and not a strained what have I gotten myself into? smile, but a smile full of warmth and gentleness that almost took Tess’s breath away. “My dear, there is no burden your family could place upon my house that we could not easily bear, or that I would not willingly take on for your sake.”
Saints above, he was perfect. Jeanne deserved no less. How had they gotten so lucky? If Tess felt a self-pitying pang for her own ill fortune, for Will and Dozerius and everything else she’d lost, she suppressed the feeling almost before she noticed it. This was not the time; the moment was all Jeanne’s, as was right.
Jeanne, her courage spent, returned to her bashful, blushing self again. She stammered something adorably grateful; Richard, all passion, took her hands once more. He shot a glance at Tess, asking permission. Tess nodded curtly and turned her eyes resolutely to her hemming.
She didn’t keep them there. She peeked through her lashes and thought her heart would burst as Lord Richard chastely kissed Jeanne’s cheek. Tess recalled such joys, even if she would never again experience them; indeed, she wanted more than that for Jeanne—he should kiss her lips at least!—but Lord Richard came from a devout household, as strict as theirs, and passion could not override his upbringing. Not today, anyway.
He didn’t linger, either, because it would not do to have tales told. One of Jeanne’s great appeals, in the absence of money, was that she had not the faintest whiff of scandal about her. She was innocence incarnate. Lord Richard wouldn’t compromise himself by compromising her.