Lord Townsend indicated that she should proceed before him, and she did, feeling the weight of five pairs of eyes as they left the parlor. Why could she not do anything easily, with grace? Why do you wish to marry me? she thought. How could I possibly become your wife?
They were being sent out into the gardens because they were engaged to wed and must get to know one another. As much as she wanted to get married, as much as she admired the intriguing Lord Townsend, she had not pictured courtship being as nerve-wracking as this.
Chapter Three
A Walk in the Gardens
Townsend accepted his overcoat and hat from the butler, then waited as his future bride donned a pale blue pelisse and bonnet. Lady Jane. She looked exactly like her name, prim and unobjectionable. Not ugly, not at all, but no raving beauty either.
Plain Jane.
The unkind moniker came to mind, but he stifled it. She was not plain. Her hair was an odd color, yes, a very pale orange that could not pass for blonde, but her face held a quiet animation even when she was silent. Her eyes were a graceful shape, and her pert nose and rosebud lips too dignified to ever be plain.
She led him out a pair of back doors to a vast stone palazzo, surrounded on all sides by slumbering winter gardens.
“There’s a pretty archway this direction,” she said, gesturing down the wide stairs to the left, “if you’d like to go there.”
“Of course.” He offered his arm, but she hesitated, glancing toward the doors.
“How strange to walk off alone. Perhaps your sister ought to join us?”
He nearly laughed, remembering how quickly Rosalind’s desire for fresh air had been rebuffed. “I think our parents prefer us to go off alone, to become better acquainted. It’s hard to get to know one another in a parlor, having tea.”
She bit her lip, a frequent mannerism. “I suppose that’s true.”
At last she accepted his arm, barely leaning upon it as they traversed the palazzo’s grand staircase and descended into the Earl of Mayhew’s manicured backyard. It was a large garden for a city manor, certainly larger than the fenced patch of nature behind his town home, which suited him well enough, since he wasn’t the gardening sort.
Now, he appreciated the space. It felt good to take a breath. Such a farce, to listen to the polite banter in the parlor, as the two families planned a wedding embarked upon by accident. It had taken all his discipline not to bury his head in his hands. That would have been rude, of course, and hurt the feelings of his future bride.
His bride. For God’s sake, things were moving quickly. Upon first impression, the lady was sweet, if awkward. He could barely see her face beneath her bonnet’s brim. Just a bit of delicate nose and that prim, dainty chin.
“There are benches over there, if you’d like to sit.” She led him from the stairs toward an Italianate arch. “Or we could walk beneath that arch into the back gardens. There are paths, and a fountain.”
“Which would you prefer?”
The question seemed to fluster her. She stopped and turned, her eyes searching his as if to divine what he wanted. Then, as he watched her, a corner of her lips turned up in surprise, or delight. “Do you know, our eyes are the same color? Just exactly the same.”
It was unexpected, this artless outburst. She was right. Her eyes were the same pale, gold-flecked brown color as his, perhaps even golder now that she’d lifted her face toward the sun. His mother had once described them as having a copper cast. His sister Felicity likened them to amber. He thought it was probably some chance mixture of his mother’s grey eyes and his father’s dark brown ones.
And here now, yes, was a young woman with the same unusual gaze.
“If we’re still, we might grow too cold.”
It took him a moment to realize she was answering the question he’d posed earlier. “You’d prefer to walk then?”
“Yes, I think so.”
After her exclamation about his eye color, she turned shy again, facing away from him although she still rested her hand upon his arm. She was a bit taller than most women, so he didn’t have to lean down to escort her. He was learning all these things about her now, a mere week or two before they were to wed. He tried hard not to compare her to his memories of Ophelia. There was nothing but misery down that pathway, for he’d adored Ophelia with every fiber of his being. Poor Jane could hardly be expected to measure up.
Do not obsess over Ophelia now, he scolded himself as they passed beneath the stone archway into a neat, landscaped garden of low shrubs and limpid winter flowers. There was, indeed, a grand fountain a little farther on, with a stately Roman maiden holding a pitcher. Lady Jane gave him a small, sideways smile.
“Water flows out of her pitcher in warmer months. There’s a clever pressurized pump beneath, but it’s turned off in winter so it won’t be damaged if the water freezes to ice.”
“Yes, it’s the same at my parents’ manor. The pump is turned off at the first hint of frost.”
They stood and stared at the water, which was clean and clear. “No fish?” he asked, teasing.
“Not here. The groundskeeper treats the water to keep it free of mold and odor, and the fish wouldn’t survive that type of poison very long. Well, I say it’s poison, but it’s not that, it’s only unnatural. When bugs fall in, they die. Frogs used to jump in and die, but I asked my father if we could create a sort of barrier to prevent that and so, you see…”
She leaned to show him the pale line where the fountain’s edge had been extended several inches with decorative marble work.
“It’s far enough out that frogs can’t hop in anymore. If they try, all they do is hit their heads on the underside, and decide to go somewhere else.”
“That’s amazing.” It was amazing, really, to hear a young woman speak at such length about frogs. At least she was looking at him now.
“It was too sad before, to see them floating about the fountain belly up.” She shuddered, then brightened. “As for the fish you mentioned, we have three great, massive ponds at our country home in Reading, and there are ever so many fish in there.”
He hadn’t the heart to tell her he’d only been joking about the fish, so he was obliged to listen to her list off the numerous varieties that made their homes in Lord Mayhew’s ponds. He tried to look interested, while picturing, for his own entertainment, how horrified her parents would be to know their daughter was chattering to him about frogs and fish in this beginning stage of their acquaintance.
Marlow and August would howl at this story later. The naturalist, indeed.
“Shall we move on?” he asked when she came to the end of her fish monologue. “See more of the gardens?”
“Of course.”
“Are you cold?”
“No, the sun warms me well enough.”
He offered his arm again, and she took it more readily this time. They walked in silence for a moment or two, then Jane let out a small sigh. “I’m sorry I went on about the fountain,” she said. “And the ponds. It’s just that I know so much about fish.”
He must not laugh. He would not laugh. If he did, it would be the maniacal laughter of a man who’d mistakenly engaged himself to the most bizarre woman in England.