“Shall I hit you on the back? You’re all right? Of course you are and now you’re giving me one of your wicked looks that I like very much. But enough. I find it odd, your grace, that you were so very adamant in sending Lord Harry back home on the one hand and praising him to London society on the other. I find your actions difficult to fathom.”
What had she said? His thoughts were so powerfully real that he was utterly blank for a moment. Finally, he managed to say, “Do you really?”
She looked at her feet. What was the matter? He frowned at her, wondering what was going on in that beautiful head of hers when she blurted out, “I’m not at all like Melissande. I’m sorry, but I’m not and I’ll never be. I’m just me and I’m quite plain, but I am nice and I do have a sense of humor and I promise to make you laugh and”
“It’s true,” he said calmly. “You’re not at all like Melissande. She’s really quite voluptuous, her breasts are more than a man could ask for. She also knows every trick to please a man, to make him lie panting at her feet. I might also add that she rapidly becomes a dead bore. Her brain isn’t of the highest order, but then again, most men wouldn’t want that in a mistress. Listen, Hetty, she is what she is. And what she is is a mistress. She’s good at it. I’m damned thankful you’re not like her. You’re you and you’re beautiful and you’re everything a man could want in a mate. But, of course, you, I am persuaded, are already much aware of that fact. Surely you know I’d slay every dragon in England for you.”
She sighed. “Would you really, Jason?”
“Every bloody one,” he said. “Well, I might leave one for posterity, but that’s all, just one.”
“Melissande is rather silly, I expect, but so very beautiful.”
“I would like to know what the devil you said to her to make her pine so for Lord Harry.”
“Men don’t understand women. That is, women like Melissande need to be nourished on the most outlandish flattery. It makes them quite malleable, you know. At least that was my experience with her.”
“Can you be more specific, sweetheart?”
Ah, she liked the sound of that. “I likened her first of all to Aphrodite, being fairly certain that she would have heard of that lovely goddess. When images of Aphrodite began to pale, I cast her first as the romantic Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, then threw in a dash of Daphne with handsome Apollo in hot pursuit. I must admit though that I did buy her a riding habit. That, I think, was the clincher, which doesn’t say all that much for my flattery.”
He threw back his head and laughed deeply. “You should have kept the habit for Miss Henrietta Rolland. It would have suited her fair coloring most admirably.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t. It was far too short for me. Melissande lacks inches, you know.”
“Only in height, my dear Hetty, not, I assure you, anywhere else.”
“You’re dreadful and I will get you for that.”
“I can’t wait,” he said, and it was difficult for him to remain seated in his chair. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her until they were both silly with it. He drew a deep breath. “Tell me about Sir Harry and his problems.”
Oh well, Hetty thought, this is at least safe ground. She hesitated only a moment before recounting to him Sir Harry Brandon’s difficulties. He listened to her without interruption, his dark eyes never leaving her face. “So, you see, depending on Isabella’s answer to Harry, Lord Harry may very well find himself in the thick of another outlandish situation. Do you believe, your grace, that Sir William would dare to offer Isabella a carte blanche?”
“Jason,” he said absently, his thoughts elsewhere.
“I think of you as both. When you raise that right eyebrow of yours to quash me, then you’re a definite ‘your grace.’ When you smile at me and there’s lust in your eyes, then you’re Jason. I like both. Perhaps there’s even lust when you raise that right eyebrow as well.”