She rose from the settee and stretched lazily. Her house was beautifully furnished, and she had, after all, most of what she desired. When Jenny, her maid, tapped on the small drawing-room door, her lips were pursed in deep concentration, her uppermost thought being how she could bring the marquess around to the idea that she would look most charming driving her own phaeton and pair in the park.
“There are two gentlemen here to see you, Madam,” Jenny said, so surprised she’d forgotten to curtsy. “His grace isn’t with them. Whatever shall we do, Madam? This has never happened before.”
“How very nicely peculiar,” Melissande said. She looked at her image in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Boredom slipped from her shoulders and she felt a tingle of excitement. Someone to visit her besides Lord Oberlon. It couldn’t be bill collectors. Lord Oberlon was generous. Men, she thought. No gentlemen a very different stripe of man. She felt like singing. “Don’t just stand there like a gutless heroine, Jenny, do show the gentlemen in. Oh, Jenny, your bosom is sticking out. Bow your shoulders a bit. Yes, that’s good.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Lord Harry Monteith and Mr. Thayerton Scuddimore, Madam,” Jenny said, trying to sound important as a butler in a grand house.
Melissande’s first thought upon the entrance of the gentlemen was that the infantry had just invaded her house. Why, they were but boys. She frowned ever so slightly before advancing toward her unexpected and uninvited guests.
Hetty was very aware of Melissande’s initial response, but wasn’t at all surprised or disturbed by it. Of course she and Scuddy presented a far less prepossessing image than the older, more experienced Marquess of Oberlon and any of his rakehell friends. Well, I can but try, she thought. She halted in her tracks and stood poised in rapt wonder, causing Mr. Scuddimore to bump into her.
“You’re much more beautiful than I could have imagined.” She breathed deeply, and hopefully, reverently. Then, as if gathering her scattered wits, she coughed in mild embarrassment. “Oh dear, do forgive our intrusion, ma’am, but both Mr. Scuddimore and I have worshiped you for many weeks now, always from afar. To be allowed to see you, to be in your divine presence but a moment it is all a man could desire, it is beyond what most men ever gain, it is the very elixir of pleasure.” She thought she’d puke if she didn’t stop, so she did.
Melissande wondered fleetingly if she had just stepped into the pages of her discarded novel. Though she had thought the hero rather asinine in his high-flown phrases to that silly fragile heroine, she wondered if she hadn’t been too abrupt in forming her opinion. She gave the young gentleman a dazzling smile and said, voice as sweet and encouraging as a virgin’s with her beau, “Fie on you, sir, such flattery, but it’s quite nice, I won’t scold you for it. Now, who are you?”
“Lord Monteith, ma’am, Lord Harry Monteith. And this is my friend, Mr. Scuddimore.” Hetty stepped forward, as if propelled by a powerful unknown force, and reverently clasped Melissande’s white hand. She turned it over and planted a moth-light kiss on her palm. “It’s beauty such as yours, ma’am, that launched the ships to Troy.”
Melissande arched a perfect brow, and Hetty rushed on, “No, it is too paltry to compare you to Helen. I should be flayed for my smallness of imagination. Ah, yes, you are Aphrodite emerged from the ancient myths to cleanse the jaded palates of Englishmen.” I will surely puke, she thought, and smiled.
Although such names as Helen and Aphrodite meant very little to Melissande, she was, nonetheless, able to deduce from Lord Monteith’s passionate tone that he was paying her high tribute indeed. None of the gentlemen she had ever known had compared her to an ancient myth. She smiled an enticing woman’s smile, and with an effort, turned her attention briefly to the plump gentleman were those indeed cabbage roses on his waistcoat? at Lord Monteith’s elbow. “Mr. Scuddimore,” she said only, one glance at his flushed countenance assuring her that dazzling compliments to her incomparable beauty would not be coming from his quarter.