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“Tell us more about your time in India,” Megan said. “What made you decide to go as a missionary?”

Mr. Marfleet studied the knob of his walking stick a moment before replying. “I can best attribute it to a sermon I heard the Reverend Charles Simeon give while I was at Cambridge.” He glanced at them, adding lightly, “It quite changed my life.”

“Changed your life? However so?” Megan looked at him, her curiosity no more keen than Jessamine’s unspoken one.

He flushed, his smile abashed. “I didn’t mean to imply I had received a bolt of lightning. Simply that the rector’s exhortation about the need to take the gospel to the ends of the earth convicted me in such a way I’d never felt before, as if I were hearing Jesus’s commission to reach the lost for the first time. I was sent to several outposts—Serampur, Danapur, Cawnpore—all in northeast India.”

“How awe inspiring,” breathed Megan. “When did you decide to go into the church?”

“It was either that or the law, as a second son, you know,” he said with a quirk of his lips. He had a mobile face, every nuance of self-disparagement or irony reflected in an expression of his lips or eyes. Against her will, Jessamine found herself studying it, even as his words drew her attention.

“My brother could have gone into my father’s business,” Megan
said. “He was a merchant in Bristol, but the war ruined his business. My brother chose instead to run off to the navy.”

Mr. Marfleet took their arms as they crossed the street. “The war gave many young men the opportunity to advance. That is,” he added with a wry grimace, “if they survived. I’m sorry, I hope your brother is all right.”

Megan smiled. “He is quite all right, thank you for your concern. He left the navy after being wounded and taken prisoner some months in a French jail near Calais. He is with the British Embassy in Paris now, serving under the Duke of Wellington.”

Jessamine listened to her best friend recite the accomplishments of Rees Phillips, pride evident in her voice. Poor Megan, who had to be so careful of Jessamine’s feelings when they were together, now had someone to whom she could openly boast about her brother.

“That must be an interesting career. I’d never thought of it myself, but perhaps as a lawyer, I could have made my way in the diplomatic field.”

“My brother was in Paris at the liberation with Wellington, and then he was invited to Vienna for the congress under Lord Castlereagh. His wife is French, which is of great benefit, he writes, both in Vienna and Paris.”

Mr. Marfleet quirked an eyebrow. “He met someone while he was in France?”

“Actually, he met her while they both lived here in London a couple of years ago. Mother and I were both stunned when he wrote us a letter after arriving in Paris last summer that he had met up with her again and was planning to marry her. She had returned to France shortly before the war ended. We haven’t seen him since he left England—and have not met her at all.”

“It sounds like a romantic tale.”

“Indeed it does.” Megan’s eyes sparkled. “If you knew my brother, you would say he is the least romantic person in the world!”

Their conversation scraped against Jessamine’s heart like a dull
knife, abrading her scars afresh. Why should Rees want a poor country girl, who was only passably pretty when he could have Lady Céline Wexham, by all accounts an exotic, dark beauty? With all the accompanying wiles of a Frenchwoman, Jessamine was sure.

She had lost track of Megan’s conversation with Mr. Marfleet and had to stop abruptly when Megan thrust her arm in front of her, pointing to a shop window. “We have a commission for Lady Bess—our hostess,” she explained to Mr. Marfleet. “If you could wait for me a moment while I run into this linen draper’s?”

She included Jessamine in her apologetic smile. “You wouldn’t mind keeping Mr. Marfleet company so he doesn’t get bored if I’m delayed? You know how Lady Bess says I have an eye for color?”

Megan left her with little choice but to murmur, “Very well,” even as she fixed her eyes on the shop window, remembering how she was wearing her spectacles. Would Mr. Marfleet make an observation on them?

As soon as Megan entered the store, an awkward silence descended between them. Jessamine pretended to study the display of fabrics and notions.

Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat.

Wondering if he meant to get her attention, she lifted her gaze. A tentative smile hovered around his lips. “You wear spectacles.”

She stared at him. A polite gentleman would
not
have noticed. “I should think it obvious,” she said between her teeth.

Color suffused his cheeks once more. If she were as outspoken as he, she’d point out how his skin reflected every emotion he felt.

“I—I beg your pardon. It’s just that you weren’t the night I spoke to you. I just find it interesting because . . . because of the fact that I do too.”

Did he think that implied they had anything else in common?

She turned back to the shop window. Unfortunately, it only gave her a reflection of her oval spectacles. She quickly looked down,
mortified at her predicament. Why did this gentleman make her feel so gauche and ill-mannered?

“I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“You didn’t.” She kept her gaze fixed on a beaded handbag displayed against a velvet backdrop.

“I find it refreshing to see a young lady wearing spectacles instead of groping about half blind.”

“Is that why you are not wearing yours?” she asked, giving him a pointed look.

He twisted his lips. “Harold does not allow himself to be seen in public with me if I do. That’s why I wasn’t wearing them at the rout, but then I had to put them on to search for Lady Abernathy.”

“I see.” She fought to keep from smiling at his awkward explanation. “Lady Bess is the same with me,” she finally admitted. “She makes it sound like the gravest sin to be seen wearing spectacles in public. I’m only a trifle shortsighted so I don’t really need them unless I want to focus on something particularly.”

“Mine comes from years of too much study, poring over books till the wee hours.”

Jessamine shrugged. “I haven’t any such excuse, although I help my father with his botanical notes and sermon notes and prayers for services.”

His light red eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Are you interested in botany too?”

She turned away from his scrutiny to study the passersby, regretting her words. She did not want him to think they had anything in common. “I like flowers. My father takes it to the scientific level.”

“I should like to meet your father. He sounds a very interesting man.”

“He is a very good man.”

Another silence fell between them. After a moment, Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat. “Miss Phillips speaks very fondly of her brother.”

“Yes,” she answered shortly, dreading to have to discuss Rees with this gentleman. Striving to keep her voice devoid of emotion, she added, “He is her only sibling, so it is natural.”

He gave a wry laugh. “I confess I don’t think I could speak in such glowing terms of Harold, nor he of me—not that we are not fond of each other. We have seen so little of one another since our school days.”

Her gaze returned unwillingly to him as he spoke. “He seems very different from you.”

His lips twisted. “I used to wonder if we were born of the same parents. He was the true Marfleet since he so resembled my father in both looks and temperament. I was the foundling my mother had rescued from the doorstep one wintry morn.”

Her heart caught at the wistful image of a young boy questioning his place in such an august family. “Do you think you could have been a . . . a foundling?”

His blue eyes took on a thoughtful look. “I tried to discover it for years but must confess I never found proof of it. Still, one never knows when a new fact may emerge.”

She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was making fun of her. But his eyes had a perfectly serious cast as he rubbed his chin, as if considering.

“I should think there would have been some clues along the way if you were really not your parents’ offspring.”

“My parents are quite closemouthed about many things, especially anything that hints of scandal. No,” he said, a speculative look in his eyes, “if there were clues, I didn’t find them. Perhaps I was left on the doorstep by a maid who didn’t want to give her baby up to the orphanage, hearing the horrors of that place. And she didn’t want to lose her job—”

“She would hardly be able to keep her condition secret in your household all those months.” As she realized the indecorous topic she was discussing with a young gentleman she scarcely knew, she
clamped her lips together and turned away from him. “This is an unseemly subject.”

“You brought it up with your suspicions.”

“I?” She flashed him a look of outrage only to find his eyes filled with amusement. “You were making all that up.”

He tugged on an earlobe, looking sheepish. “I confess, no matter how uncertain my heritage, I’m afraid the proof of it is undeniable. A portrait of my grandfather hangs in the family gallery. I resemble him to a great degree, including my coloring. Thus, despite the more romantic appeal of being a foundling, I am only the ugly younger son of Sir Geoffrey Marfleet.”

“Younger and ruder,” she muttered, looking away again.

“You do seem to bring out the worst in me.”

“Then I would suggest you stay away from me. I do not like to be thought of as detrimental to a person’s conduct,” she ended stiffly. She wished she were better at parrying and thrusting his mockery.

“You are not detrimental. It is I who am at fault. Being away from civilized London society seems to have turned me into a person who cannot keep a proper rein on his tongue. I do beg your pardon once again.”

When she said nothing, he added quietly, “My time in India has also made me more keenly aware of the ridiculous. I don’t say this to boast. I am merely stating a tendency I don’t seem able to control since returning to England. India has made me see things from a different perspective. Manners and behavior I took for granted as the way they are supposed to be appear absurd to me now.”

As he spoke, her irritation diminished, replaced by a grudging fascination for what he said.

“I have lost the ability to behave as I should around young ladies—if ever I had the ability, which my brother is quick to point out I did not.”

She lifted her chin. “You don’t treat Miss Phillips with ridicule.”

His reddish eyebrows drew together. “Ridicule? It was not meant
so, believe me. It was just . . . just that the situation appeared ridiculous and my tongue ran away with me, taking the matter to its conclusion.”

Jessamine pressed her lips, resolving to say no more to him. His explanation might satisfy—and even move her—but she was not disposed to render herself up to his ridicule another time. She had no interest in garnering the admiration of a vicar. She was grateful for the dinner invitation he had procured for them, but that was all.

“I see I have offended you,” he said gravely when she maintained her silence.

Before she could think of a suitably indifferent reply, Megan exited the shop, her face alight. “I haven’t kept you two waiting too long, have I?” She turned to Jessamine without waiting for a reply. “I found the shade of primrose Lady Bess desired. It matches the sample she gave me perfectly.”

“I’m glad.”

“Shall we continue on our way?” she asked Mr. Marfleet.

“If you are ready,” he answered courteously.

Jessamine searched for the slightest hint of mockery in his look or tone, but his demeanor looked as polite as his words sounded.

She gave a pointed look as if to say,
See? You save your mockery for me.

He only lifted a brow in bland inquiry.

They resumed walking, Jessamine positioning herself on the far side of Megan, away from Mr. Marfleet. Let him continue the conversation with her friend, with whom he seemed to manage to control his mocking tendencies.

After bidding farewell to Miss Phillips and Miss Barry at their brick town house not far from Portland Place, Lancelot decided to return home on foot.

He needed the time a walk would afford to mull over his encounter with the two young ladies. He’d been surprised—pleasantly
so—to find them on his street earlier. He’d been going back and forth about having asked his mother to invite them to one of her exclusive dinner parties.

He cared nothing for such things as pedigree and portion, but his parents did. After quizzing him for a good quarter of an hour on the two young ladies, his mother had finally agreed to the invitation. “I suppose I should be thankful you are evincing the slightest interest in any young lady who is of sound mind and limb.” She sighed, picking up her pen. “You are seven-and-twenty and still unmarried. Your brother will no longer have any offspring. What is to become of the estate if you don’t settle down and start a family?”

He turned off the familiar litany he’d heard all during his convalescence, thankful at least that his mother would issue the invitation.

As he walked along Oxford Street, he wasn’t sure whether to be put off or annoyed with Miss Barry. Miss Phillips was a pleasant companion, but there was something about Miss Barry that drew him. Whether it was her flashing green eyes which could as quickly show annoyance as a hint of humor, or whether it was the way she listened to his tale of the doubts of belonging to his family, she evinced empathy and a depth of understanding he had not yet encountered in a young lady of the ton.

But now he doubted his instincts, realizing he was probably reading more into her glances than they conveyed. The likeliest thing was that she despised him for his tendency to ironic humor. He hadn’t meant to tease her and regretted his words.

With a shake of his head, he tried to dismiss their conversation from his mind. He had too many other things to think about to get stirred up over a young lady making her come-out in London.

When he arrived home, he took up the journal he’d kept during his travels in India and went in search of his younger sister.

He went first to the solarium which their parents had built to satisfy his hobby of cultivating plants and hers of painting them.