Roland had come to sit next to Eleanor, as naturally as if they’d always known each other. He put his mouth near her ear and she could feel his breath tickle her neck. “If someone takes the pearls away she’ll turn into a whirling dervish.”
“What’s a whirling dervish?” she said, giggling.
“A monster who terrorizes the populations of India, as I understand. Or perhaps it was Turkey. Honestly, I hardly know, but I’m sure you can imagine.”
“We must stop her,” Eleanor said. “It’s absurd to crush a pearl on such a pretext.”
“Just look how she’s making the Duke of Villiers laugh,” Roland said. “I believe he’s quite taken with her. If you take the pearls away, you’ll ruin her chance of making a match that would free my brother from his bondage.”
“Villiers wouldn’t,” Eleanor said.
“Oh yes, I expect he would. She’s quite beautiful, you know. And the odd thing about her is that she’s not a bad person. He won’t know what she’s really like until it’s too late. She has enormous charm.”
“I know,” Eleanor said, feeling guilty. “And she can be so joyful.”
“Pity she’d be such a horror to live with.”
The duchess had apparently just realized what was about to happen. She put down her tea cup with a little click, rose from her chair and snatched the pearls before Lisette could react. “Am I to understand that you are planning to crush these pearls?” she said in an awful voice.
“Exactly,” Lisette said, as blissfully unaware as ever. “You see, Your Grace, we are wondering how hard it is to crush a pearl. The Duke of Villiers thinks that Roland would smash a pearl under his feet. But I don’t agree. He used to be roly-poly, but he’s not at all plump any longer.”
Eleanor turned to Roland with a grin, but his brows were drawn together and his face looked black with fury. Villiers, on the other hand, was laughing openly. That’s the first time I’ve heard him laughing, she thought sourly. I should have assumed it would be at someone else’s expense.
Lisette held out her hand for the pearls, her pretty smile not even slipping. It was a quality that Eleanor envied. Because Lisette never envisioned opposition to one of her plans, she didn’t flinch until the moment was upon her.
“Absolutely not,” the duchess announced in a dreadful voice. “I have seen your mother in these pearls a hundred times.”
Lisette blinked. “Mother is dead. She doesn’t care what I do to them now.”
“Her memory is not dead.”
“They’re my pearls,” Lisette said, her lower lip starting to tremble.
“Here we go,” Roland murmured.
Eleanor couldn’t bear to see it happen. She jumped to her feet and hurried to Lisette’s side. “We just want to make sure that your pearls remain intact,” she said as persuasively as she could.
But Lisette’s eyes were taking on that wild spark that Eleanor remembered. “You are crossing me!” she cried, rounding on the duchess.
“Of course I am!” she snapped back. “Your mother was one of my dearest friends.”
Eleanor braced herself.
Villiers stepped forward and put a hand on Lisette’s arm. She froze. “Her Grace doesn’t understand.” His voice was dark and cool and mesmerizing. “When my mother died I wanted to burn her clothing. Her jewelry. Her scarves.”
Lisette stood still. Even as Eleanor watched, Lisette shed her anger and her eyes turned grief-stricken.
“I know how you feel,” he finished.
Lisette’s lip trembled. “I miss my mother,” she whispered.
Eleanor retreated back to her seat.
“For God’s sake,” Roland said in her ear, “an innocent bystander might think that Lisette’s mother died a year or two ago.”
But Eleanor was watching Villiers. “I’m not sure you get over the death of your mother all that easily.” Though she wasn’t actually sure that Villiers meant to express grief when he talked of burning his mother’s clothing. There was a shade of something darker in his voice.
“Would you like to hear a song?” Roland asked.
“What?” Eleanor said, noticing that Lisette’s white-blond curls just reached Villiers’s shoulder; they looked quite striking together.
Roland looked down at her, his dark poet’s eyes flaring. “It’s the one thing Lisette and I have in common. We both love music. If I borrow a lute”—he nodded at the far wall—“at least it will halt the tender scene. Though in my opinion Villiers’s days as a bachelor are numbered. And his days of peace as well, but there’s no need for us to play witnesses to that tragedy.”
Eleanor thought about confessing her own semi-betrothed state and decided not to. Besides, Roland was already striding over to the wall and pulling down a lute.
He plucked a string and then called, “Lisette, you’ve let this go out of tune again!”
She leaped away from Villiers the moment the note sounded in the air, sadness falling from her like a discarded cloak. “I played that one earlier this evening,” she said, running to his side.
“I suppose it’s not too bad,” Roland allowed, sitting down, the better to tune the instrument.
Lisette’s face brimmed with happiness. “Let’s all sing.”
“I am fatigued,” the duchess announced.
She retired with little more than brief goodbyes to the squire and his wife. She didn’t care for music any more than she appreciated poetry. It turned out that the squire’s lady shared her lack of appreciation, and so the elder couple left, promising to send the coach back for their son.
It occurred to Eleanor as she curtsied goodbye that Squire Thestle’s smile seemed to indicate hope that his son would make an advantageous match. With herself. She felt a bit more sober at the thought.
“A lute, for God’s sake,” Anne said, falling into the seat next to Eleanor that Roland had deserted. “Your medieval lover is far too passionate for me. I feel as if I’m caught in some sort of Shakespearean nightmare.”
“A glass of anisette?” Popper said, offering a tray of small glasses.
“If I drink that I’ll fall asleep in public,” Anne said, pulling herself upright. “No, I’m for bed.” She looked down at Eleanor, a wry smile on her lips. “How complicated is the game of love, wouldn’t you say?”
“Shakespeare?” Eleanor inquired.
“I haven’t the faintest,” Anne said, taking herself off to bed.
Chapter Thirteen
“Oh lovely, all the old people are gone,” Lisette said gaily. “Let’s sing outside, on the terrace.”
“Won’t we keep people awake?” Eleanor asked, sipping her anisette. It tasted like distilled licorice root, strong and sweet, with a sensual promise.
There was no gainsaying Lisette, of course. A moment later the four of them were outside. Light streamed from the library, but the terrace itself was in shadow. The air was warm and fragrant, like evening primroses.
Lisette had brought out another lute and she and Roland were seated together, so Eleanor made for the settee where she and Anne had sat that afternoon.