Page 17 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

“Then perhaps I shall die, Miss Brightwell.” Tristan finished the last of his wine and beckoned to the footman for more.

By the time Valentine escaped from the other ladies in the drawing room, she felt as if she’d lived a hundred lives. Her palms were clammy. Her heart was fluttering. And her stomach was quivering like a leaf in the wind. Thank goodness for Lady Brightwell! One could always count on her to forget a glove, a handkerchief, or some other little item that would necessitate Valentine haring off all over the house in pursuit of it.

This time it was her shawl, which she was certain she’d left in the conservatory. Valentine intended to fetch it and deliver it directly to a maid. Let the maid take it back to Lady Brightwell—along with the message that her companion had retired for the evening with a blinding headache. Lady Brightwell wouldn’t mind. Indeed, she’d be pleased to have so easily disposed of her companion before the gentlemen finished their port and rejoined the ladies. The Earl of Lynden’s attentions hadn’t gone unremarked.

“It was really not the thing to impose yourself on his lordship as you did during dinner, Miss March,” she’d said to her upon entering the drawing room. “He’s too much the gentleman to say so himself, but as your employer, I was quite embarrassed. I must warn you not to be so forward in future.”

Under any other circumstance Valentine would have protested. She’d hardly said a word to the Earl of Lynden. This time, however, she held her tongue. There was no point in arguing with Lady Brightwell. She was too convinced of her own superiority to heed reason. And with Felicity’s betrothal to St. Ashton hanging in the balance, she was poised to eliminate anyone and anything that stood in the way of her daughter becoming a viscountess.

Though how Valentine stood in the way, she had no notion. Did Lady Brightwell fear she might reveal something to Lord Lynden? But what could she reveal? That Felicity was a spoiled young miss prone to temper tantrums as severe as those of a small child?

Not that any of that had seemed to be of concern to St. Ashton. He’d laughed and flirted with Felicity all through dinner, listening with rapt attention to everything she said.

Well, let them marry. They were well suited. Both shallow and unscrupulous. Careless of the feelings of others. What did she care? She had far more important things with which to concern herself.

The most immediate of which was to find Lady Brightwell’s shawl.

The Fairfords’ conservatory was situated at the very back of the house. Surrounded on three sides by wide glass windows, it contained an untidy array of plants, both dead and living, and a scattering of iron benches, tables, and chairs, which had long rusted with age and neglect. Valentine entered to find the entire glass-enclosed room bathed in the soft light of a full moon. It quite took her breath away.

She stood and gazed at it for a long while as the flickering flame from the taper in her hand cast shadows over the room. A sense of peace gradually settled over her. A feeling of how very small and insignificant she was in comparison to the universe and how very trivial her problems must seem in the eyes of God.

It never failed to give her peace, staring up at the heavens. Even in her darkest moments, when all hope had seemed to be gone, she’d gazed upward and known that she hadn’t been completely abandoned.

Would the moonlight look the same in India? In China? And when she stood there in a year’s time, living in an exotic land surrounded by strangers, would she feel the same when she cast her eyes up to the night sky? She dearly hoped she would.

But that was many months in the future—and many months’ wages yet to be saved. There was no point thinking about it now.

Recollecting herself to her task, she moved to set the candleholder down on a table, not far from a fern that had long gone brown.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” St. Ashton said.

She gasped, her hand flying instinctively to her heart as she spun around.

He was standing in the doorway, looking tall, dark, and breathtakingly handsome. Indeed, his mere presence seemed to steal all of the oxygen from the room. “Unless you wish to burn Fairford House to the ground,” he said. “Which, now I come to think of it, wouldn’t be such a bad idea.” He reached her in a few strides and lifted the taper from her hand.

And then he blew it out.

“Oh, now look what you’ve done!” she cried. “I’m meant to find Lady Brightwell’s shawl!”

St. Ashton placed the candlestick on an empty iron table. “And so you can. Quite easily, I imagine.” He nodded in the direction of the moon.

She followed his gaze. “It is very bright.”

“Were I not a trifle disguised, I’d tell you it’s not half as bright as your eyes or some such drivel.”

“Disguised? Do you mean…you’ve had too much to drink?”

“Not too much. Just enough, I think.”

Valentine felt him come to stand beside her, his arm touching hers. He was big and warm and disconcertingly masculine. She swallowed. “Just enough for what?”

“To follow you here to the conservatory.”

She turned to find him watching her, his expression dark and brooding. “To give me back my things?” she asked faintly.

“Do you want them back?”

“Yes, of course. Do you have them with you?”