“It will not, I tell you!” Claude’s boyish features clenched in a resolute scowl that made him look older. “Hermione is nothing like those other girls.”
Sebastian could not argue that. Miss Leonard was as different from those simpering coquettes as a modest, fragrant spray of lily-of-the-valley was from a patch of showy Oriental lilies with their cloying scent.
“Consequently,” Claude continued, “my feelings for her are quite beyond anything I felt for them.”
His blazing hostility seemed to moderate, as Sebastian had known it would. His brother had always been prone to strong, sudden passions that quickly burned out. His infatuation with Miss Leonard, however intense at the moment, would be no different. Sebastian assured himself that what he’d done was as much for the lady’s benefit as for Claude’s. He would not want her hurt when his brother’s ardor cooled.
“I am grateful to you,” Claude admitted in a grudging tone, “for saving me from myself with those other ladies. If you hadn’t, I would not be free now to commit myself, heart and soul, to Hermione.”
Sebastian pushed his plate away. His brother’s sentimentality was taking a toll on his appetite.
“I believe the vicar would advise you to commit your soul elsewhere,” he informed Claude in a tone of driest irony.
The young man responded with a withering look. “Make light of my feelings if you must, Sebastian. At least I am not afraid to risk my heart again after one bad experience.”
Sebastian rose to confront his brother. “I will thank you to refrain from raising that matter.”
Claude moved from his end of the table, taking a few steps toward Sebastian. “Why am I not permitted to comment on your private life when you are free to meddle in mine? I hardly call that fair.”
“Fair or not, I am your elder and the head of this family.” Sebastian moved toward his brother. “If I meddle it is for your own good, so you will not make the same mistake I did.”
“Being head of the family does not make you my master!” Claude stabbed his forefinger into Sebastian’s chest. “And being older does not make you right about everything!”
“So,” Sebastian sneered, “you rebel against the advice of an older man yet you are hopelessly besotted with an older woman?”
He knew his allusion to the lady’s age was ungallant. Miss Leonard could not be more than three years his brother’s senior. But Claude’s jibe about being afraid to risk his heart had struck a nerve.
“Older woman?” His brother stared at Sebastian as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “Hermione is four full years younger than I.”
“That cannot be.” Sebastian shook his head. “The woman I spoke with was very handsome, but she had to be at least five-and-twenty.”
“It could not have been Hermione, then.” Claude crossed his arms in front of his chest, daring Sebastian to contradict him. “If anything, she looks younger than her years.”
“Of course it was her.” Sebastian had never heard anything so ridiculous. “She told me... that is... she was picking flowers in Squire Leonard’s garden and...”
A look of amused comprehension and overwhelming relief made Claude’s face light up. “The lady you spoke to, was she about this height with brown hair and hazel eyes?”
“That’s right.” Why was his brother grinning like a fool?
“Well done, Sebastian!” Claude began to sputter with laughter. “You managed to persuade Hermione’s governess not to marry me!”
Governess? Sebastian’s jaw clenched. To think he had been fooled and foiled by that sly creature with the traitorous collaboration of his own unaccountable interest in her. Clearly his brother was not the only one who needed to be kept from repeating past mistakes!
Chapter Two
“I STILL CANNOT imagine how Lord Benedict came to make such a mistake.” Hermione shook her head in puzzlement as she and Rebecca walked toward the village church for Sunday morning service. “How could he possibly suppose you were me?”
“It is a mystery beyond my power to fathom.” Rebecca refused to take offense at Hermione’s remark, though it did sting a little. Since she’d come to Rose Grange as a grown woman of twenty to teach Squire Leonard’s twelve-year-old daughter, perhaps it was only natural the girl should think of her as hopelessly ancient. When Hermione reached the advanced age of seven-and-twenty, she might consider it more flattering than ridiculous to be mistaken for nineteen.
“His lordship struck me as the type of man who takes little notice of a woman’s age or the fashion of her garments,” Rebecca continued. “To him, I suspect one female of lesser rank than a peeress looks much like another.”
She wished she could dismiss the top-lofty viscount from her thoughts with such ease. But he intruded upon them as insistently as he had upon her solitude in the garden yesterday. Whenever anything blue caught her eye, she found herself recalling his eyes. Snatches of his conversation drifted through her mind in the bothersome way pieces of music sometimes did. In his case, it was a resonant baritone melody in a minor key.
Hermione let out a soft trill of laughter that banished the viscount’s voice from Rebecca’s mind... for the moment. “What amazes me even more is your audacity in leading his lordship on so he never suspected his error.”
“I did not lead him on,” Rebecca protested, relieved to spy the old stone church quite near ahead. She was not certain how much more of Hermione’s teasing on the subject she could abide. “I told you, he scarcely let me get a word in. Mine was a sin of omission, which I only did to spare you. I hope that will count in my favor when I make my confession and beg Divine forgiveness.”
“Of course it will.” Hermione seemed to repent her levity at Rebecca’s expense. “I am vastly grateful to you for keeping him away from me until Claude can introduce us properly. I hope once he becomes acquainted with me, Lord Benedict will withdraw his objections to our betrothal.”
“I hope so too, for both your sakes.” Having spoken with the forceful viscount, Rebecca doubted he would be so easily dissuaded.
Behind them, the beat of horses’ hooves and the soft rumble of carriage wheels approached. Then a familiar, cheerful voice called out, “Miss Leonard, Miss Beaton, good morning to you!”
Hermione spun about. “Mr. Stanhope, this is a pleasant surprise! What brings you to church in Avoncross this morning?”
The Stanhope estate belonged to the neighboring parish and the family provided a living for its vicar. Rebecca had never seen the gentlemen attending this church.
As Rebecca slowly turned around, Claude Stanhope uttered a sentence that sent a guilty shudder through her. “It was my brother’s suggestion we come here this morning. Miss Leonard, may I introduce Viscount Benedict? Sebastian, it is an honor to present my fiancée, Miss Hermione Leonard.”
By this time Rebecca had turned toward the fashionable gig which had halted behind them. As the Stanhope brothers alighted, Lord Benedict tossed the horses’ reins to a young footman.