promise from the tiny termagant. Still, she recognized the opportunity for a graceful retreat and seized it. “Come along then, little terror.”
Chapter 10
“That’s a grasshopper?” Lilith asked. “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”
“At night they sing.” Balanced on her haunches, Meg leaned down until she was nearly eye to eye with the bright green insect. Oddly enough, the grasshopper did not jump away as he’d done before, necessitating a romp through the tall grass during which Lilith had lost a goodly number of hair pins and a slipper.
As it was simpler to remove the second slipper, along with her stockings, than find the first, she was barefoot.
And she’d quite enjoyed the tickle of the warm grass on the soles of her feet as she’d followed the little girl and the hopping insect up one hill and down the other side.
“Stage a musicale for you, do they?”
“It’s their wings rubbing together, but it sounds like singing. Sometimes the frogs join in, but they sound like horns, I think. If you hold your hand out he might jump right up on it.”
“I’ll forego that particular pleasure, thank you.” Lilith settled onto her bum, bent her legs and curled her arms around her knees, placing her hands a good distance from the grasshopper.
She was two and twenty and today she’d seen her first grasshopper. Up close and personal. She felt rather like an explorer who’d traipsed across foreign terrain in search of an extinct species.
“Are you going to marry Uncle Jasper?”
“No, Lady Priscilla is going to marry Lord Malleville.” As the words left her lips, Lilith recognized the truth.
For all her protestations and promises to the contrary, she simply could not, would not, add her two bits of buggery to the heavy load he already carried on his wide shoulders. Yes, he’d made a foolish choice when he’d opted to exact his pound of flesh from Dunaway in the form of his daughter, but it was Malleville’s choice and the resulting regret or happiness would be his as well.
And as Lilith had told Sissy, more than once, she wasn’t likely to fare any better on the open market. Marriage seemed a dicey venture even when wealth and position factored into the equation not at all. When those elements were added to the mix, as they invariably were in aristocratic alliances, the chances of a happy union appeared, to one looking in from the outside, improbable at best.
“But Mama said Uncle Jasper was to marry a princess,” Meg protested, turning her azure gaze Lilith’s way and pouting for all she was worth.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
“Will you marry Uncle Jasper if I do?”
“Certainly not, but I will leave you here to do your crying alone.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Meg said with a giggle. “No one can resist a little girl’s tears.”
“I assure you, I am the exception.”
“You’re funny.”
Well, that was a compliment she’d never been given.
“And awful pretty.”
The second came as something of a letdown after the first.
“Mama says pretty is as pretty does,” Meg added.
“I imagine she has her reasons for uttering such nonsense,” Lilith replied. “But don’t you be fooled, a pretty face is a coincidence of birth, or a dab hand with cosmetics in some cases, while pretty behavior is something else entirely.”
The grasshopper chose that moment to jump high in the air, startling a laugh from Lilith and a tinkling giggle from Meg as she mimicked the motion and hopped to her feet. She spun in a circle before lifting her hand to wave it wildly through the air. “Uncle Jasper! I showed Princess Lilith a grasshopper!”
Malleville was making his way down the hill, his stride long and leisurely. The wind caught his hair, tossing the curls all about like spilled claret. His shirt, open at the collar as usual, clung to his chest. Muscles bunched and shifted beneath a pair of buff breeches tucked into tall, black boots.
Heart racing, palms sweating,
Chapter 10
“That’s a grasshopper?” Lilith asked. “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”
“At night they sing.” Balanced on her haunches, Meg leaned down until she was nearly eye to eye with the bright green insect. Oddly enough, the grasshopper did not jump away as he’d done before, necessitating a romp through the tall grass during which Lilith had lost a goodly number of hair pins and a slipper.
As it was simpler to remove the second slipper, along with her stockings, than find the first, she was barefoot.
And she’d quite enjoyed the tickle of the warm grass on the soles of her feet as she’d followed the little girl and the hopping insect up one hill and down the other side.
“Stage a musicale for you, do they?”
“It’s their wings rubbing together, but it sounds like singing. Sometimes the frogs join in, but they sound like horns, I think. If you hold your hand out he might jump right up on it.”
“I’ll forego that particular pleasure, thank you.” Lilith settled onto her bum, bent her legs and curled her arms around her knees, placing her hands a good distance from the grasshopper.
She was two and twenty and today she’d seen her first grasshopper. Up close and personal. She felt rather like an explorer who’d traipsed across foreign terrain in search of an extinct species.
“Are you going to marry Uncle Jasper?”
“No, Lady Priscilla is going to marry Lord Malleville.” As the words left her lips, Lilith recognized the truth.
For all her protestations and promises to the contrary, she simply could not, would not, add her two bits of buggery to the heavy load he already carried on his wide shoulders. Yes, he’d made a foolish choice when he’d opted to exact his pound of flesh from Dunaway in the form of his daughter, but it was Malleville’s choice and the resulting regret or happiness would be his as well.
And as Lilith had told Sissy, more than once, she wasn’t likely to fare any better on the open market. Marriage seemed a dicey venture even when wealth and position factored into the equation not at all. When those elements were added to the mix, as they invariably were in aristocratic alliances, the chances of a happy union appeared, to one looking in from the outside, improbable at best.
“But Mama said Uncle Jasper was to marry a princess,” Meg protested, turning her azure gaze Lilith’s way and pouting for all she was worth.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
“Will you marry Uncle Jasper if I do?”
“Certainly not, but I will leave you here to do your crying alone.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Meg said with a giggle. “No one can resist a little girl’s tears.”
“I assure you, I am the exception.”
“You’re funny.”
Well, that was a compliment she’d never been given.
“And awful pretty.”
The second came as something of a letdown after the first.
“Mama says pretty is as pretty does,” Meg added.
“I imagine she has her reasons for uttering such nonsense,” Lilith replied. “But don’t you be fooled, a pretty face is a coincidence of birth, or a dab hand with cosmetics in some cases, while pretty behavior is something else entirely.”
The grasshopper chose that moment to jump high in the air, startling a laugh from Lilith and a tinkling giggle from Meg as she mimicked the motion and hopped to her feet. She spun in a circle before lifting her hand to wave it wildly through the air. “Uncle Jasper! I showed Princess Lilith a grasshopper!”
Malleville was making his way down the hill, his stride long and leisurely. The wind caught his hair, tossing the curls all about like spilled claret. His shirt, open at the collar as usual, clung to his chest. Muscles bunched and shifted beneath a pair of buff breeches tucked into tall, black boots.
Heart racing, palms sweating,
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