Page 27 of The Meaning of Love
That was another insight they shared, one others without such exposure would not possess.
While she’d scoffed at the label of a perfect match, theirs seemed to become more perfect with every hour they spent learning about each other.
The musicians started playing again, and Julian cocked a brow at her. “Shall we escape onto the dance floor again?”
She smiled and held out her hand. “Indeed, my lord. That’s an excellent idea.”
Early the following evening, Julian was seated in the library, wrapping up a long session with the estate accounts, when sounds of an arrival came rolling from the front hall.
He raised his head, listened, then muttered, “She must have left at sunrise on Sunday.” As soon as possible after his missive regarding his betrothal to Melissa had reached the castle.
Resigned, he shut the ledger he’d been working on, stacked it with its fellows on the desk, then rose and walked out to the front hall.
On hearing his footsteps, his mother, Veronica, Countess of Carsely, looked his way and beamed. “Darling! Such news! Of course, I came straightaway.” With her blond hair expertly coiffed and barely streaked with gray, blue eyed and still vivaciously beautiful, his mother held out her arms, her face alight with exuberance despite her having traveled for almost two days.
Julian went forward and bent to kiss her cheek and allow her to gather him into a scented embrace. “Mama. You must have had poor Henry set out before dawn.”
“Oh, faugh!” His mother released him and waved dismissively. “Everyone at the castle is utterly agog, including Henry. Of course, I had to come racing down.”
Smiling delightedly at him, she looped her arm in his and turned toward the drawing room. “While they take up my things and prepare my room—although of course, Mrs. Crosby has already done so, having known I would arrive—you must tell me all about it. You don’t need me to state that congratulations are in order—I’m quite sure half the ton will have lined up to say so by now.”
Acquiescing, he nodded. “Indeed, they have.”
“Naturally. Persuading Melissa North to accept your offer is quite the coup.”
Hiding a smile, he ushered her into the drawing room and firmly shut the door. “You know,” he said, following her to the grouping of chairs before the fireplace, “many might have thought the shoe on the other foot—that Melissa was lucky to have hooked me.”
His mother sat and, still smiling, looked up at him. “Indeed, as I’ve already heard from several correspondents—and yes, three sent missives that arrived with yours—the general consensus is that this match is beyond perfect.” Her blue eyes studied his face, and her gaze grew shrewd. “So why don’t you tell me how it came about? Because until now, I had no idea you were even acquainted with Miss North.”
He sighed, sat, and explained the whole—from their years-ago meetings in Little Moseley under her grandmother’s aegis, through their mutually-agreed-upon parting, to his return to the capital with the intention of finding the right bride—
“Really, darling! You might have warned methatwas why you were heading down.”
He met her gaze. “Mama, warning you would have been entirely counterproductive. I wanted to look over the field without anyone trying to direct my gaze to this chit or that.”
She humphed and waved at him to continue.
After regathering his thoughts, he explained about seeing Melissa with Gordon and following them out to the gazebo. Glossing over the kiss took finesse, but he’d learned a great deal in his time in Ireland, enough at least to have his mother focusing instead on the three ladies who had walked in on them.
“Those three are Helen’s friends!”
“So Melissa realized. As you had warned me might happen, we believe that Gordon had set his sights on Melissa’s dowry and had engineered a situation he intended to use to force a betrothal with her.”
His mother shuddered dramatically. “That poor girl—what a lucky escape!”
“She said that as well.”
“Hmm.” His mother regarded him with a knowing eye. Many made the mistake of thinking the Countess of Carsely a beautiful lady with no more wit than the average ton female, and in that, they were very wrong. “So what happened next?”
She listened carefully as he explained, then he outlined the agreement he and Melissa had reached to avail themselves of the opportunity created by circumstance to assess if, after all, they might, indeed, suit.
“The Norths have agreed with our tack and have been entirely supportive.”
His mother nodded. “Indeed. I can’t see why they wouldn’t be—neither are fools.” She studied him for a moment, then leaned closer and asked, “Tell me, is Melissa as shrewd, intelligent, and”—she gestured expansively—“as they say?”
“As immersed in the ton, chapter and verse, and unwilling to suffer fools gladly?” He smiled. “She is, indeed.”
If anything, his mother looked reassured. “Well, she is the daughter of Henrietta, who is Osbaldestone to the core, and North, after all. At the very least, she should have a sound grounding in the ways of the higher civil service and much of politics as well as the wider workings of the ton.”
