A Desirable Husband. Mary Nichols

for clothes. I think Rowan must be very rich because Rosemary did not once query the price of anything. It is all very extravagant and I feel dreadful.’

      ‘Because of the extravagance?’

      ‘Not only that, but because Lucy gave me all those lovely clothes and I shall not wear them.’ She brightened suddenly. ‘I will wear the riding habit though, if you will take me riding. You did mean it, didn’t you?’ There was a new forest-green habit, among the clothes being made for her, but that had not yet arrived.

      ‘Yes, but it will have to be this morning. I have an appointment this afternoon and tomorrow I must go home and leave you.’

      Rosemary entered the room and bade them both good morning before helping herself to some breakfast and sitting at the table opposite Esme.

      ‘Myles is going to hire hacks and take me riding this morning,’ Esme told her. ‘Shall you come? We are going as soon as I have changed and Myles has arranged for the horses.’

      Rosemary, who had been denied the use of the carriage that day, agreed that a ride would be just the thing to blow away the cobwebs and asked Myles to instruct a groom at the mews to saddle her horse, then both ladies finished their breakfast and went to change.

      Esme came downstairs half an hour later in Lucy’s riding habit, a dark blue taffeta with military style frogging across the jacket. The matching skirt was plain and the hat was a blue tricorne, with the brim held up one side by a curling peacock feather. Rosemary joined her five minutes later and by that time Myles had returned, riding a huge mount and leading two others, one Rosemary’s own horse and another for Esme.

      They mounted and set off, entering Hyde Park by a gate close to Knightsbridge barracks, and were soon riding down Rotten Row.

      ‘I suppose we shall be denied this pleasure when they start building the Exhibition hall,’ Rosemary said.

      ‘Possibly,’ Myles agreed. ‘The details have yet to be worked out.’

      ‘Well, I think it is too bad. It is so handy for me if I want to ride or come out in the carriage and it will all be spoiled. I am disappointed in you, Myles, really, I am.’

      ‘It is not my project, ma’am.’

      ‘You support it. I should have thought you would have had more family feeling.’

      ‘My feelings for the family have not changed. I support the idea of an exhibition because I think it will be good for the country and good for the working man.’

      ‘You will give him ideas above his station. There will be unrest and violence, fuelled by all the foreigners roaming about with nothing to do but cause trouble. Indeed, Rowan thinks…’

      ‘Oh, please, do not argue over it,’ Esme put in. ‘It is too nice a day to be at odds with each other.’ She looked about for a way of diverting them. ‘Oh, look, there’s that gentleman we saw yesterday.’

      ‘What gentleman?’ her sister asked.

      ‘That one.’ She lifted her crop to point him out. The young man, dressed in a single-breasted brown wool jacket and matching trousers, was busy as he had been the day before, sketching and making notes.

      ‘Oh, no. I do believe he does it on purpose.’

      Felix looked up and, catching sight of them with Myles, stood watching them approach.

      ‘Do you know him?’ Myles asked.

      ‘No, we do not,’ Rosemary said sharply. ‘But he is insufferably impudent. He seems to think he can smile and doff his hat and that is as good as an introduction.’

      ‘Oh, in that case, let me do the honours.’ Myles drew rein beside Felix and the two ladies had perforce to stop beside him. ‘My lady, may I present Lord Felix Pendlebury? Pendlebury, Viscountess Trent. And this…’ He turned to Esme with a twinkle in his eye, which told her he had connected her question earlier that morning with Rosemary’s comment about smiling and doffing hats. ‘This is Lady Trent’s sister, Lady Esme Vernley.’

      ‘Ladies, your obedient.’ Felix bowed to each in turn.

      Rosemary’s slight inclination of the head was the smallest she could manage without snubbing him, which she could not do, since he had now been properly introduced.

      ‘Oh, it is so nice to have a name for you, my lord,’ Esme said. ‘What are you drawing?’ She indicated his sketching pad.

      ‘It is an imaginary scene, my lady.’ He proffered her the pad, which she took.

      ‘And you have put us in it. Look, Rosemary, there’s you and there’s me.’ She held it out for her sister to see, but Rosemary hardly glanced at it.

      ‘If it is meant to be us, then I think it is an impertinence.’

      ‘None was meant, my lady,’ he said. ‘I was simply drawing what I thought the scene might look like when the Exhibition building is completed.’

      ‘I like it,’ Esme said, handing it back to him. Their hands touched as he took it from her and she found herself tingling all over from the shock of the contact. But it was far from an unpleasant feeling and she wondered if he felt it, too. He was looking up at her in such a strange way, his eyes moving over her face, as if he were studying her features, trying to memorise them. She found that that was what she was doing to him, storing up a picture of his lean face, high cheek bones, the well-defined brows, green eyes with their little flecks of brown, his smiling mouth, his proud chin held above a purple silk cravat. Was he teasing her? Did she mind? She did not.

      ‘I did not know you knew Myles,’ she said.

      ‘We met last night at the banquet and found we had much in common.’

      ‘He tells me it was a great success. Did you find it so?’ She ignored Rosie’s fidgeting beside her.

      ‘Indeed, I believe it was.’

      ‘Did you come to town especially for it?’

      ‘No, I have other business and visits I must make on behalf of my mother.’

      ‘Then perhaps we shall come across each other again. I am here to visit my sister for the summer—’

      ‘Esme!’ Rosemary’s tone was furious. ‘I am sure Lord Pendlebury does not wish to know that.’

      ‘On the contrary, my lady, I am delighted to hear it,’ he said. ‘Since my father’s death brought me back from the Continent two years ago, I have been kept busy at home in Birmingham and have sadly lost touch with the beau monde; I shall be glad to see someone I know.’

      ‘The horses are becoming restive,’ Rosemary said. ‘Come, Esme, it is time we resumed our ride.’

      ‘Then I bid you au revoir, ladies.’ As they moved off, he turned to Myles, who had watched the exchange with some amusement. ‘Until this afternoon, Moorcroft. Two o’clock we said, didn’t we?’

      ‘Yes, two o’clock,’ Myles answered and hurried to catch up with his sisters-in-law.

      ‘Esme, your behaviour has put me to the blush,’ Rosemary was saying. ‘You were openly flirting with the man and we have no idea who he is or anything about him. I am ashamed of you.’

      ‘Why, what did I do wrong?’

      ‘Telling him you were here for the summer and hoped to meet him again. I never heard anything so brazen. You would have been asking him to call on us if I had not stopped you.’

      ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that,’ Esme said blithely. ‘It is your home, not mine; besides, if he came to the house he would only quarrel with Rowan, considering they are on opposing sides over the Exhibition.’

      Myles was chuckling. Rosemary turned to him in exasperation. ‘It is all very well for you to laugh, Myles, you do not have the responsibility for this wretched