He smiled and took her hand in a warm clasp as she came up with him. He drew her to his side, glanced around him, and bent with a smile to kiss her on the lips.
"Do you always look as fresh and lovely in the mornings?" he asked. "Your cheeks are positively glowing."
"Yes, always," she assured him. "But then, do I not look lovely all day long?"
He grinned. "You are not fishing for a compliment, are you, Jane? I thought only your cousin used such tactics. She is quite a little imp, is she not? Yes, dear, you always look lovely to me."
Jane gave him a wide artificial smile andflickeredher eyelids at him. He laughed and squeezed her hand.
Chapter Eleven
"My dear Honor, not charades again tonight!"Lady Dart said wearily, setting her teacup back in its saucer. "We have played for the past two evenings, and you and Mr.Sedgeworthfar outclass anyone else."
"Very well," Honor said gaily. "We will play on different teams tonight, will we not, sir?"
He raised his cup to her in a mock toast.
"Besides," said Lady Dart, not so easily mollified, "some of us spent the afternoon playing with the children and would prefer something a little more sedate this evening. Would you not agree, Jane?And Lord Fairfax?I need not ask you, my love. You were giving piggyback rides all afternoon and Gregory in particular is growing far too heavy for such games."
"How would an evening of music suit?" Fairfax asked, setting his own cup back on the tea tray and turning to his guests. "Shall we go to the music room?"
Honor was immediately enthusiastic. Jane was more quietly so. She had seen the magnificent pianoforte and the smaller harpsichord on a tour of the house the day before and had been longing for a chance to hear or even play the instruments. Mr.Sedgeworth, seated beside her, smiled.
"Jane has been promising to play for me," he said. "Now sounds like a good time, Fairfax."
"Well, if you will not consider me unsociable," Lady Dart said, "I believe I will stay here, my lord, and fetch my embroidery. I can think of no more blissful way of spending an evening."
Lord Dart announced his intention of fetching a book and keeping his wife company.
Honor took possession of the pianoforte as soon as they entered the music room. Fairfax stood behind the stool to turn the pages of the music once she had selected what she would play. Jane andSedgeworthcrossed the room to the harpsichord, which she proceeded to admire. It was a work of art in itself, its highly polished wood painted with scenes from mythology. She ran her hand over its surface.
"You must be tired, Jane,"Sedgeworthsaid. "You were really very busy with the children while Fairfax was sedately rowing Miss Jamieson on the lake and I sitting idly on the beach. In fact, I had a very lazy time of it, did I not? I was still sitting idly on the beach when Fairfax joined in that very boisterous game of hide-and-seek."
"I enjoyed the afternoon," Jane said, "and I believe the children did too. It must be a rare event for them to have adults playing with them for so long."
"I am not sure of that,"Sedgeworthsaid. "Fairfax seems to spend a large portion of his time romping with his daughters. You like children, do you not?"
"Oh, very much," she said, seating herself on the bench and smiling warmly up at him."And a good thing too.Both my brother and my sister have families. I have been Aunt Jane for a long time."
Sedgeworthlooked thoughtfully at her and smiled. "What power do you have over the little one?" he asked. "She climbed onto your lap and fell asleep again at teatime. She will not release her hold of Fairfax for anyone else."
"Claire?" Jane said. "We were outdoors, you know, and she had been doing a great deal of shrieking and running around. She was exhausted."
"Amy is the strange one,"Sedgeworthsaid."Very withdrawn and far too solemn for a four-year-old.Fairfax has been worried about her. Yet you seem to have befriended her to a certain extent."
"I showed her how to make daisy chains this afternoon," Jane said, "and she was very excited."
Her thoughts turned back to Fairfax' elder child asSedgeworthdirected his attention to the music being produced on the pianoforte. Honor was playing Mozart with precision though without flair.
During the morning of the day before, after her walk to the lake and encounter there with her host, she had accepted Joy's suggestion that they go up to the nursery to see the children. They had been besieged by three noisy youngsters all wanting to show their mother toys and books that they had found in this new nursery. Jane had moved away to observe Fairfax'chldren. Amy was painting, swathed to the chin in a large apron. Claire was standing before a bowl of soapy water in which she was bathing a doll, watched by her nurse.
"Say good morning and make your curtsies to Miss Matthews," the nurse said.
Amy muttered some words and bobbed a curtsy without looking up from her painting. Claire popped her thumb in her mouth and smiled around it. Jane crossed to her side.
"Are you bathing your doll?" she asked. "She is being a good girl and not splashing the water. What is her name?"
The child smiled around her thumb again. "Dolly," she said, pulled out the thumb, and covered her eyes with both hands.
