Jonathan spared Lise another glance.This time, she didn’t dodge his earnest gaze, hoping he could see the pleading in her eyes for him to decline.If he did see it, he ignored her wishes.
“Yes, thank you.I look forward to it.”
In short order, Jonathan complimented the quality of the refreshments — “the best coffee I’ve ever had and the moistest cake, too” — rose to his feet, and took his leave.
Lise had not bothered to get up.Because if she moved, she would shatter.Instead, she kept her hands folded in her lap, her expression serene.Inside, she felt as though she were rolling down a steep hill, head over heel.
After he left, she sipped the dregs from her cup and tasted nothing.Her pulse beat a wild rhythm against her throat.She thought of London.His hands.His mouth.
He should not be here.
Yet I am glad he is here.
I must be wicked.
Heat crawled up her neck.Setting down her cup with a faint clink, she dragged her writing box out from under the little table.Even as she opened the lid and retrieved her supplies, she knew it was useless.Her thoughts would never focus on Madame de Staël’s novel now.How unbearable to think she must wait three whole days to see him again.And then what?
No possible good could come from Jonathan Bowen being in her home.
Staring down at the ugly line of ink marring her paper, she realized a dreadful fact.Not once had she thought of Friedrich while Jonathan was there.As though her betrothed didn’t even exist.
Friday arrived with impossible haste.Lise had spent the intervening days in a state of agitation that even her mother remarked upon.
“You seem unsettled, Liebchen,” she’d said by Thursday evening, watching Lise abandon her book and begin a slow stroll around the drawing room.It mimicked the long walks she’d been taking around the estate for three days.
“Is something troubling you?”
Friedrich had never elicited any strong response from her in all the years she’d known him.Jonathan had made her heart race with the first words he’d ever spoken to her, and those, as she recalled, were derogatory.Still, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from approaching him.
“I am perfectly well, Mama,” she lied, flopped back on the sofa, and buried her nose in her book until supper.Then Thursday had swiftly ended, Friday had half-crawled, half-flown by, depending on her mood.
Now, a mere hour before his expected arrival, standing before her wardrobe in her best shift and stays, she stared at the array of gowns with something approaching despair.What did one wear to dine with a man who had compromised her in a London hallway?A man whose fingers had —
She pressed her palms to her heated cheeks.
“The blue silk,” Anna suggested.She was a maid-of-all work, and occasionally, rarely, only if there was company expected, she helped Lise to dress.“The one with the embroidered bodice.It becomes you.”
It was also the gown she’d worn to the ball at Spencer House.Where Jonathan had first seen her.Where he’d made that insufferable comment about forest-dwelling sprites.
“The pink silk,” Lise said firmly.“With the rosettes.”It was neither too plain, nor too showy.She hoped it became her without appearing as though she wanted his attention.Which she did not!
Anna, about five years older than Lise and sweet on Hans, helped Lise into the gown and set about arranging her hair.“Nothing too fancy.This isn’t a ball,” she reminded the maid.
“Your father wouldn’t like it if you came downstairs looking like you were going to a picnic, Fräulein.”
Anna was correct.Papa had worked hard all his life as the eldest son of a respectable Holstein landowner.Despite knowing he would inherit a grand estate, he studied at Kiel and entered the Danish-Holstein administration, pursuing his interest in the latest agricultural and economic ideas sweeping the region.
Both by acquiring undervalued parcels of land and by modernizing his father’s estate with innovative crop rotations, improved dairy herds, and profitable timber leases, Lise’s father had propelled himself and his new wife into the next level of wealth.
Consequently, their home sat upon one of the most prosperous estates in the area — and he never let anyone forget it!
Ultimately, Anna did as she wished, which was to dress her mistress’s hair with some well-placed loose curls and a narrow ribbon of lace at the crown.
Lise’s knees wobbled as she left her room.She’d tried to convince herself this was nothing more than an ordinary supper with an acquaintance of her brother’s.That had become increasingly impossible.
Downstairs, her mother was giving Frau Kemper last minute instructions with military precision.Even Elsabeth von Ostenfeld knew better than to enter the kitchen itself and disturb their cook whilst she was finishing the preparations.Their housekeeper would pass along any necessary orders.
Poking her head into the dining room, Lise couldn’t imagine there was anything left to do.As a family whittled down to three, they typically took supper in the smaller breakfast room, but tonight, Frau Kemper had “put on the polish,” as one said.Pure beeswax candles glowed in the wall sconces despite the lingering early evening sunlight.The sideboard was weighed down with all the porcelain and glassware that wasn’t needed for the start of the meal.
