“And you trust him?”
“Without a doubt,” Kate answered, taking the question seriously.
“I have no idea how to be a countess,” Clarissa blurted out. “I mean, tonight, I won’t know anyone save for Lady Fenton... and I don’t think she likes me. I know I don’t feel comfortable with her.”
“Don’t worry what she thinks. Be yourself. You have wonderful manners, your heart is inthe right place, and you know exactly who you are.”
“Who I am is a foundling. I have no family and my parentage will always be a mystery.” She didn’t share what she’d learned about her mother. The information was still too new.
Kate said, “Clarissa, Mars will love you if he doesn’t already. He won’t be able to help himself. All of us, Ned, Brandon, myself, already see signs of it. He was more relaxed and open last night than any of us could have anticipated. And,” she said, pulling an emerald green water silk from her closet, “I don’t believe he will be able to resist you in this dress. You most certainly will appear every inch a countess.”
She was right. The emerald was perfect for Clarissa’s coloring. “When you return to London for a longer visit, I’ll take you shopping,” Kate promised.
“I don’t know when we will return. I’m ready to go home now,” Clarissa answered. “I’m not one for the city. I can’t wait until this vote is over and we return to Dora.”
“When will that be?”
“Thursday. It can’t come soon enough.”
“Well, let us see how to make you the talk of the town this evening.” Kate called in her lady’s maid Mary who had been in charge of costumes for the acting troupe. Mary was good with a needle and pinned up the hem.
Mary stood, admiring her handiwork, and then said in a mock whisper to Kate as if shewere a guest at the Harrison ball, “They say she is the new countess.”
“She’s lovely,” Kate answered in the spirit of the moment. “Incomparable! No wonder Marsden married her without fanfare! She’s a beauty!”
Clarissa laughed, even as she blushed. She didn’t see herself as all that attractive.
But Mars did. He’d called her lovely.
Maybe, perhaps, she might believe it to be true?
“How must we finish her, Mary?” Kate asked.
They spent the next hour discussing hairstyles, ribbons vs. feathers vs. velvet caps, gloves, and shawls. Kate insisted that Mary must go to Marsden House that evening to style Clarissa’s hair and plans were made. Mary would also bring the altered dress with her.
On the short ride home, Clarissa caught herself thinking not of the dress or the evening ahead, but of the question of love. What was she to Mars?
At the door, she asked the footman where the earl was. “In his study, my lady.”
The study was located on the ground floor toward the back of the house. It had a view of a small side garden. The room was tiny compared to Belvoir standards with an even closet of a room to the side for Mr. Lowton. Fortunately, the secretary was away and she found her husband studying a stack of papers on the desk in front of him.
She knocked on his open door.
He looked up with a frown which quickly turned to a welcoming smile.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked.
“Thankfully so,” he said, pushing away from the desk. He motioned to the papers. “These are Lowton’s assessments on what issues I should be aware of. The man is more pleased than you are that I am at last taking on a few of my responsibilities. Who knew there were so many votes? Or so much information to be taken in?”
“You would have, my lord,” Clarissa said, “if you had been paying attention over the years. Of course, now that I’ve met Lady Fenton...”
“You understand,” he finished and then laughed as if the two of them were in perfect accord. “Did you find a dress?” he asked.
“Yes, Kate was most helpful.”
“I would buy a shop full of dresses, but I like you undressed best of all.” He gifted her with a lazy beautiful smile that sent more heat through her than his words. “Come here,” he said.
Clarissa shyly obeyed and he kissed her fully and deeply, pulling her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her—
