After fifteen minutes of being impolitely ignored, Clarissa decided the time had come to ease herself away. She had in her mind to go in search of her husband and beg to let them leave. She took a step away from the matron and was almost run over by several debutantes who were full of giggles and punch. She was certain their mothers would not approve, but the young men following them had high hopes.
Clarissa stepped back toward the wall where it was safe, and that was when she noticed a window overlooking a stone portico and a night garden. Paper lanterns had been strung up in the trees and several people were already out there enjoying the evening. Fresh air would feel good after being in this overperfumed crowd.
She headed straight for the door leading outside and she was not sorry. The summer breeze was velvety warm and a balm for anyone who had been cooped inside that ballroom.
Deciding to wait for Mars here, Clarissa moved away from the couples who were walking the length of the portico and found a place overlooking the garden that was shadowed. She tucked herself in there. She hoped the meeting didn’t take much longer—
“Lady Marsden?” a man’s voice said.
Clarissa looked over her shoulder and was shocked to see Lord Dervil standing there.
She didn’t pretend to not know him. “I don’t believe I should be with you out here,” she said. “I know you understand the reasons. Pray don’t follow me.”
She would have run for the door, except he blocked her way. “No,please, a moment isallI ask.”
“My husband—”
“You are the image of someone I once knew. Someone Iloved—”
His voice stopped abruptly. His gaze dropped to her pendant and he stared as if he recognized it.
Uncomfortable with the intensity of his scrutiny, she placed her hand over the small gold medallion, wanting to block it from his view. He raised shocked eyes and took a step toward her, before asking almost desperately, “How did you come by that pendant?”
Chapter Sixteen
And God has brought him right to my door.
—Book of Mars
Clarissa was not going to answer Lord Dervil’s question. She was far too alone in this corner of the portico for her to be comfortable with a confrontation.
“I’m certain my husband is looking for me.” She moved to the side to go around him.
He stepped into her path. “I know Marsden will be angry I approached you, but a moment of your time. That’s all I ask.” He didn’t sound threatening... however, what if he was playing some sort of game that would hurt Mars?
“Why?”
“Because I gave that pendant to a woman I loved as a gift. If you know her, tell me, how is she?Whereis she?”
“I don’t know anything.” And that was the truth.
He shook his head as if she mocked him.“It isn’t just the necklace, my lady. You are her very image even to your height and the shade of your eyes. When I saw you last night in the theater, my heart stopped. I thought you were her.”
“And she is?” Clarissa had to ask. If he’d given her mother the pendant, he knew her identity. Her attitude toward him changed. Perhaps this meeting was fortuitous.
Now he was the one to turn wary. His gaze narrowed as if he was weighing her purpose. Then he said, “Priscilla Comstock. Now, how did you come by that pendant?”
Priscilla. ThePon the medallion. Clarissa closed her hand around the gold disk and said, “It was my mother’s.”
Lord Dervil almost lunged for her. “Your mother?Tell me, where is she? How may I find her?”
And because he had given her information, because she believed he was serious in his inquiries, she said as gently as possible, “She died.”
His knees buckled. He reached for the balustrade and caught himself before he collapsed. His eyes widened and became red rimmed as if he held back tears, and then he bent over, losing the battle. “God help me. God help me, Priscilla.”
Clarissa leaned against the balustrade. They were actually completely alone now. The others who had been outside had gone in—and she was glad. His grief was raw, humbling. She knew he would not want others to be a witness.
He looked to her, his face contorted as it took all his will to regain his composure. “Tell me what you know.Tell me all.”
