Page 32 of The Bridal Quest

Maisie looked horrified as she hurried to take the brush from Irene's hands. "You must let me do your hair. You promised you would let me try a style I had in mind."

"But you must help Lady Haughston," Irene protested.

"Oh, no, not yet. Her ladyship never starts dressing for supper this early," Maisie told her, expertly pulling and twisting and pinning Irene's hair as she talked. "I will do your hair first, and then there will be plenty of time for Lady Haughston's toilette."

"Yes, but—"

"Oh, never say you aren't going to let me. I would so like to work with your curls. Her ladyship's hair is beautiful, of course, but entirely different from yours. You have so much of it—and those curls!"

"Those curls are a nuisance," Irene told her, but the girl just smiled and shook her head, promising Irene that she "would see."

And Irene did see a few minutes later when Maisie had finished and stepped back, highlighting the finished product with a flourish of her hand.

"Oh, my," Irene said, gazing at her image in the mirror.

The hairstyle Maisie had created was a far cry from the simple tight knot in which she usually wore her hair. Her hair was full and soft around her face, drawn up and back, then falling in a profusion of curls. Though tightly anchored with hairpins, it seemed loose and soft, as though it might fall free at any moment.

It looked, Irene thought, beautiful, and she smiled at Maisie in the mirror, nodding.

The maid left to tend to Francesca, and Irene sat for a moment longer, looking at herself in the mirror. She supposed she should not indulge in such vanity, but she could not help but smile at her image. She looked prettier than usual, softer and more approachable. She tried to recapture the stern expression she usually wore, but somehow her face would not pull into the severe lines.

She stood up and strolled over to the window, but it had grown dark outside, and there was nothing to see. She turned back to the room, feeling restless and wondering how she would occupy herself for the next hour until it was time for everyone to convene for supper.

It occurred to her that she could slip downstairs and look for the library, and find a book to read, but the thought of something as sedentary as reading did not appeal to her at the moment. She wanted to walk, but of course she could not go out for a walk at this hour and in this dress. Finally she remembered that she had glimpsed a long gallery leading off from the entry hall this afternoon when they had arrived, and she thought that strolling along it, looking at the artwork, might be just the thing to occupy her time.

Irene picked up her black shawl to drape around her arms, bared by the short puffed sleeves of her gown, and left her room. She walked quietly, not really wishing any company, and went softly and quickly down the stairs. She had just started across the wide entry way to the gallery beyond when she heard a man's voice.

"Lady Irene. Not running away already, are you?"

Her stomach tightened, and she turned, knowing that voice even before she saw him. "Lord Radbourne."

Chapter Eight

Gideon, too, was already dressed for dining. With his shaggy dark hair and hard angular face, he looked a trifle out of place in the formal black jacket and breeches and starched white shirt, a large pigeon's-blood ruby nestling in the snowy white folds of his cravat.

He strode toward her, and she watched him, trying to place what it was that made him look different from all the other men she knew. Perhaps it was the sun-darkened skin that gave him a slightly piratical look ... or the shaggy cut of his thick black hair, which marked him as one who cared little about his appearance. But she thought it was mostly the eyes—as green as new leaves, but hard and watchful, as though he was always on alert, ready for an attack even here in the middle of this huge house.

"You are early for supper," he commented as he drew near to her. His comment was mundane, but his eyes swept down her in a way that heated her blood.

"As are you," she replied coolly, looking him in the eye. She felt, as she had before when she had been around him, the same curious blend of nerves and heat that she had never experienced around anyone else. It was a feeling she was determined not to let him see.

"Why don't we take a stroll through the gallery while we wait?" he suggested, gesturing toward the long hall in front of them, lined with windows along one wall and with paintings along the other.

She nodded and turned toward the gallery, not taking the arm he proffered. Sconces burned along the wall all the way down the corridor, reflecting their flickering light in the mullioned windows across from them. The ceiling of the gallery was high and braced with beams of dark wood, giving it a dark and dramatic effect. Portraits of men and women whom she assumed must be Bankes ancestors decorated the wall, along with paintings of rural scenes and animals. There were statues and vases, some on pedestals and others freestanding, and here and there beneath the windows were benches upon which one could sit, presumably to admire the art across the way.

Most of the paintings were rather pedestrian, Irene thought, but she studied them as if they were masterpieces, for doing so kept her face turned from Lord Radbourne. She was discovering that looking at him caused too much tumult inside her.

After they had passed a number of ancestors in progressively dated styles of dress, they came to a large painting of a horse. Irene stopped, blurting out, "This is the best painting here!"

A grin spread slowly across her companion's face. "Yes, isn't it? Far better than the one of his owner." He gestured toward the man in the portrait that hung beside the one of the horse, then on past him to a picture of a pinch-faced woman. "Or the man's wife. But then, from what I have heard, the third Earl of Radbourne was much fonder of his horse than he was of his countess."

Irene could not help but smile, though she quickly suppressed it. "I suspect there are a number of people who could say that."

"You haven't a very good view of marriage, Lady Irene."

She did not reply, merely cocked an eyebrow at him and continued her progress down the hall.

"Or should I say that it is men of whom you take such a poor view, not marriage?"