Chapter Four #2
He did not bother to lower his voice; it was time that he started to impress the entire Chance clan, and he saw no reason why this could not be the moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the viscountess lower her wineglass, her expression unreadable.
“My mother?” Miss Chance repeated, her own focus drifting over to the viscountess on the other side of the table.
Reginald inclined his head politely to the woman who would soon be his mother-in-law.
“Her earbobs are clearly diamonds, and beautifully set. They match her necklace and the elegant string of diamonds within her hair. Yet they have been mended. Very well, yes, but you can tell that one of the diamonds in the necklace have been replaced. This is a sign of long ownership, and it is important to your mother. Why else restore them?”
Miss Chance said not a word, and neither did her mother. Perhaps that was where his future wife had inherited her reticence from. Ah, inherited…
“It was a gift—a parure, perhaps given by…by her father,” Reginald hazarded, hoping to goodness he did not offend anyone through this ridiculous enterprise. “They suggest to me the sort of jewels one wears when one comes out into Society.”
The viscountess inclined her head with a smile. “From my mother, in fact, but you are not wrong.”
“Your bracelet, however, is quite different,” Reginald continued, warming to his theme and wondering to goodness why no one was stopping him speaking such nonsense.
“The coral is not diamonds—it’s hardly worth one of the earbobs—but it is unique, special, unusual in its design.
I would suppose it was given by a loved one without the funds for diamonds, but someone who knew you well, my lady.
Someone who knew your tastes and wanted to gift you something that no one else in Society had. Someone… Someone precious to you.”
For a moment, he thought he had gone too far. It was all very well, playing this parlor trick with friends who could guffaw when he was wrong and mock-applaud him when he was right.
It was the sort of thing that had kept them entertained on long nights. When he’d had friends.
But doing it here, at the Chances’? What if he was wrong—what if he had offended?
Reginald saw to his horror that the viscount had reached out to hold his wife’s hand with a yearning look in his eyes, and he was murmuring low.
Oh, no.
“—and not nearly as expensive as your diamond earbobs, I’m afraid,” Miss Chance’s father was saying in a low voice. “But I hope you never took that as a sign of my lowered love for you.”
“Never,” the viscountess murmured, lifting his hand and pressing a devoted kiss onto his palm.
Reginald was forced to look away from the blatant display of affection, heat searing his cheeks. Dear God, that was a close one.
His choice of direction to look away was at his future bride, and to his great surprise, she was looking right at him.
“Impressive,” she said quietly.
“Goodness, I hope not,” he said, unexpectedly delighted at her praise. “It’s all just nonsense, really.”
“Is that what you speak?” Miss Chance asked, her voice still soft. “Just nonsense?”
Reginald hesitated. This felt like a trick question.
If he were in Town and a young debutante had said such a thing—not that a young debutante would be permitted to speak with him when the news got out—then he would consider it a gentle flirtation, and he would lower his voice and say that he spoke nonsense to everyone… except her.
But somehow, that did not feel right here.
Reginald swallowed and tried not to notice how Miss Chance’s eyes flickered to his Adam’s apple. “Mostly nonsense, but there is some truth in it. There are things jewels can tell us.”
“And what do my earbobs tell you?” Miss Chance asked, a slight lift of her left eyebrow accompanying her question.
This could go one of two ways, Reginald knew. Either he would get this right and he would endear himself to his future bride…or he would get it wrong, and she would think less of him.
Not that it particularly mattered, of course. As long as she married him.
“Your earbobs,” Reginald started slowly. “Your…your earbobs…”
They were beautiful, especially now that he was looking at them more closely, but there did not seem to be much detail. They were circular, golden earbobs—or dropped pendants, he supposed that was the correct term.
They were engraved but without much of a distinct pattern. No jewels had been embedded within them. They were simple. Elegant. Uncomplicated.
When Reginald shifted his attention to Miss Chance’s eyes, it was to notice her blazing cheeks. Evidently, this woman did not get looked at much.
“Your earbobs are elegant and uncomplicated. Much like their owner,” Reginald said in a low tone, trying his best to ensure that only Miss Chance could hear him.
“I would hazard a guess that you selected them. They are the sort of adornment that will happily accompany any attire. Almost any color. You wear them often, almost all the time, in fact. You do not have to think about what you wear when you wear them because…because you have something far more important to think about. You have a brilliant mind.”
With a thrill of joy, he saw that Miss Chance’s lips had parted in astonishment—something of a habit around him, he had to note.
“How could you know all of that?” was her question.
Reginald knew preening was an unattractive trait in a young man, which was why he was attempting not to do it. It was difficult, though. “Ah, to the well-practiced eye, much can be revealed.”
There was a look of—well, not quite incredulity, but not far off. “I admit myself impressed.”
“It’s a game I used to play with my friends,” Reginald found himself saying, the words somehow falling from his mouth before he could stop them.
“‘Used to’?”
There it was—the spark of intelligence and insightfulness that he had hoped his future wife would not have. Miss Chance was looking at him curiously, her ability to pick up on the two words he had rather hoped she would not notice absolutely uncanny.
Reginald looked down at his now-empty plate. About now would be a good time for the Chance footmen to enter the room and clear the plates, providing a useful distraction.
But the wine was flowing and the laughter was raucous at one end of the table especially, and the footmen remained at their stations around the walls.
So Reginald smiled and delicately turned the conversation back to Miss Chance’s earrings. “Was I right? Did you choose the earbobs yourself?”
“You… You can tell all that from my earrings?”
“I did warn you that it was mostly nonsense,” Reginald chided with a wink.
The wink was too much. He realized it the moment he had done so, the light leaving Miss Chance’s eyes immediately, replaced with a distant coldness, which was how he had started off the dinner.
Blast it to hell.
“Yes, you did,” Miss Chance said quietly. “But you were wrong. The earbobs are my mother’s. I borrowed them for the first time this evening.”
Ah. Reginald could not help it; he glanced over to the viscountess, who was grinning. She raised her wineglass in a silent toast to him and her smile widened.
Brilliant. That was precisely what he needed.
Turning back to Miss Chance, he saw that she was picking at the remainder of her trout, turned from him now, as though wishing to make it absolutely clear that their conversation was at an end.
Which was not ideal when he would be marrying the woman in a few weeks. Though he wondered if he’d first need to get her father’s explicit blessing.
“You must think me a fool,” he said quietly.
For some reason, that statement gained Miss Chance’s attention. Tilting her head toward him, she shrugged. “I… I do not know what to think.”
That sounded slightly more positive. “Well, I hope that the next few weeks—”
“It is a strange man who would turn up here and request me for his bride,” Miss Chance continued, as though she had finally been given permission to speak.
Her eyes fixed on his.
Reginald swallowed. Plain though she undoubtedly was, he was finding it difficult to remember that as he looked into her pupils. They were a shade of green he had never seen before. Not mossy, not emerald, but with a patina within them of gold and shimmering light.
They were… They were beautiful.
“I’m doing this all wrong,” muttered Miss Chance, dropping her gaze.
Doing it all—doing what all wrong?
Reginald shook his head as though drunk. His head felt a little stuffed full of cotton wool, as though he’d dunked it underwater and was now having trouble ridding it from his ears.
What had just happened there? For a moment, he had thought—it had felt like—what had she said?
“Doing what wrong?” he murmured before he could stop himself.
Miss Chance’s cheeks darkened to such a deep red, Reginald was almost certain he could feel the heat pouring off them. She said nothing, mutely shaking her head as she picked up her fork then put it down again.
Precisely what had happened to make her so self-conscious, he could not tell. Something had occurred and yet nothing had occurred.
What was going on?
Well, there was nothing for it. He was hardly a brute—he could not let the poor woman twist herself in knots if she had changed her mind.
Flickers of panic arched through his mind, but Reginald pushed them aside. His own family troubles notwithstanding, he would not permit a woman to marry him merely because he had asked and she had felt obliged.
Even though it would end all hopes of restoring his family’s reputation if she broke off their strange engagement.
“Miss Chance,” Reginald said quietly.
She did not look up. Perhaps that was all to the good. There was something most powerful in her eyes, something he did not understand.
“Miss Chance, why did you say yes to my proposal if you do not wish to be married?”
Reginald did not ask “If you do not wish to marry me” because he wasn’t quite sure his ego could take the answer—but to his great surprise, Miss Chance looked up, her eyelids fluttering rapidly, and shook her head.
“I do want to be married. I will marry you.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you wish to rescind your proposal?”
Reginald stared, open mouthed. “No, but—”
“So there we are, then,” Miss Chance said firmly, as though she were signing her own death warrant. “You wish to be married, I wish to be married, you asked me, and I said yes. That is all there is to it. That is all we need to know.”
Reginald blinked. In his general experience, ladies were not so forthright, so business-like in their matches. But then, she was a Chance. Perhaps he should not have underestimated her.
“Right,” he said aloud—uncertainly.
“Right,” Miss Chance said, her cheeks still flushing. “Mama, it’s time the ladies left.”
It was a most outrageous breach of etiquette, with the Duchess of Cothrom right there, but it appeared that his future bride did not care. Not waiting for their hostess, nor her mother, Miss Chance rose from her seat and marched out of the dining room to muffled murmurs.
Reginald attempted to smile. “Gone to…to powder her nose.”
Her father, the Viscount Pernrith, grinned from the other side of the table. “Ah, to be young and enjoy the first flush of romance.”
Reginald’s grin wavered, but only a touch. “Indeed.”
Indeed. What had he gotten himself into?