To Seduce a Sinner (Legend of the Four Soldiers #2)(53)

“Why do you suppose little boys and dogs love the mud so much?” Melisande mused. Abigail was keeping her distance, but Jamie had stood and stomped at something in the muck. Mud flew up in great lumps. Mouse barked.

“The stench?” Mrs. Fitzwilliam guessed.

“The mess?”

Abigail shrieked and leaped back as her brother stomped in the mud again.

“The fact that it disgusts little girls?”

Melisande smiled. “That certainly explains Jamie’s fascination, but not Mouse’s.”

She found herself wishing she could ask the other woman to tea. Mrs. Fitzwilliam wasn’t what she’d expected at all. She didn’t ask for sympathy, didn’t seem distressed at her lot in life, and she had a sense of humor. She might make a very good friend.

But, alas, it would never do to invite a cyprian to tea.

“I understand that you are newly wed,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said. “May I offer my felicitations?”

“Thank you,” Melisande murmured. Her brow wrinkled as she was reminded of how Jasper had left her the night before.

“I’ve often thought that it must be hard to actually live with a man,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam mused.

Melisande darted a glance at her.

Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s cheeks reddened. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s just that a man can be so distant sometimes,” the other lady said quietly. “As if one is intruding on his life. But perhaps not all men are like that?”

“I don’t know,” Melisande said. “I’ve only the one husband.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam looked down at the ground. “I wonder, though, if it is even possible for a man and a woman to be truly close. In a spiritual sense, I mean. The sexes are so far apart, aren’t they?”

Melisande clasped her hands together. Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s view of marriage was rather cynical, and a part of her—the sensible, pragmatic part—urged her to agree. But another part of her disagreed violently. “I don’t think that always has to be the case, surely? I have seen couples very much in love with each other, so close that they seem to understand each other’s thoughts.”

“And do you have such a bond with your husband?” Mrs. Fitzwilliam asked. The question would’ve been rude coming from any other lady, but Mrs. Fitzwilliam seemed honestly curious.

“No,” Melisande answered. “Lord Vale and I don’t have that type of marriage.”

And that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She’d loved once before and had [bef0%" been wounded to her very soul. She simply couldn’t endure that kind of pain again. Melisande felt a shrinking, a sadness, infuse her being as she acknowledged this fact. She would never have one of those glorious marriages based on love and mutual understanding.

“Ah,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said, and then they stood together silently and watched the children and Mouse.

Finally, Mrs. Fitzwilliam turned to her and smiled, a wonderfully beautiful smile that simply took Melisande’s breath away. “Thank you for letting them play with your dog.”

As Melisande opened her mouth to answer, she heard a shout from behind her. “My lady wife! What a joy to find you here.”

And she turned to see Vale riding toward them with another man.

MELISANDE HAD BEEN so deeply in conversation with the other woman that she didn’t even notice Jasper until he hailed her. As he and Lord Hasselthorpe rode closer, the other woman turned and strolled unhurriedly away. Jasper recognized the woman. She called herself Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and she’d been the Duke of Lister’s mistress for almost a decade.

What had Melisande been doing, talking to a demimondaine?

“Your wife keeps fast company,” Lord Hasselthorpe said. “Sometimes young matrons get the idea in their head that they can become fashionable by skirting the edges of respectability. Best warn her, Vale.”

A biting retort was on Jasper’s lips, but he swallowed it. He’d just spent the prior half hour ingratiating himself to Hasselthorpe.

He grit his teeth and said, “I’ll keep it in mind, sir.”

“Do,” Hasselthorpe replied, pulling his horse to a stop before they’d reached Melisande. “No doubt you wish to discuss matters with your lady wife, so I’ll part ways with you here. You’ve given me much to think about.”

“Does that mean you’ll help us find the traitor?” Jasper pressed.

Hasselthorpe hesitated. “Your theories seem sound, Vale, but I dislike rushing into things. If my brother Thomas was indeed killed because of some cowardly traitor, you will have my help. But I would like to contemplate the matter further.”

“Very well,” Jasper said. “May I call on you tomorrow?”

“Best make it the day after,” Hasselthorpe said.

Jasper nodded, though he hated the delay. He shook hands with the other man and then rode toward Melisande. She had turned to watch him approach, her hands folded at her waist, her back as usual impossibly straight. She didn’t look at all like the woman who’d seduced him so expertly the night before. For a moment, he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, make her lose her impenetrable poise, make her back bend.

He did no such thing, of course; one didn’t accost one’s wife in a public park in the middle of the morning even if she had just been conversing with persons of low repute.