And yet, she knew how much it meant to her friend to be appropriate, so she sighed deeply with a shake of her head. “I cannot believe you are making me do this.”
“Betty, please would you fetch your mistress’s bonnet? The sun is quite strong today, and she already has so many freckles,” Daisy said, glaring at Melissa out of the corner of her eye, a silent reminder that she had told her so many times not to spend so much time out in the sunshine as it was not good for her to look so sun kissed. Yet another unspoken rule that the ladies of thetonliked to live by.
“Yes, My Lady,” Betty said without so much as a hint of complaint.
“Flit!” Melissa called. If she was walking all the way to a neighbouring estate, she couldn’t very well deprive him of the opportunity.
***
By the time they reached the door of the neighbouring manor, Melissa guessed that the best part of the experience was over. The walk through the wildflower fields was likely much more entertaining than any experience she would have inside the building.
Yet she forced a smile onto her face when a man who looked to be half the age of her own butler, Winston, answered the door.
“Good morning, sir,” Daisy said with a brilliant smile as he looked at them expectantly. It would not surprise Melissa if they were not the first in the area to come and pay a visit. Likely the women would be swarming before too long, especially if they had heard the same rumours that Daisy had about the new lord of the manor. “We hope we are not disturbing the household, but Lady Belmont and I are neighbours, you see, and we wished to make the acquaintance of our new peers.”
“Lady Belmont, Lady….” the butler began his greeting with a bow, looking as though he was expecting Daisy to fill in her name.
“Lady Fenchurch, if you please.”
“Please, do come in, and I shall announce you to Lord Spurnrose,” the butler explained, gesturing them both through.
“Oh, please do be sure he is prepared for guests,” Daisy said quite loudly as though she wished to make her presence known.
“Oh, do come in!” The voice came from behind the butler. “Greaves, do let them in!”
“Of course, My Lord.” The butler stepped out of the way, gesturing them both inside. As Daisy passed through, Flit skidding around her to be first through the door, the butler glowered down at the dog as though he was not entirely impressed with its presence.
“Forgive Flit,” Melissa said to the butler with a smile. “He so loves meeting new people.”
She was a little amused at the butler’s distaste, happy to cause it wherever she went in the hope that she would not be invited back if the residences were not to her liking.
“Of course, My Lady.” The butler seemed to force a smile and offered to take both of their bonnets. Melissa was all too happy to take her own off and once she had she turned to find the master of the house standing in the drawing room doorway, a room she had been in several times when the manor had belonged to the late Lord Vexton.
But this man was most definitely no Lord Vexton. Where the late earl had been a slow and portly man with a fuzzy brow and greying hair, this nobleman was quite the opposite. He was so tall that he seemed to dwarf the doorway, and his shoulders were so broad that even the sunshine of the open room behind him could not get around him.
Yet when he turned to gesture them through the door, and the light lit up his face, Melissa saw that he was indeed as handsome as Daisy had made him out to be. With auburn hair that caught the sunlight in shades of red, blond and hazel, he was quite an extraordinary man indeed.
He is a man just like any other,Melissa told herself, stepping through the drawing room door behind her friend, who graciously accepted the lord’s invitation.
The man sitting beside the empty fireplace on the far side of the room was the man she had seen upon the brown stallion a few days earlier. Unlike the man who had invited them in, he was wiry and quite pale in complexion. In fact, Melissa thought he looked a little ill.
“Lady Belmont, Lady Fenchurch, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Elijah Spurnrose, and this is my cousin, Mr Harold Spurnrose,” the first man explained, bowing before gesturing towards the man sitting upon the armchair with a book in hand.
“Ahh, Mr. Spurnrose, I believe we have met,” Daisy said as the man rose from his chair and placed his book on the nearest table to come and make their acquaintance.
“Yes, Lady Fenchurch,” he said with a smile, offering her his hand to kiss her knuckles. “I do believe we have met on occasion through your husband. How is he?”
“He is well, in London, but well,” Daisy assured him with a smile.
It wasn’t until Mr. Spurnrose turned to greet Melissa that she saw the familiar look on his face that she had seen on the faces of so many who knew her reputation. Clearly, he was not pleased to see her standing in his cousin’s drawing room. She could not say she blamed him. She would have preferred not to be there either.
“Please, sit,” Lord Spurnrose insisted, gesturing the ladies over to a nearby couch just opposite Mr Spurnrose’s armchair. “Greaves, please bring tea and a bowl of water for our four-legged guest.”
Flit, who had been plastered to Melissa’s leg, looking quite unsure of his surroundings, grumbled discontentedly when the lord leaned down to make his acquaintance.
“Forgive him, Lord Spurnrose; he does not always take too kindly to strangers,” Melissa said, feeling that at the least she could apologise for her dog’s rude behaviour in his home.
“No need to apologise, My Lady.” Lord Spurnrose shook his head and again gestured for her to sit. She joined Daisy, who had already taken a seat. “We are to be neighbours. He has plenty of time to get used to me.”
