child who’d been deprived of a promised treat and must be given another to make up for it. Hilda was the same, Randolph thought—childish one moment and alarmingly mature the next.
He found seats for his party in the park and flagged down one of Gunter’s waiters. The popularity of outdoor dining meant these servitors had to dodge carriages and horses in the street to take orders and deliver confections.
“A lemon ice,” Beatrice demanded as soon as the man approached. “One of the ones shaped like a lemon.” When Hilda looked inquiring, she added, “They freeze it in molds shaped like fruit. Or vegetables. Bread or meat even, though that seems odd to me. Why would you want to eat an ice that looks like a lamb chop?”
“How splendid,” said Hilda. “Do you have anything shaped like asparagus?” she asked the waiter.
“A pistachio ice cream, miss,” he answered.
“I’ll have that. I loathe asparagus.”
Randolph didn’t follow her reasoning, but it didn’t matter. The rest of them gave their orders, and the waiter rushed off.
They looked about, and Randolph’s companions began to comment on the other people present. This park of maple trees across from Gunter’s shop was quite a fashionable haunt, one of the few places a young lady could be seen alone with an unrelated man without being exposed to scandal. Although such a visit was a strong signal of an attachment, Randolph thought. He was far from alone with Miss Sinclair, of course. The two youngest members of their party fell into a fit of giggles over some whispered remark. Very far from alone.
“I wonder how she holds her head up,” Miss Sinclair said to Miss Townsend, watching a lady with an enormous feathered hat.
She hadn’t really looked at him since their stilted conversation in the drawing room, and it rankled. They’d sung together in perfect harmony. They’d kissed—a moment and a sensation that were seared into his memory. And then everything had gone wrong between them because of Thomas Rochford. Randolph felt a flash of rage at the man—the sort of person who cared for no one but himself and flouted convention simply for the fun of it, it seemed. Randolph’s eyes strayed back to Miss Sinclair as he tried to dismiss the anger. She seemed peculiarly able to unsettle him.
His connection with Rosalie Delacourt had been just the opposite, he thought. They’d been introduced in the most conventional way. They’d danced and strolled under her parents’ benign scrutiny. They’d talked and talked and found they agreed on every important point. He’d never really talked to Miss Sinclair, Randolph acknowledged, except a bit about music. With Rosalie, he had proposed, and she had accepted. All had been smooth as silk. Had it not been for a malign fate, they’d be living happily together right now. And he wouldn’t be sitting in a park puzzling over how to speak to a stubborn, forthright young lady with a habit of arguing.
Why was he comparing Miss Sinclair to Rosalie? Did he place them in the same category? And if he did—
The waiter brought their sweets and set them out. Hilda and Beatrice dug in.
“Are you still with us, Lord Randolph?” asked Miss Townsend as she picked up her spoon.
“Yes, of course.”
“It seemed you were a thousand miles away. Pondering higher matters, I suppose.”
Randolph wasn’t surprised that she was one who’d poke fun at his profession. Miss Townsend seemed to be rather shallow and self-centered. She was patently prone to sarcasm, a hopeful rather than successful wit. But the same might be said for many young people of both sexes, he added silently. No doubt she would improve with age. “I was just calculating how many birds perished to create that hat,” he said, nodding in the direction of the bonnet they’d been observing. “And deciding it wasn’t worth the slaughter.”
The ladies laughed. They ate their ices, exclaiming over the flavors. The breeze blew a strand of bright hair across Miss Sinclair’s cheek. As she tucked it back, their gazes intersected, and Randolph felt shaken, like a man who misses a step in the darkness. He needed to discover what lay behind those blue-green eyes. “What did you think of Herr Grossmann?” he asked her.
“Think of him?”
“Did his system strike you as credible?” The topic wasn’t scintillating, perhaps. But here in public he couldn’t ask her what she thought about deceptively charming rakes or explore the issue of kissing.
“I suppose it makes sense that the body would reflect the brain,” she said. “But