The Officer's Temptation | A Regency Romance

Chapter Ten: A Warning

"Marlowe, dear, what do you think? The gold or the silver?" Marlowe glanced up from the sketch he had been attempting of the hearth in the study. His mother stood at the door holding up two decorative shawls. Her dark hair was tied in curl papers, wrapped and ready to be styled for the ball later. 

He grinned. "With your complexion? The gold. The silver would make you look like a corpse."

His mother scowled and threw one of the shawls at his face. The tiny decorative beads scratched his jaw as the cloth thumped in his face. "Is that any way to talk to your mother?"

He laughed as he pulled the shawl off, making only the smallest of grimaces as a hair got caught in the bead work and yanked out from his sideburns. "It is when she insists on talking to me on matters of fashion. Isn't this why you invited Mrs. Jennings?"

"She's too busy getting ready." His mother made a delicate sniffing sound and pulled a chair up to the desk beside him. "I need to remind your father to have a conversation with you about how to talk to women. I may be old, but I am not yet a corpse," she said wryly.

He handed her back the so recently weaponized accessory. "Do you mean to say that my attempts to stress you into an early grave have been fruitless?"

She chuckled and held up the golden shawl to study it. "You're right. I think this will suit better than the silver. It is our last ball in Florence. I want something bold and memorable."

"It's our only ball in Florence," he reminded her, nibbling on the end of his pen and thinking that the week had passed altogether far too quickly. The families were nearly ready to pack up and make off for their next destination in Milan. Besides preparations for the ball, there seemed to be a hundred other small tasks to complete--visits to be made, sites to be seen, and of course, things to buy. Though hadn't yet departed, Marlowe was already feeling a growing nostalgia for Florence, where they had spent the longest leg of their tour. Now they would be on to Milan for only a week and afterwards the families would split with the Jenningses continuing into Switzerland and France and the Hugheses and the Balfreys returning south to Genoa where they would set sail back for England. It would be a few more months until the Jennings family finished their tour and returned home, but if all went according to plan he supposed it would  be even longer before he saw Kate again. Perhaps years. Perhaps never if she met some handsome artist or poet in the streets of Paris and neglected to return home.

"What troubles you?" his mother asked, observing the shadow that crossed his face. She looked over his shoulder at the drawing. "Having difficulty with the sketch?" She pursed her lips as her eyes flicked approvingly over the page. "You always did like to draw, when you were a young boy. Do you remember? And this is coming along quite nicely. Katherine's lessons have made a marked improvement in your forms."

"Praise for the teacher and not the student?"

She smiled. "I remember the governess's complaints about the student when he was a wee lad sneaking toads into the nursery instead of studying his arithmetic."

"Miss Compton was a poor teacher. Miss Jennings is infinitely superior."

His mother quirked an eyebrow. "I suppose you'll dance with her tonight? You'll be a beautiful pair on the dance floor."

Marlowe groaned. "Mother, please." But despite himself he smiled.

She looked at him approvingly. "It is nice to see you smile again. It makes me so nostalgic to see you like this." She placed a hand on his arm. "You were the happiest child I ever saw, did you know that? Your sister cried and fussed so much, but never you. After you returned from Spain, I thought--"