“Very little. Music. Glamour. Lady FitzCameron’s glamourist.” Jane waited to see if Melody would speak of meeting Mr. Vincent, but her sister charged ahead with her litany of woes.

“You see! I could not speak with him of any of those. I am talentless.” She clenched her fingers in her hair, and for a moment Jane feared that Melody would pull her own hair out by the roots.

Such were Melody’s torments that Jane gave away the comfort that she had taken for herself. “Not true. Ask Papa what he said about you.”

In an instant, Melody turned over, her eyes a vivid, sparkling blue. “What did he say? Do not teaze me, dear sister.”

“He said, ‘Your daughter is a credit to you.’ ”

Melody’s face lit with an inner glow of pleasure, but it faded quickly. “He was surely speaking of you.”

“I was there, Melody. Why would he speak of me as if I were not present?” And as Jane spoke, she realized that it was true. She had taken Mr. Dunkirk’s words to her heart as if he had spoken of her, but he surely had not. Who else could he have meant but Melody? Had his compliment been intended for Jane, he would have said, “You are a credit to your father.” There could be no doubt that he had meant Melody. Jane reached out and tousled Melody’s hair to mask the wet disappointment that seeped through her. “You see?”

Melody sat and flung her arms around Jane. “Oh, thank you. Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course. We must find these small comforts where we may.” Jane held her sister and wondered where she would find her own small comfort. She reached for a new topic, to push away the pain of this one. “And now, should I chide you for not telling me of Lady FitzCameron’s glamourist?”

Melody pulled back, her eyes wide with guilt. “Oh, Jane! I am so sorry. When Mr. Dunkirk said he would call, all else slipped my mind. Though, truly, there is little to tell.”

“Well. What sort of man is he?”

“More bear than man, really. La! He said barely two words the whole visit. Lady FitzCameron says that he is frightfully clever, but I did not see any signs of it.”

“Fortunately, one does not need to speak to weave glamour.” Jane sighed. “I should like to have had the training that he has had.”

Melody leaned against Jane, wrinkling her nose. “See! You chide me, but you already know more of him than I do.”

“You were too distracted by Mr. Dunkirk, I daresay.”

When Melody blushed, her infatuation was writ large on her cheeks. “Oh, Jane. Is Mr. Dunkirk not the most handsome, most admirable man you have ever met?”

“Yes.” Jane hugged her sister, so that her own telling countenance was hidden. “Yes, he is.”

Two

Doves and Roses

As the family sat in the drawing room after their nuncheon, the maid brought in the afternoon’s mail on a silver tray and handed the letters to Jane’s father. He looked over them and harrumphed before passing one heavy letter to Jane’s mother.