Lord Garnthorpe stood before the mirror in his dressing chamber at St. James’s, turning about. Dissatisfied. Though he had curbed his tailor’s worst excesses, was even the little he’d retained not too much? Sarah loved him as he was: plain, honest and only as handsome as God had made him. So there must be no artificiality in their exchanges. Nothing false. She’d known that before he had. It was the reason she had so demurely declined his offering of the sapphire.
A knock. “What?” he snapped.
“A visitor, my lord,” Maggs called.
“Of what estate?”
“He would not give his name. He’s plainly dressed. Not a nobleman.”
Garnthorpe snorted. Maggs had all the snobbery of a manservant. Was he not noble and yet as plain as any other man? Then a thought: “What is the colour of his hair?”
“Such as
