“Very good, sir,” Pinkerton returned in his usual sepulchral tones.
Jack nodded and returned to his perusal of the latest edition of the Racing Chronicle. “Oh—and bring a fresh pot of coffee, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” A sober individual who considered it a point of professional etiquette to carry out his duties as inconspicuously as possible, Pinkerton slipped noiselessly from the room. As the sounds of voices penetrated the oak door, Jack folded the Chronicle and laid it aside. Easing his chair back from the table, he stretched, trying to relieve the tension that seemed to have sunk into his bones.
The door latch lifted; Pinkerton ushered Ned Ascombe in, then departed in search of more coffee.
“Good morning, sir.” Feeling decidedly awkward, not at all sure why he had come, Ned surveyed his host. Jack Lester was clearly not one of those town beaux who considered any time before noon as dawn. He was dressed in a blue coat which made Ned’s own loosely-fitting garment look countrified in the extreme.
Jack rose lazily and extended a hand. “Glad to see you, Ascombe—or may I call you Ned?”
Grasping the proffered hand, Ned blinked. “If you wish.” Then, realizing that sounded rather less than gracious, he forced a smile. “Most people call me Ned.”
Jack returned the smile easily and waved Ned to a chair.
Dragging his eyes from contemplation of his host’s superbly fitting buckskin breeches and highly polished Hessians, Ned took the opportunity to hide his corduroy breeches and serviceable boots under the table. What had Clary called him? Provincial? His self-confidence, already shaky, took another lurch downwards.
Jack caught the flicker of defeat in Ned’s honest brown eyes. He waited until Pinkerton, who had silently reappeared, set out a second mug and the coffee-pot, then, like a spectre, vanished, before saying, “I understand from Miss Winterton that you would wish Miss Webb to look upon you with, shall we say, a greater degree of appreciation?”
Ned’s fingers tightened about the handle of his mug. He blushed but manfully met Jack’s gaze. “Sophie’s always been a good friend, sir.”
“Quite,” Jack allowed. “But if I’m to call you Ned, I suspect you had better call me Jack, as, although I’m certainly much your senior, I would not wish to be thought old enough to be your father.”
Ned’s smile was a little more relaxed. “Jack, then.”
“Good. With such formalities out of the way, I’ll admit I couldn’t help but notice your contretemps with Miss Webb last night.”
Ned’s face darkened. “Well, you saw how it was,” he growled. “She was encouraging an entire company of flatterers and inconsequential rattles.”
There was a pause, then Jack asked, “I do hope you didn’t tell her so?”
Ned fortified himself with a long sip of coffee and nodded darkly. “Not in those precise words, of course.”
“Thank heaven for small mercies.” Jack fixed his guest with a severe glance. “It seems to me, my lad, that you’re in desperate need of guidance in the matter of how to conduct a campaign in the ton.”
“A campaign?”
“The sort of campaign one wages to win a lady’s heart.”
Ned glowered. “Clarissa’s heart has always been mine.”
“I dare say,” Jack replied. “The trick is to get her to recognize that fact. From what I saw last night, if you continue as you are, you’re liable to go backwards rather than forwards.”
Ned frowned at his mug, then glanced up at Jack. “I’m not really cut out to shine in town. I don’t know how to do the pretty by the ladies; I’m more at home in the saddle than in a ballroom.”
“Aren’t we all?” At Ned’s questioning look, Jack elaborated. “The vast majority of gentlemen you’ll see at any evening’s entertainments would rather be somewhere else.”
“But why attend if they don’t wish to?”
“Why were you at Mrs. Webb’s little affair?”
“Because I wanted to see Clarissa.”
“Precisely. The only inducement capable of getting most of us across the threshold of a ballroom is the lure of the ladies. Where else do we get a chance to converse, to establish any connection? If you do not meet a lady first at a ball, it’s dashed difficult to approach her anywhere else, at least in town. So,” Jack concluded, “if you’re set on winning Clarissa Webb, you’ll have to accept the fact that you’ll be gracing the ton’s ballrooms for the Season.”
Ned wrinkled his nose. “My father was against my coming up to town—he thought I should just wait for Clarissa to come back. Mr. and Mrs. Webb are very sure she’ll not appreciate the racketing about and will want to return to the country.”
“I have inestimable faith in the senior Webb’s perspicacity. However, don’t you think you’re extrapolating just a little too far? Taking Clarissa just a little too much for granted?”