One Scandalous Kiss (21 page)

Jess sank onto the edge of the bed and felt it shift as Mr. Wellesley seated himself too. With his long legs stretched out next to hers and his woodsy fragrance scenting the air, the impropriety of his presence in her room struck her and she edged a few inches away.

His laughter, a hoot of pleasure ebbing into a husky chuckle, made her jump.

“Don’t worry, Jess. I’m not here to ravish you. I take my time and give plenty of warning before I commence ravishing a woman.”

He stood, turning his back on her to look out the window facing the woods as if to prove his disinterest.

“Forgive me, Mr. Wellesley.”

He turned his head, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Do you love him, Miss Wright?”

With a gasp and strangled squeak, Jess shot up from the bed. How could he ask her such a thing? If she was going to unravel her feelings and confess them to anyone, it should be Lucius.

Wellesley turned and approached. “You must forgive me. I can see I’ve shocked you.” He reached inside his pocket and produced a square of cloth, offering it to her. “You see, sometimes, Jess, we can’t have both. We must choose between duty and desire.”

Jess reached for the pocket square and dabbed at the tears she’d been unable to hold back. Her stomach no longer rolled in her belly, but a fire had started in her chest, a searing pain like she’d never experienced in her life, as if her heart might turn to cinders as it broke.

“My dear Miss Wright, I must have your answer.”

His blue-green eyes had gone limpid, so clear that Jess could read real emotion in his gaze, unleavened by his usual charm. He looked as anxious as Lucius had on the balcony. And Jess felt raw, ready to confess the truth she’d struggled to deny.

“Yes.”

He ducked his head, and Jess felt it must be the wrong answer, one he hadn’t expected. He’d anticipated her denial. And denial was what she should have clung to. If she didn’t love Lucius, it would all be so much easier.

Then Wellesley lifted his head and his smile, broad and genuine, cooled a bit of the heat in her chest.

“Very good. Then if it’s between duty and desire, I suspect I know what he’ll choose.”

Jess nodded with a heavy sigh. Lucius was a nobleman, his father’s heir. Though she’d explored only a small portion of the estate, she suspected it was vast. There would be tenants, farmers and working men and women who relied on Lucius and his father to maintain the lands and buildings on the estate. What sort of hypocrite would she be if she committed time to helping working families in London’s charities and dismissed the well-being of the people who worked Dunthorpe lands?

“Try not to fret. He’ll be unbearable if you tell him I said so, but Grimsby is by far the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. And he’s resourceful. If circumstances had allowed him to continue in his uncle’s business, I suspect he’d be as well off as Miss Sedgwick’s father.”

Jess frowned. It was no surprise to hear that Wellesley thought Lucius intelligent, but she’d never imagined him as a man of business.

“Come, Jess, we really should go down and join the battle.”

A shiver chased down her back. “Battle? What battle?”

“You have met his sister, haven’t you?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Y
OU MUST
SEND
that young woman away immediately, Lucius. She scandalized you in London, and now here in your home. Our home. Our whole family has been put to shame. Everyone in the county will know.” As ever, his sister was emphatic. Lucius had listened to her chastisement and outrage for what seemed like hours. He was on the verge of asking her whether she wished to blame Jessamin for scandalizing all of England when his aunt interjected.

“We cannot merely send her away, Julia. What of Miss Wright’s reputation?”

Lucius knew his aunt would defend Jessamin and so had yet to do so himself, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to allow Julia to continue her tirade. And Julia wouldn’t wish to hear about any of Jessamin’s merits—her intelligence, her resilience, and her ability to remain good-natured when life dealt her losses and burdens. He’d have to convince her to teach him that trick.

“What reputation? The young woman is a hoyden who kisses men she doesn’t know.” Julia glared at Lucius. “And then kisses them again as often as she likes, apparently.”

He’d never kissed Jessamin nearly as much as he would have liked, but judging by the mottled violet-red flesh on his sister’s cheeks and the way her tone had risen to an ear-shattering screech, it wasn’t what she’d wish to hear.

“Surely you aren’t suggesting Lucius owes her anything out of duty or honor, Aunt Augusta. The woman has behaved abominably.” Marcus spoke for the first time, and Lucius was disappointed to hear the undertone of priggish disgust in his brother-in-law’s voice. He liked Marcus, respected him. He’d respect any man who could tolerate Julia and quench her temper with a few words as Marcus could. But he couldn’t allow him to misjudge Jessamin or assign her all the blame for their kiss on the balcony.

“Marcus—”

His aunt’s voice cut in over his own.

“Marcus, forgive me, my boy, but you hardly know Miss Wright. She is a fine young woman.” Aunt Augusta waited a breath until she caught Lucius’s gaze. “She would make a fine countess.”

A ripple of pleasure rushed through Lucius to hear his aunt echo the thought that had chased through his mind not an hour before, but Julia huffed an outraged cry and sprang to her feet.

“Aunt Augusta, how can you say such a thing? I must put a good deal of this down to you for bringing her here. The woman has no breeding, no refinement, no sense of propriety. She is inappropriate in every way one can imagine. And might I remind you of Miss Sedgwick? You brought that poor young woman here, across an ocean, to marry Lucius. And now you mean to match him with your lady’s companion?”

For a woman as prone to fainting and the vapors as Julia, she always managed to find an endless supply of air to express whatever point she wished to make. And she was almost as tenacious about battling her position as his aunt, though there was no finesse or real effort at persuasion with Julia, only a plethora of righteous indignation.

Catching her breath to continue, his sister lifted her hand to touch Augusta’s arm. “She may have a few fine qualities as you say, Aunt Augusta, but one good apple does not improve the entire tree. Who are her family? She admitted at dinner last night that her father gambled his life away.”

Though Julia spoke the words low, mostly for their aunt’s benefit, Lucius could no longer hold his tongue.

“Surely none of us want to be judged for our father’s errors, do we, Julia? How many invitations would you receive if you were known only as the Dark Earl of Dunthorpe’s daughter?”

His sister and brother had always been concerned with being invited by the better families and to the most fashionable events, and even as a child he hadn’t missed their concerns that Maxim’s erratic behavior might cost them the most enviable invitations.

“You dare compare me to a grubby bookseller’s daughter?”

And, of course, his sister would miss his point entirely.

“I think you mistake his meaning, Julia.”

His aunt seemed serene despite Julia’s shouting and the irritation he’d been able to curb in his own tone, and it pleased him to find that Aunt Augusta seemed equally unmoved by Julia’s outrage and her insults. She’d spent more time with Jessamin and had no doubt of her virtues. In time all of them would come to see Jessamin’s worth.

“May I speak to my nephew alone? Julia and Marcus, we shall see you both at dinner.”

For a moment Julia considered protesting. Lucius saw it in her eyes. But Marcus stood and hooked an arm through hers, and she followed without another word as he led her from the room.

“Are you going to tell me what I must do too?”

“No, my boy. I am going to ask you what you wish to do.”

It was a question no one had ever asked him before. Not once in his life.

“Perhaps it would be easier if you merely commanded me.” This time, he didn’t think he could abide her wishes, but he was used to having his choices and actions dictated.

“Why? It’s never been effective before.”

She smiled at him but Lucius couldn’t return the expression.

“I have never refused anything that’s been asked of me. Indeed, I usually had no choice in the matter at all.”

She opened her mouth as if to protest and then lowered her head. When she glanced up at him again, her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“Many choices were taken from you.”

“Many? All. Sent away as child. My work for Uncle Buchanan cut short after Julian’s death. A title, this house, these burdens”—he reached for the papers on his desk, lifting them, though he knew she could have no notion what they contained—“thrust upon me. Even the choice of my life’s companion is to be shaped by Father’s demands and the expectations of others.”

The tears came now, trickling down his aunt’s cheeks, and he cursed himself as he went to her and embraced her.

“Forgive me my moment of petulance.”

She reached up and patted his cheek. “It was long overdue, I think.”

After dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, taking a deep breath, and straightening her back, she asked him again, “What is it you wish to do?”

“What if I said I wish to marry Jessamin Wright?”

He waited, expecting his aunt to protest, prepared to defend the choice his heart had made.

“What of Miss Sedgwick?” She spoke the words with a lilt at the end, with less anger than he’d expected.

What to do about Miss Sedgwick? Not only must he find a way to tell her and preserve her pride, he would have to find a way to maintain the estate without her dowry. As Lucius pondered the question, a knock sounded on the study door and a maid pushed it open.

“My lord, pardon me. Miss Sedgwick to see you, my lord.”

It seemed the young woman’s name was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Then the lady herself appeared. She was dressed for dinner in a stunning gold beaded gown. Sapphires glittered at her neck and dangled from her ears, and blue sparks flared in her eyes.

“May I have a word, my lord? It is a matter of some urgency.”

Lucius gestured to the chair in front of his desk, ignoring the twitch in his jaw and the roiling in his belly. He’d made his choice, and disappointing Miss Sedgwick, or facing her wrath, was part of the price.

Just as Miss Sedgwick moved to sit, Wellesley led Jessamin into the room and closed the door behind them.

“Jessamin. Robert. My dears, if you would just give us a few moments.” His aunt’s gentle tone revealed nothing of the tension in the room.

May replied instantly. “No, I wish them to stay. This concerns all of us. Well, except for Rob, perhaps, but I am content to have him here too.”

May folded her hands primly in her lap, lifted her chin, and rolled back her shoulders, as regal as a queen on her throne.

“I mean no offense when I say that I do not wish to marry you, Lord Grimsby.”

She pressed her lips together a moment before continuing. “I am my father’s daughter, and I am well aware that ours was to be a fair exchange, my dowry for a title.”

She turned and glanced back at Jessamin. Lucius eased forward in his chair, prepared to defend her if Miss Sedgwick’s intention was to rebuke. Instead, May turned back and faced him, her eyes glistening.

“I saw you kiss Miss Wright.”

Lucius was prepared to take every ounce of blame, and heaven knew May Sedgwick deserved an apology. “Miss Sedgwick, I’m—”

“No, please, my lord. I do not say it to accuse. It only helps me make my point. After seeing that kiss, how could I wish for a marriage that’s nothing but a business transaction?”

She sighed and sank deeper into her chair. “Goodness, never let my father hear me say such a thing.”

Her expression lightened into a smile that seemed to ease the mood of everyone in the room. Wellesley grinned and Lucius was relieved to see color rush back into Jessamin’s cheeks.

“To be frank, I feel at ease knowing your heart is engaged elsewhere.” May glanced back at Jessamin. “I wish you both all the happiness you can bear. But for my part, I’ll be leaving Hartwell tomorrow. My father has arrived in London.” At that pronouncement, May dipped her head left to peek at Aunt Augusta and his aunt nodded, as if the news was no surprise to her at all. “I will join him there and convince him to stop for a while. I do love London.”

She spoke the last with the same enthusiasm she’d gushed on her first day at Hartwell when she’d twirled around the entry hall and cooed about the art and decor. She was an irrepressible young woman. Nothing seemed to daunt her, and Lucius suspected she could convince her father to relocate to London permanently if that was her desire.

She stood and Lucius followed suit. “My best wishes go with you, Miss Sedgwick.”

May reached across his desk and offered her hand, not for him to kiss, but to shake as men of business did when sealing a bargain. When he accepted, she smiled. “I suppose it’s too late to ask you to call me May.”

She stopped a moment, whispering with Aunt Augusta and embracing Jessamin before sweeping from the room. Without a word, Wellesley followed after her.

Lucius inhaled deeply as his eyes sought Jessamin. She stood near the fireplace, her green gaze locked on his. The way she looked at him made his breath catch in his throat and every worry over the future, all the resentment of what had been heaped on his shoulders, the endless concern about his father and the future of Hartwell—it all fell away. Whatever came next, whatever challenges they would face, he could accept anything as long as Jessamin looked at him that way each and every day of his life.

A
FTER
M
ISS
S
ED
GWICK’S
unexpected—at least to Lucius—declaration that she planned to leave Hartwell and his sister’s quarter-of-an-hour diatribe in the study, Augusta suggested an hour’s delay before serving dinner, and the kitchen staff seemed grateful for the reprieve.

It didn’t seem nearly enough time for what he needed for achieve, and he’d told himself that convincing his father of anything a couple of hours before dinner was futile, but something had changed. Some lock had been opened, a barricade breached. His mind was no longer clouded with fantasy, but filled with plans.

A single knock on his father’s door brought Mrs. Ives to the threshold and she admitted him with an odd mixture of eagerness and anxiety. When he saw his father, he understood. Mather, who’d served his father as valet for years before tending to Lucius, was gathering towels and shaving implements, and his father appeared quite a changed man for his efforts. Clean-shaven, hair trimmed, and partially dressed in his evening trousers and white shirt, he looked much as Lucius remembered him from years past.

“I’d like a word with my father, Mrs. Ives.” His father’s nurse began following Mather out of the room but then stopped and spoke to Lucius quietly.

“I should take your father down to the drawing room early, my lord, to give him a few moments to settle in. He needs a bit of time to adjust whenever his situation changes.”

Lucius nodded and waited until Mrs. Ives departed before reaching up to settle his cuffs, adjust his waistcoat buttons, and turn to his father with his fists clenched at his side. Change was precisely what Hartwell needed. Change was what Lucius would insist upon—from how they managed the lands, to how they managed the finances, to whom his father expected him to marry. Change was in order. He could give his father time to adjust to it, but he would not waver in his insistence.

Choices might have been taken from him in the past, but, in truth, his goals had been damnably ambiguous. After two years of work in his uncle’s London investment office, he hadn’t convinced himself to stay on. Not to mention the ambiguity of his heart. For years it seemed as cold and barren as the Arctic tundra and he’d been content to leave it unexplored.

Until Jessamin.

“Father.”

Lucius waited, judging the look in his father’s eyes. These days he couldn’t be certain if the earl would know him. Tonight he did. Lucius recognized the look Maxim invariably gave him—an assessing squint of one eye that somehow conveyed judgment and disappointment in one glance.

“Tell me again about this American you plan to marry.”

Lucius took the chair next to his father’s and turned so that he could face Maxim.

“I’m not going to marry her. She’s returning to London tomorrow.”

Maxim squinted at him again, then his gaze darted uncertainly from Lucius’s face to his mother’s portrait. His father’s hand began to tremble as he clenched the arm of his chair. Lucius moved forward, on the verge of calling Mrs. Ives to help calm Maxim.

“But what of Hartwell? What of the estate’s repairs? What of your duty to this family?” Shouts echoing off the walls, Maxim dug his fingers deeper into the chair’s arms, clutching as if he were falling and the furniture’s solid frame represented his grip on safety, solidity.

His fingers were thin, almost fragile, a spindly pattern of sinew and bone, but even as he studied his father’s hands, Lucius couldn’t imagine a more stubborn, unbendable man. And yet, despite years of enmity and distance between them, Lucius had never truly considered defying his father’s wishes. Now he realized that trusting his own judgment and defying Maxim were the only way to truly do his duty—to Hartwell and his heart.