Taming Beauty (7 page)

“Your parents passed away only a year apart?” she asked, not certain why the knowledge left her feeling hollow.

“Father took Mother’s passing hard.” Linking his hands behind his back, he rocked on his heels. “They’d known one another all their lives, loved one another for most of that time.”

“Your mother was raised nearby, then?”

“On the estate just to the north of Breckenridge,” he answered, his voice clipped and quiet. “I lost Northridge to Morrissey along with the fortune I’d inherited from my father not six month previously.”

“Who owns Northridge now?” Even as Lilith asked the question, the answer came to her. So obvious, it was.

“Sir John Parkhurst.”

“And as his eldest daughter, Rose will one day inherit the estate,” she murmured, unsettled by all Malleville had lost. “Your union would have returned Northridge to your family, along with your honor and reputation and all the rest of it.”

The ninth Baron Malleville gave a sharp nod in reply.

“I suppose Rose was raised with the knowledge she would one day be your baroness?” Lilith asked, though, again, there was no need to pose the question.

“I first proposed the match to Sir John the day he took up residence at Northridge,” Malleville replied after a slight pause in which she imagined he considered how much to tell a woman who hadn’t any compunction about airing her family’s dirty linen. “Rose was eight to my four and twenty. I’d been the baron only two years, long enough to lose most of what my forebears had built up over hundreds of years, but not long enough to rebuild even a fraction of it.”

“How long did Sir John make you wait?”

“He agreed to the match three years later, when I’d begun to see a profit on the land and put away a meager sum for the future.”

“And you waited seven more years for Rose to reach her majority only to lose both your bride and your mother’s birthright.”

“Sir John is a fair man and has agreed to allow me to buy Northridge.”

“Never say the price is thirty thousand pounds,” Lilith whispered.

“At three percent per annum over five years.”

Lilith wanted to turn and walk away, run even. As fast and as far away as she possibly could, until she reached London and the life she’d been quietly leading before she’d allowed Dunaway to embroil her in his schemes.

Instead, she drew in a stuttering breath and straightened her spine. “Sissy wasn’t raised to be your wife, to live this sort of life. She was raised to throw balls and host musicales. To donate her time to worthy charitable causes, dress in the latest fashions, attend the theater on opening night, to be an asset on the arm of a gentleman of wealth and privilege.”

“And what sort of life were you raised for?” He turned to face Lilith, his hands fisting at his sides and his chest heaving.

“This has nothing to do with me and my life,” Lilith replied, waving away his words with one trembling hand while the other twisted in her skirts. “Sissy will be miserable tucked away in the country, with no society to speak of and only a mercantile in which to shop for dresses and trinkets.”

“Do you think I don’t know I cannot make her happy?” Malleville’s voice was a terrible rumble of sound, crackling with fury.

“Never mind making Sissy happy,” Lilith snapped, her temper unraveling around the edges. “You will not be happy. Sissy will see to that, not out of malice or spite but because misery breeds misery. You deserve better than a life of unending sorrow and bitterness and regret.”

Malleville reached for Lilith, his hands closing around her upper arms, lifting her up on her toes and dragging her against his chest. He held her there, his heart hammering where their bodies joined, his eyes glowing like smelting pewter and a pulse ticking along his jaw.

His warm breath billowed over her upturned face, caressing her cheeks and lips. His fingers flexed on her arms, pulling her closer as his head dipped.

“What are you doing?” Lilith hissed as his intention became all too clear.

“I don’t know anymore,” he admitted on a groan, his gaze colliding with hers, holding her captive.

Or perhaps it was she holding him captive. If so, she had only a fraction of a second to release him before catastrophe struck. “Well, whatever it is, stop and think about the consequences.”

“Christ,” Jasper breathed, releasing Lilith so suddenly she stumbled back and nearly lost her footing on the uneven ground.

His arm snaked out, to steady her, to stop her withdrawal or reel her in close once more. She didn’t know, nor did it matter as it was all a piece of the same terrible cataclysm waiting to ruin both their lives.

Lilith swatted his hand and carefully backed away from temptation. One step, two steps, three.

Then she turned and walked away, leaving the Beast of Breckenridge standing in the churchyard before the graves of his parents while the voices of his family rose amid those of his countrymen, for whom he’d fought a duel and come away scarred and perhaps a bit mad.

Miss Lilith Aberdeen was inordinately subdued at dinner that evening.

Which is to say, she offered up only a single titillating tale involving the outrageous Eve Marie Sinclair, Lord Fitzroy and a polydactyl parlor maid locked together in a larder overnight. Eyes alight with mischief and lips twisting into a smile that closely resembled a sneer, Lilith unfurled the yarn slowly, allowing time enough for all other conversation at the table to cease before, with a flick of her wrist, she delivered the inevitable conclusion.

As salacious as the story was, Jasper suspected she had invented the parlor maid’s sixth finger only to shock and scandalize his family and those neighbors who had been invited to dine at Breckenridge House. As if the butler finding the threesome curled up together in the larder wasn’t shocking and scandalous enough.

Still, it was all Jasper could do to not to chuckle at the midway point, and laugh outright at the end. Lilith was a natural storyteller, gifted with a flair for drama and a spot-on sense of timing. She would make a fortune should she ever decide to embark upon a career on the stage.

When the gentleman rejoined the ladies after the obligatory port and cigars, Jasper was only mildly surprised to discover the threadbare rug in the parlor had been rolled back and the furniture moved to one side in preparation for dancing.

Dunaway was pounding out a tune on the battered pianoforte in the corner, Lilith dutifully turning the music sheets for him, although she did not appear to be paying much attention. Rather, she was looking out the window, staring off in the direction of the village, with a pensive expression softening her features.

Jasper wondered if she was remembering the time they’d spent together in the village. Was she replaying in her mind the feel of their hands touching for the first time? Was she remembering the easy banter and queer sort of intimate familiarity they’d shared? Did her thoughts linger on the moment when he clasped her arms, hauled her close and very nearly kissed her?

He regretted the lapse in judgement, regretted that he’d stepped over the bounds of propriety. But more than that, he regretted that he’d not leapt across the line with both feet, claiming the kiss that had hovered between them.

The woman was tempting enough with her sly intelligence and sardonic wit, her sleek limbs and delicate curves, her beautiful features and feline grace. But when she had revealed a softer side, when she’d championed her sister’s cause and, worse yet, lamented his own lack of future happiness, tempting was too tame a word for the feelings she’d inspired in him.

Had Jasper been free to choose a bride based solely upon his own wishes, his own hopes and dreams and desires, Miss Lilith Aberdeen was precisely the sort of woman he would marry.

Spirited and fearless, smart and independent, amusing and adventurous, sweet and ferociously loyal.

Jasper knew instinctively she would argue those last two traits. She would not willingly lay claim to even a smidgeon of sweetness, nor a single person to whom she was loyal.

Only yesterday, he might have agreed.

In the course of a morning, in less than an hour in her company, Jasper had discovered a wealth of contradictions hidden beneath the veneer of a jaded London lady.

There had been nothing of the jade when she’d spied the mercantile. The wonder she’d exhibited, the sheer delight had been a marvel to witness. She’d fed his nephews ale, then worried when he’d tossed Henry over his shoulder, smiled at the boy’s antics, and watched them walk away with a shadow of sadness in her eyes.

And she had understood his desperation to reclaim Northridge, to reclaim all that he’d lost, without him having to say more than half a dozen words. Not only had she understood it, she’d sympathized with his plight in her customarily acerbic fashion, even as she’d predicted the union was doomed to failure. 

The contradictions in her character haunted Jasper. He wanted to discover more, wanted to know all there was to know about the woman—every secret heartache of her past, every thought and activity that filled her days, every aspiration she held for her future.

The wanting terrified him. Nothing could ever come of it. All too soon, he would marry Lady Priscilla and Lilith would be his sister-in-law. Though he imagined they would rarely, if ever, meet again.

The thought should have brought with it a certain relief. Instead, it brought only a queer emptiness.

Dunaway’s energetic playing came to a discordant end, and Jasper was shaken from his maudlin thoughts.

“We’ve pairs enough for dancing,” Matthew announced to the room at large. “What say you, Jasper? Will you partner Lady Priscilla while I take Miss Sarah for a spin about the floor?”

“Surely Lord Malleville doesn’t enjoy anything so frivolous as dancing,” Lady Priscilla replied from her perch beside Susan on the settee. “Do you, my lord?”

In point of fact, Jasper did not enjoy dancing. Not because he found it frivolous, but because he typically towered over his partners, which in turn caused him to feel as if he were a heavy-handed, clod-hopping, clumsy oaf. Alas, the lady would be his wife, so they’d best become accustomed to one another.

“I would be honored to lead you in a set.” Jasper gave her his best smile—never mind it felt more like a grimace—and bowed over her hand before raising her to her feet.

“You needn’t if you would rather sit this one out,” his intended protested, even going so far as to tug her hand from his light grasp. “We can dance the next set.”

Dunaway began a new tune, a waltz much to Jasper’s dismay.

“This one will do as well as the next.” So saying, he repossessed her hand and led her out to the makeshift dancefloor where a number of couples were already shuffling and gliding about.

Lady Priscilla rested the tips of her fingers on his upper arm, carefully placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor.

“How do you find Breckenridge?” he asked after more than two full minutes of silence between them.

“Isolated.” One word and no more.

“Yes, I suppose it must seem so to you, what with you living most of the year in London,” he agreed. “Have you spent much time at the family seat in Buckinghamshire?”

“No.” She did not glance up, but kept her gaze straight ahead, staring somewhere in the vicinity of the top button of his waistcoat.

“Your family does not winter at Dunaway Hall?”

“No.” She relented only so far as to peek up at him before dropping her gaze once more.

“At Camden Manor in Essex, then?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you enjoy your time in the country?”

“Yes.”

Damn it all, she would make him work for every last crumb. “Tell me about Camden Manor, won’t you?”

“You’ll know all about Camden soon enough,” she trilled, her voice laced with spiteful laughter. “It’s to be yours soon after all.”

“Lady Priscilla,” he began wearily.

“Papa will not pay you what he owes,” she continued, finally looking at him, not meeting his eyes but fixing her gaze on the scar running down the right side of his face. “You’ll get nothing but Camden, which is all that remains of Mama’s dowry, and that hovel on the Thames, which is not fit for the mice and frogs and…and bats that live in the attic.”

“And a wife,” he replied, knowing full well he fought a losing battle. His bride was determined to despise him. “A beautiful, accomplished, virtuous wife and mother for my children.”

Lady Priscilla shuddered, her face contorting with what he guessed was revulsion. She stumbled, stepping on his toes and yanking her fingers free of his hand. “I cannot…that is…I feel a megrim coming on. Will you excuse me?”

Before he could respond, Lady Priscilla turned and fled from the parlor.

And Lilith stepped into the space she had left amongst the waltzing couples.

“Silly chit,” she murmured, taking possession of his hand. “Well, don’t just stand there slack-jawed, Malleville.”

Jasper couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.

“You’ll not scare me off with your scowl, fearsome as it is.” Curling her free hand up over his shoulder, she gave him a nudge. “Well, what on earth are you waiting for? Dance.”

Jasper danced. And felt not the least bit clumsy as he led her effortlessly, perhaps even gracefully, down the length of the room.

“What did you say to send Sissy scampering off?” Lilith asked as he twirled her into a turn.

“I merely praised her beauty, accomplishments and virtue.”

“Hmm, and normally nothing makes her purr so much as being petted with pretty words.”

“I think it might have been the mention of mothering my children that scared her off.” Jasper pulled her closer than was strictly warranted on the less-than-crowded dance floor.

“Yes, I suppose that would do it,” she replied, lips curling on one side. “Sticky-fingered little mites, children.”

“You enjoyed your time with Charlie and Henry.”

Lilith lifted her nose in the air.

“Admit it, you had fun with my nephews,” he persisted.

“Are they always so talkative?” she asked. “Goodness, they never stopped chattering, not even when their mouths were stuffed with kippers.”

“And the ale you forced down their throats.”

Lilith let loose a gurgle of laughter and swatted his shoulder. “I did no such thing.”

“They’ll be after cook to serve ale with breakfast every morning,” he warned with a mock frown.

“Did you know Henry can walk the entire balustrade of the bridge without losing his balance?” she asked.

“You allowed him to walk the balustrade?”

“And Charlie sees life so clearly and ponders important questions most adults never think to contemplate,” she continued, ignoring the chastisement inherent in his question. “They’re interesting creatures, aren’t they?”

“They are, indeed, interesting.”

“They have you wrapped around their grubby little fingers, haven’t they?”

“I couldn’t help but notice you reading to the lot of them this afternoon,” he replied. “Davey in your lap and Meg draped over your shoulder.”

“They quite cornered me,” she protested.

“And let’s not forget Charlie and Henry at your feet.”

“Precisely where doting swains ought to be,” she tossed back.

“Have you doting swains waiting for you in London?” The want, the need to know every last aspect of her life, even those parts he suspected would haunt him long into the future, rose up in him.

“Only mudlarks and street urchins.”

Jasper chuckled at her quick retort, and her fingers clenched briefly in his before relaxing once more.

“I’ve never done more than flip them a coin and shoo them on their way,” she said with a frown that was patently adorable. “Perhaps I’ll invite one or two to breakfast with me when I return to Town. For scientific study, of course. To determine if all children are so interesting, you understand.”

“Have you no young cousins for comparison purposes?”

“I have all sorts of cousins, young and old, though I don’t see them.”

“Why?”

“They live elsewhere,” she answered after a slight pause. “Mostly in the country, and I’ve made no secret how I feel about the country.”

“You seem to be enjoying your time in Cornwall.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended. Having her in his arms, near enough he could breathe in her exotic scent, near enough her breasts brushed his chest on the next turn, was both heaven and hell.

Lilith expelled a stuttering breath and missed a step, taking two to make up for the lapse. Her hip brushed his thigh, and it was all he could do not to groan.

“Cornwall hasn’t been nearly as awful as I’d imagined,” she said, her voice soft and faintly husky.

“But you’ll be glad to return to London.” The reminder brought a sharp ache somewhere in the region of his heart.

“I’ve a life in London,” she replied simply.

“What sort of life?”

“The usual sort of life,” she answered with a delicate shrug of one shoulder. “Paying calls, taking tea, shopping. Riding in the park during the fashionable hour. Balls, musicales, the theatre.”

“What of your family?”

If Jasper had not been watching her closely, he might have missed the flicker of emotion that flashed in her eyes. Before he could decipher what it was, it was gone and she was gifting him with smile. “That’s twice today you’ve asked after my life. Why the sudden fascination?”

He would have liked to deny the fascination, but couldn’t marshal the wits required to formulate the lie. Instead, heavy-handed, clumsy oaf that he was, he said, “We’ll be family soon, in eleven days to be precise.”

“Do you think so?” she asked with a laugh, her breath drifting over his jaw. “Goodness, you are an optimist, aren’t you?”

“Determined is what I am.” He might have said demented. He felt like a deranged man, wanting her with a savagery that went beyond mere lust. It was coupled with the worst case of liking he’d ever known.

He liked Miss Lilith Aberdeen. He liked her quick-wit and sardonic sense of humor, her way with words and snappy retorts. He liked the way she engaged him in conversation, the way she comprehended his words and thoughts no matter how muddled they emerged from his lips.