Tempted by a Lady’s Smile (8 page)

Her skin heated with the embarrassment of making more of that action than there was. Still, they were not the snapping, snarling strangers they’d been since their first meeting. For all the errors on both of their parts, there had been much she’d shared with Richard Jonas and for that, she would have a truce with him. She held her fingers out. “My name is Gemma Reed. I prefer horses and dogs to people.” The ghost of a smile played on his firm lips. “I am Lord Smithfield’s sister and I have had three, soon to be four, miserable Seasons.”

Richard looked at her bemusedly and she stood there so long with her hand outstretched and the moments ticking by that a slow-building embarrassment grew within her. She made to lower her arm when he quickly claimed her palm in his. “My name is Richard Jonas. I am the brother of Viscount Hereford. I breed horses and I’m here at the Duke of Somerset’s summer party as a guest of Lord Westfield.” Gemma stared at her smaller, delicate fingers dwarfed in his large, callused palm. Olive-hued and slightly coarse from his work, there was a masculine rawness to that hand which caused a thousand butterflies to dance within her belly.

Then his words registered. Lord Westfield. The man she’d loved for years, whom she would confess her feelings to.

Gemma quickly pulled her hand free. She should let him leave and, more, she should return to the estate for the afternoon festivities planned for the day. Instead, reluctant to go back and face the awkward humiliation of mingling in a world in which she’d never felt to belong, she asked, “How long have you known Lord Westfield?” Because surely questions about the man she hoped to marry were permitted and safe reasons to remain shut away in this copse with a man who was decidedly not the marquess.

“We attended Eton as children. He never minded that I was merely the second son of a viscount and I didn’t give a jot that he would inherit a dukedom. It was a natural friendship.”

Yes, that was the manner of man Lord Westfield was; one who didn’t preen and brag for his title before lesser lords. Yet, all she could focus on was Richard as he would have been, a young boy of perhaps seven or eight, shunned by members of the
ton
who, in fact, saw him as lesser. As the unmarried, unsought after daughter of a viscount, she could well identify with what it was to be so casually dismissed by the peerage.

“They are not always the kindest, are they?” she said quietly.

He inclined his head. “I prefer the company of horses and dogs.”

They shared a smile and the slight connection forged a gentle bond between them. Which only reminded her that he was here…with her…when the other gentlemen had intended to ride. She cleared her throat. “I expect you wish to rejoin the other gentlemen on the hunt.”

He appeared as though he wished to say something, but then sketched another bow. “And I will leave you to your thoughts, madam.” Except, he didn’t leave. He remained fixed there with a handful of paces between them. She studied him expectantly. Richard beat his palm against his thigh. “There is no need for you to be anything other than yourself…in Westfield’s presence,” he added as more of an afterthought. “Westfield will appreciate your sincerity and lack of fawning.” With that, he turned on his heel once more and stalked from the copse.

Gemma stood staring after Richard long after he’d left, not knowing what to do with this gentleman who saw past the nervous, oft silent, and then stammering girl seen by the rest of the
ton
.

S
eated in the Duke of Somerset’s library with the express intention of avoiding the evening’s festivities, the more Richard peered into the contents of his snifter, the more he studied the droplets clinging to the side of the glass. And the longer he stared at the contents, the more he appreciated that if one studied the French liquor in just the right way, it bore a remarkable similarity to Gemma Reed’s eyes.

With a strangled sound, Richard swilled the remaining spirits.

Footsteps sounded in the hall and he glanced up just as Westfield pushed the door open and stepped inside. He took in the snifter in Richard’s hands and closed the door behind him. “I suspected I might find you closeted away with my well-stocked sideboard,” he said, not breaking his stride as he made his way over to that very mahogany piece of furniture.

Seated in the folds of the leather winged back chair, Richard shifted in his seat. His friend spoke as though Richard was one of those drink-indulgent carousers.

Westfield touched the edge of the bottle to his glass and the clink of crystal hitting crystal filled the room. “Will you attend the evening recital?”

Once again, Richard stared at those nearly brown droplets clinging to his glass. What manner of singing voice would Miss Gemma Reed possess? He’d wager she sung with a gusto and passion…but then his smile slipped.
I prefer the company of horses and dogs…

But then, a lady treated so unkindly by Society, a woman who would bury her gaze in her plate and stammer through discourse, was one who’d not sing with such abandon. Not on display, as was expected of ladies of the
ton
. When alone, however, she no doubt sang with great zeal and a carefree, unbridled passion…

Westfield cleared his throat.

She would be the manner of lady who secretly rode astride and galloped through the countryside with the wind whipping at that same belligerent brown tress and—

Westfield again made a clearing sound.

Richard stared unblinkingly at his glass and then raised his gaze to where his friend stood eying him perplexedly. Fighting the urge to tug at his cravat, Richard set his glass aside. “I will join your recital.”

His friend snorted. “It is hardly my recital.” Then he rolled his glass between his fingers. “Just an event by which the young ladies assembled by my father can be presented to display the worth of their candidacy as future duchess.” His lips pulled in a cynical, humorless smile.

Gemma flitted through his thoughts. Richard drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair. Given the heartbreak Westfield had suffered at another woman’s hands, he’d celebrate a pairing that saw the young marquess happy. So what was this selfish yearning to have Westfield choose another rather than the clever Gemma Reed? “Tell me. Is there a certain young lady who might, indeed, fit that role of future duchess?” He infused a deliberate boredom into his tone. After all, it wouldn’t do to seem interested in whether a certain lady with brown hair and brown eyes had, indeed, garnered Westfield’s notice.

“There is—”

Whatever there was or was not, Richard would never know because the door was thrown open and Lady Beatrice spilled into the room. Both men promptly came to their feet.

“Robert, there you are,” she said, slightly breathless, and her heaving chest hinted at the quick pace the lady had no doubt set for herself. “The recital is set to begin and I…” She staggered to a stop and looked between Richard and her brother. “Oh, Mr. Jonas,” she said and dropped her gaze demurely.

“Lady Beatrice,” he said politely and dropped a bow.

She smiled. “Forgive me, it was not my intention to interrupt your meeting. The recital will begin shortly, and…” She returned her attention to her brother. “I thought you might join me in the recital hall and sit beside Gemma and me.”

The marquess downed the contents of his glass. “Of course,” he said with the brotherly devotion he’d demonstrated to the young lady through the years.

Richard lowered his eyebrows at the lady’s less than subtle attempt at matchmaking. Were her efforts a result of her own attempts or did she work on behalf of Gemma Reed? And why should it matter either way?

Casting a regretful look back, Westfield held out his elbow for his sister. The pair stopped at the door. “Changed your mind about joining the
fun
?” The dry humor in that last word earned him an elbow in the side.

“On the contrary,” he replied automatically. “I am quite looking forward to it.” It was hard to say who was more shocked by that concession; Richard himself, or Westfield who eyed him, mouth agape.

“Splendid,” Lady Beatrice said with a cheerful smile. “Come along, then. I promised Gemma I would not leave her to her own devices.”

There was a complete selfishness in accepting an invite and removing himself from all the respective and respectable events planned for the week. That is what he told himself as he fell into step behind Westfield and his sister. How else was there to account for the willingness and, more, desire to attend an infernal recital with marriageable misses in the market for a husband?

“…Do be nice to her,” Lady Beatrice was saying to her brother.

With no doubt about the identity of the “her” in question, Richard carefully attended the discourse.

“Have I ever been anything but nice to the lady?” Westfield’s dry whisper earned another nudge from his sister.

“Behave. You know the
ton
is cruel to her.”

Westfield’s hushed response was lost to him and his gut clenched. He’d long despised the world of Polite Society. Theirs was a glittering falseness where titles reigned supreme and worth was decided by one’s possession of or linkage to those titles. As a viscount’s second son, he’d been spared the disdain Lady Beatrice spoke of but he had, by his birthright as spare to the heir, known that disinterest. In truth, he’d quite welcomed that imposed distance presented by Society. For Gemma, however, she’d been received with cruelty; jeered and mocked, even
with
her rank as viscount’s daughter. No doubt, the
ton
preferring ladies who prattled about the weather and Society events failed to see Gemma Reed as an original with a keen wit.

And he found himself despising those pompous lords and ladies for having treated her so through the years, and equally hating himself for having mocked her since their first exchange. He came to a slow stop and stared blankly down the hall. Through his actions, he’d neatly placed himself alongside those who’d been cruel to her. He curled his hands into tight fists. What a horrible, humbling moment.

“Jonas?”

Richard started and looked to where Westfield and Lady Beatrice stood outside of the recital hall. A dull flush climbed his neck and he hastily made his way to the room.

“I thought you’d changed your mind, after all,” Westfield said with a grin.

He inclined his head. “I am going to occupy a row at the back of the room.”

Before Westfield could reply, Lady Beatrice fixed a firm stare on her brother. “Blast, we are too late. Gemma is already seated. You are decidedly not leaving me to be on display in this room.”

He chucked her under the chin. “Never.”

As brother and sister made their way into the room, Richard passed his gaze over the neatly arranged chairs. Most of the guests had already assembled and now sat in their perfect rows, with heads craned back. They gawked with a shameful notice at the duke’s offspring, the way powerful lords surveyed the horseflesh in Richard’s stables. All gazes were trained on the pair, except one particular bent head.

Gemma occupied the last seat in her row, speaking with a blond gentleman, near in age to Richard. Through their discourse, she periodically nodded and said something back that earned a chuckle. The easy familiarity between them spoke of a close, sibling relationship.

Richard walked behind the duke’s children, who claimed shell-backed chairs in the first row beside the pale Duke of Somerset. The man’s drawn features and the pain in his blue eyes hinted at the effects of his wasting illness. A wave of sadness ran through him. A little over two years ago, his own father had died so, with pain, and desiring to see closure to his time on earth. For his suffering, and the freedom death had brought to that suffering, the loss was still sharp. It reminded one of the brevity of life and the foolishness of wasting one’s time with these inane events. He turned to go when Gemma picked her head up. She angled her neck and did a quick search of the room.

He stood transfixed as her deep, brown eyes went to Westfield. The other man said something that brought color to her cheeks and an unpleasant knot tightened in Richard’s belly. Something that felt…he blinked…why, remarkably like jealousy. Which was utter madness. The lady didn’t much like him. He frowned. That wasn’t altogether true. Not any longer. Not following their lakeside meeting in which the lady had dashed his every negative misconception of a woman desiring a title of duchess.

Gemma slid her gaze away from Westfield and, from across the makeshift auditorium, their stares collided. He lifted his head in silent greeting and an unabashed smile turned her lips. It was one of those sincere, joyous expressions not commonly evinced by ladies of the
ton
and it momentarily froze him.

Her brother again said something and, with a slowness hinting at reluctance, she returned her attention to the gentleman at her side. That jerked Richard into motion. He walked to the left of the grand gold parlor and claimed the furthest left seat in the entire room.

Adjusting the tails of his jacket, he slid into the chair preparing to endure the torture of the evening’s performances by those ladies in attendance. Except, as Lady Beatrice took her place at the grand piano at the center of the room, Richard’s attention remained solely focused on one small, slender form shifting back and forth in her seat.

What was the lady thinking?

*