Tempted by a Lady’s Smile (9 page)

In her readings of scientific books deemed inappropriate by Mother, Gemma had come across a fascinating natural phenomenon in the Americas in which the earth shook with such ferocity that for months after, those aftershocks were still felt. Just then, with her mother casting glances her way, Gemma quite knew the only thing saving her from subjecting herself to the self-torture of performing this evening was one of those sizeable events.

Beatrice’s soaring lyric soprano filled the room—crisp, clear, beautiful. In short, everything Gemma was not. Oh, she was not so envious that she’d begrudge her friend that talent. Nor did she even wish for a great deal of that aptitude for her own. Why, Gemma would settle for her voice not cracking while she sang. If that was what one truly wished to call it.

As Beatrice brought her song to an impressive finish, the room erupted into more than polite clapping. Gemma ignored the way her mother leaned forward in her chair and gave Gemma a meaningful look.
You are going to perform
… She held her breath but then saints love her friend, Beatrice launched into another song. Through her flawless playing and singing, Gemma shot her gaze about the parlor.

Perhaps she didn’t truly need a natural disaster such as the earth quaking. She could very well feign a megrim, or…she chewed her lower lip. Why, she could swoon from her seat. She sighed. Then, she’d never been the elegant, graceful swooning sorts. Where other skilled ladies had long practiced and perfected that not-quite-an-art faint, Gemma had attempted it
once
as a girl. All she’d received was a bloodied nose for her efforts. In this moment, however, the whole swooning business would prove a remarkably handy, certainly beneficial, skill.

Or she could… Or… Blast. She’d not a single worthy scheme to get her out of this inevitable humiliation. Gemma shifted in her seat and discreetly angled her head back, eying the path of escape.

Yes, she was only looking to the doorway. And most assuredly not for…

Richard
.

He sat in the last row of the parlor with his gaze trained forward. With his arms folded at his chest, his biceps strained the fabric of his elegant, black evening coat. There, with certain humiliation moments away, she no longer fixed on potential escape but on the sheer broad size of him. With his thick, unfashionably long chestnut hair he had the look of a warrior of old, or Viking or…

Clapping filled the hall and, heart pounding, Gemma yanked her attention forward.

And promptly ignored her pointedly frowning mama. She looked all about; at the sconces lining the walls, up at the mural upon the ceiling done in pastel pinks, purples, and blues, with dancing cherubs and…

“Gemma,” her mother snapped, none-too-subtly, and Gemma jerked her head to position with such force she wrenched the muscles in her neck.

“I am certain the audience would greatly prefer another performance from…from Lady Beatrice.” Or any other person present.

Alas, Lady Thelma had already hopped to her feet and rushed to the front of the room to claim her spot at the piano. As she proceeded to play, Gemma looked on. The haunting strains of Mozart’s
Ave verum corpus
echoed from the walls and danced around her mind. All these ladies assembled, brought together to vie for the marquess. By sheer nature of his future title and power, life with him would bring with it one of constant attention and public scrutiny. The lady he chose as his wife would serve as hostess for dreadful
ton
events. In all her musings of a marriage to Lord Westfield, she’d carefully omitted any such intrusions into the life that included anything but they two.

She looked to Beatrice, now seated beside her father and brother. Was this cloying, suffocating world one she truly wished to belong to? With his devotion to his family and the kindness of his soul, Lord Westfield was a man worthy of enduring that misery.

So why did it feel that thought was half-hearted and belated?

“You know she’s going to force you to perform?”

She started at her brother’s whisper. Gemma bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “I could feign a swoon.”

Emery winked. “You were always a rotten actress.”

Gemma sighed. There was all number of things she’d proven rotten at, to their mother’s consternation.

“But do you know what?” Emery said quietly.

She looked questioningly at him.

“You are clever and ride better than most gentlemen I know and are more worthy than any of the ladies here this week.”

Emotion clogged her throat. “Thank you,” she said softly. He’d always been hopelessly loyal in his regard. When their father had passed almost ten years earlier, Emery had stepped into the role of viscount and been in ways, both brother and de facto father to her thirteen-year-old, gangly, awkward self.

Polite applause went up for Lady Thelma, signaling the end of her set.

“And if I could, you know I would save you this unpleasantness?”

She furrowed her brow.

“Gemma, it is your turn to sing,” her mother said loudly and the sharp command echoed in the quiet, bouncing off the walls. Whispers went up about the room.

Oh, God, please let the earth quake, or the floor open or…
Her skin burning from the attention trained on her, Gemma swallowed hard. She could not. Her brother gave her a commiserative look and Beatrice matched that show of support from the front row, smiling gently at her.

Bloody hell and damn. Feeling not unlike one being forced to march those final doomed steps to the guillotine, Gemma shoved to her feet and with her shoulders back, walked the short distance to the piano. She stood beside the massive black instrument and stared blankly at the pearl white keys.

Ten years. Ten years she’d been tortured with lessons upon this bloody instrument, and she was as unremarkable and unskilled now as she’d been a girl of twelve first sitting at their modest pianoforte. A nervous giggle bubbled up her throat. It was a shame Society did not judge the merit of a lady on her equine knowledge or her understanding of those earthquakes she still desperately prayed would save her from—

Mother cleared her throat loudly and Gemma jumped. Skin heating, Gemma dropped a curtsy and, averting her gaze from the crowd, she slid onto the bench. The delicate wood groaned in slight protest as she shifted back and forth. Fingers poised over the keyboard, she began to play the lilting tune. Or it would have been properly lilting if a skilled performer such as Beatrice or Lady Thelma now sat. Alas, she stumbled over the keys. Fixing her attention on her task, she shut out the watching eyes of the Duke of Somerset’s guests.

Because the longer she shut them out, the more it was as though they were not even present, as though it was simply her galloping over the countryside with her books in her packs, free of judgment, free of Society, free of it all.

“Thou bonnie wood of Craigielee,

Thou bonnie wood of Craigielee,

Near thee I’ve spent life’s early day,

And won my Mary’s heart in thee…”

Gemma’s voice cracked and a snickering went through the crowd. And she made the mistake of looking out across the hall to the sea of gaping, gawking peers. At the front sat Lord Westfield, a gentle smile of encouragement on his lips. Gemma drew a breath mid-chorus and proceeded through the remainder of the Scottish tune. That is why she’d loved him, because he’d always smiled at her when others had sneered.

“Tho’ fate should drag me south the line,

Or o’er the wide Atlantic sea,

The happy hours I’ll never mind,

That in youth ha’e spent in thee.”

Granted, he’d never studied her in that heated way, through thick-hooded lashes, singeing her with the intensity within their depths. But love was comfortable and kind, and…

Her fingers slid, creating a discordant, unharmonious cacophony, which ushered in more furious whispers.

“Away you thoughtless murd’ring gang…”
Gemma’s voice broke and wrenching her hands from the keyboard, she sprung from her seat. A tight, boulder-like pressure weighted her chest, squeezing off airflow. Her chest rose and fell in painful spurts as she looked to the silent, gawking crowd. Lord Westfield stared at her, with that blasted gentle smile. God, how that pitying look grated.

Yanking her focus from the marquess, her gaze collided with her mother, mouth agape. All the while, the other would-be future duchesses with their mean smiles and amused eyes no doubt reveled in this prolonged moment of humiliation. A panicky laugh bubbled up her throat. This miserable showing would knock her out of the proverbial running as a potential bride faster than one could utter “spinster forever”.

With humiliation twisting her belly in knots, Gemma gave a toss of her nonexistent curls and took large, lurching strides toward the side of her chair. She marched past her row and quickened her pace. She continued walking until she reached the back of the hall. As she broke into a near sprint, the next flawless lady filled the hall with the appropriately perfect melody of
Der Wanderer
. German lyrics of which Gemma couldn’t even make sense.

Fearing her mother would send Emery after her with the express purpose of dragging Gemma back to take part in another bloody song, she set off running through the duke’s long, quiet corridors.

A
s Gemma continued her rapid flight, her heart beat loud and fast in her ears, thundering from the need to escape. To get away. To disappear from this stilted world of unkindness and inanity.

She skidded to a stop at the end of the hall and then studied the intersecting paths. Footsteps sounded behind her and her pulse kicked up a frantic beat that matched her ragged breathing. Gemma raced on down the hall to the double doors. Nearly suffocating from the oppressiveness of this whole affair, she shoved them open and stumbled out onto the moonlit terrace. With quaking fingers, she closed the massive oak panels behind her and leaned against the solid wood, taking support from it.

In a bid to blot out the humiliating shame forced upon her by her mother, Gemma closed her eyes tight. She concentrated on the symphony of crickets and night birds singing their nighttime song and allowed the soft summer air to caress her heated cheeks. A peaceful calm stole over her and she shoved away from the door and walked slowly down the length of the stone terrace. Gemma stopped at the edge of the balustrade and layered her palms upon the smooth Cast stone. She surveyed the stretch of country landscape bathed in the full moon’s soft, white glow.

She’d long been an oddity; first among her family as the hopeless, socially awkward daughter and then when she’d been presented to Society. Words that came so freely and oft times eloquently with her family escaped her in the presence of strangers. Drawing in a breath of cleansing summer air, Gemma rested her forearms upon the ledge and leaned forward. She had not registered the true depth of her strangeness until she’d been thrust amongst the
ton
. Since that painfully awkward entry into Polite Society, she’d endured Season after Season, all to the same result—a continued marriage-less state.

She laid her cheek upon her arm. The truth was, she’d not truly minded waiting for the right gentleman. She’d never wanted a cold, emotionless union. She’d long dreamed of a gentleman who saw her as worthy; a man who appreciated her for her intelligence and celebrated her peculiarity. The rub of it was, she’d hoped with a naïve young lady’s belief in happily-ever-afters that there existed such a gentleman.

Time had shown her but one. One gentleman who did not share her blood who waltzed with her. One gentleman who smiled and actually spoke to her, and not at her or about her. Yes, Lord Westfield had proven himself wholly unlike any of those others and he’d earned her heart for it.

So why should that smile he’d cast her way during the recital grate on her nerves?

Fighting a sigh, Gemma smoothed her palms over the stone balustrade. Because his was the pitying kind, is why. Never had the marquess stared at her with any real passion or desire in his eyes, but rather a benevolent warmth that she suddenly despised. Had it always been that way? Had she been so desperate for any kindness and the dream of love that she’d failed to note as much, until now? Until Richard.

The soft footfall of boots split her confounded musings and she spun about. Her heart skittered. As though she’d conjured him with a mere thought, Richard stood ten paces away with his hands clasped at his back. The moon cast a soft light upon his rugged features. She wetted her lips. “You.”

He nodded once. “Me.”

Which begged the question… “Why?” There was really no helping that, or her inexplicable ease around Richard Jonas.

Richard rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and glanced past her at the countryside. “What if I said because I tired of the evening’s entertainments?”

Gemma managed her first
real
smile that night. “Then I’d say we are remarkably similar in that regard.” Yet, the more they spoke, the more alike she came to find they were in so
many
regards. She cleared her throat, uneasy with that revelation, and returned to her place at the balustrade. She looked down below to the ornate water fountains sculpted in the likeness of the Greek gods and goddesses of nature and harvest. From the hand of a chiseled Pan, water arced, glimmering in the moonlight and Gemma fixed on the soothing calm of the trickling water. “It was awful,” she said softly.

The tread of Richard’s footsteps indicated he’d moved. At his nearness, a thrill of awareness ran along her spine. When he remained silent, she shot a look over her shoulder.

“Yes,” he said straightforwardly. “It was.”

Most would be insulted at that blunt concurrence and, yet, she appreciated that honesty. She appreciated that he did not fill her ears with lies and platitudes. For her performance had been dreadful, as had been the entire experience this whole evening.

She started as he stopped beside her. How was it possible that a man of his sheer size and power should move with such a sleek grace and elegance? In a like manner to her own, Richard pressed his palms to the stone ledge. “You misunderstand me,” he murmured. “It was dreadful but not in the way you are thinking.”