A picture of that scenario came into his mind, and he almost smiled. He checked it just in time, giving her a skeptical look instead.
“It will happen,” she said, noting his expression, “if this intolerable situation is allowed to continue.”
From what he knew of Marjorie thus far, he could not be completely sure her threat was tongue-in-cheek. “Tossing certain people overboard,” he said, giving her a meaningful glance, “is a temptation I’m coming to know rather well.”
“Oh, you poor man,” she said as she turned away and began to pace. “You’re so put upon, having to deal with me. But you have no idea what I’ve been dealing with.”
“Unless I miss my guess, you’re about to tell me. On the assumption that you did not toss her over the side, where is Lady Stansbury?”
“She and her friends are still having tea and enjoying a healthy dose of scandalmongering along with it. You should hear the way they gossip about people—the odious conclusions they draw and the rumors they spread, and all of it without a shred of evidence that I can see. Horrid cats.”
“Gossip is a favorite pastime of the typical British matron, so you’d best get used to it, if you want to be in British society. And if they’re having tea, then why aren’t you with them? You certainly shouldn’t be here,” he felt compelled to add, though as he studied her in that dress, he was uncertain if that reminder was for her, or for him. “Where does the countess think you are?”
She stopped pacing. “Oh,” she groaned, swaying on her feet, pressing one hand to her forehead while she reached out with the other to grasp the back of the wingback chair beside her. “I’ve such a headache,” she mumbled. “I must go lie down.”
Alarmed, he started toward her, then realized he’d just been made for a mug and stopped again.
“Were you this accomplished a liar at Forsyte Academy?” he asked as she abandoned the pretense of a headache and resumed pacing. “Or has the baroness been giving you acting lessons?”
“She’s in no condition to do that, or much else, either. She’s seasick, as you already know.”
“Yes, I did hear something about that,” he acknowledged, trying not to laugh. “Poor woman.”
Despite his best efforts to sound nonchalant, some of his amused satisfaction must have shown on his face, for when she glanced his way, she stopped again, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “What did you do?” she demanded. “Pay the waiter to put an emetic in her dinner last night?”
Caught, he made the best of it and smiled. “I didn’t pay the waiter to do anything.”
She understood his clarification at once. “You paid the baroness to pretend seasickness? You did,” she added as his smile widened. “Of all the devious, highhanded—”
She broke off with a sound of exasperation and continued to pace. “I should have known you’d do something like that. And how like you to stick me with Lady Stansbury instead.”
“It’s not my fault you chose a chaperone who could be bought. And the baroness, being a practical woman as well as stone broke, appreciated that I would be a more lucrative source of income than you. As for Lady Stansbury, she is a much more appropriate chaperone than Baroness Vasiliev. And,” he added as she made a sound of derision, “you’d be wise to stay in her good graces. She lives very near my sister, and if you end up staying with Irene, you’ll see a great deal of the woman in the future.”
“Lucky me,” Marjorie muttered, turning at the wall to go back across the cabin. “She’s a dragon.”
“She is, isn’t she?” he agreed with immense satisfaction, knowing de la Rosa wouldn’t dare come anywhere near Marjorie if Lady Stansbury was in the vicinity.
“She’s moved me into her suite, you know—lock, stock, and barrel. She unpacked all my things without even asking me, and went through all my clothes, piece by piece. She even went through my unmentionables!”
Involuntarily, Jonathan’s gaze lowered, skimming over Marjorie’s figure in immediate speculation.
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for me to have a woman I don’t even know studying my undergarments and clicking her tongue with disapproval over even the tiniest bit of lace or ribbon?”
How much lace? he wondered, watching the sway of her hips as she moved back and forth in front of him in her tight-fitting gown. How many ribbons?
“She said all the falderals—as she called them—will have to be removed. What does it matter if there’s lace on my petticoats?” Marjorie demanded, her voice rising a notch as Jonathan’s mind began sinking into the gutter. “No one’s going to see them anyway. It’s so ridiculous.”
It seemed that way to him as well, but then, he was a man, and though he did possess some useful knowledge of women’s underwear, he didn’t know what mourning underwear was supposed to look like. Before he could offer an appropriate reply, however, Marjorie was off again.
“And then, she bundled up all the clothes that she’d decided were unsuitable and packed them into a trunk, declaring I’m no longer allowed to wear them.”
“Even the underclothes?” he couldn’t resist asking.
She gave him a scathing look as she passed him, clearly unamused. “Those she gave to her maid—all the ones I’m not wearing right this minute, anyway. She ordered the woman to remove anything that might be considered ornamental from every pair of drawers, every petticoat, every chemise, and every corset I own.”
“That,” he murmured with a most unguardianlike regret, “is a shame.”
“And then do you know what she did? She ordered the purser to have the trunk with all my unsuitable clothes put in the hold. Oh, she was so superior, so arrogant, is it any wonder I want to pitch her overboard?”
With those words, Jonathan was forced to pull his mind away from the rather dangerous direction it had been heading and address the problem at hand. “Cheer up,” he said, deciding an attempt at consolation was his best bet. “At least she didn’t pack up your evening gown and put that in the hold.”
“Oh, she tried.” Marjorie gave him a triumphant smile as she passed. “But I explained that this gown belonged to Baroness Vasiliev. She immediately returned it, which I knew she would, and after I pleaded a headache, I went to the baroness and got it back.”
“Of course you did,” he murmured with a sigh.
“I don’t even know this Lady Stansbury. Who is she to tell me what I can and can’t wear? Who is she to tell her maid to alter my underclothes?”
“She is a woman of great influence, and when the time comes, she could prove a valuable connection for you. And having raised four daughters, she is fully aware of how to be a chaperone. For the time being, at least, I should advise you to trust her judgement.”
“Do you, indeed?” Marjorie stopped and turned to face him. “I’m also under orders to stay in my room from the end of teatime onward, did you know that? I am not even to come down to dinner in the dining room.”
“I can see,” he said, glancing over her figure, “that’s a dictum you don’t intend to obey.”
“Why should I? It’s absurd. She says I can only dine in our suite. Anything I own that’s even remotely pretty, I can’t wear. I can’t play shuffleboard, or cards, or games of any sort. I can read—but no novels. Provided, of course, she and her friends don’t need me for other things. Because her maid’s busy ruining all my undergarments, I’m expected to act as stand-in, threading needles, winding wool, and fetching and carrying without so much as a please or a thank-you. When did I become Lady Stansbury’s second maid, second seamstress, and general dogsbody?”
“Such tasks are probably meant to provide you with acceptable ways to occupy yourself during the voyage, not because she thinks you are a maid.”
“Forgive me if I’m not willing to give the countess the benefit of the doubt on that score.”
He tried again. “Marjorie, I realize that Lady Stansbury may seem overly strict, and she may not have approached taking over as your chaperone in the most tactful way.
And I grant you, she and her friends are bound to be rather dull company, but—”
“Dull?” she interrupted with a groan. “Dull isn’t the word! I know you think I’m difficult, and maybe a bit willful. But,” she went on before he could concur with that assessment, “I hope to heaven I’m not dull.”
“No,” he conceded, and this time he just couldn’t stop a smile. “I don’t think I shall ever be able to say that about you, Marjorie.”
“If that woman and her friends had anything interesting to discuss, I might be willing to sit and wind wool and embroider tea cloths with them, but all they seem able to talk about are gardens, dog breeding, and the latest scandals.”
“Of which I do not want you to be one.”
“I realize that, but—” She stopped, lifting her arms in utter frustration and letting them fall. “There has to be some middle ground here.”
“Sadly, no. Even the most trivial thing can hurt your reputation, and I am not about to let that happen. A week of strict supervision won’t kill you.”
She set her jaw in a mutinous line. “If anyone’s dead by the time we reach Southampton, it’s going to be Lady Stansbury, not me.”
He studied her face, realizing that if she was pushed too hard, she might rebel outright. What he needed was an incentive, something that would show her all that she could look forward to later on if she behaved with proper decorum now. “Wait here,” he said on impulse and turned to pull his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Where are you going?”
He slid into his jacket and walked to the door. “Lock the door behind me, and for God’s sake, don’t let anyone in. I’ll be right back.”
He left the cabin, returning about ten minutes later.
“I want to show you something,” he said as he relocked the door of his stateroom behind him and pocketed his key. “Come with me.”
He walked into his bedroom, beckoning her to follow. “Sit here,” he said, pulling out the chair in front of his dressing table as she came through the doorway.
“You’re always talking about proprieties,” she murmured, perching on the edge of the offered chair. “Being in your bedroom seems terribly improper to me.”
It was an absolute scandal, but there was no point in underlining the fact by saying so. “It’ll be our secret. And this won’t take long. Close your eyes.”
“Oh, very well.” With the indulgent air of a schoolteacher humoring a pupil, she gave a sigh and complied. “I can’t imagine what this is about.”
“You’ll see.” He paused behind her chair, stretched out his arm, and tilted the mirror on his dressing table down so that when she opened her eyes, she’d have a full view of her reflection. Then he pulled the rectangular box of robin’s egg blue from his breast pocket, set it on the table, and opened it.
“No peeking,” he told her as he removed the necklace from its velvet background and lifted it over her head, then he paused, dangling it just under her chin without allowing it to touch her. “Keep your eyes closed.”
“They’re closed, they’re closed,” she muttered, wriggling on the seat. “But you might hurry a bit.”
He ought to, he knew, but as Jonathan looked at her reflection, her dark lashes like tiny fans against her cheeks, her hair piled high and gleaming like fire, he felt compelled to take his time.
“Remember I told you that when you finished your mourning period, you’d have a season?” he asked.
“Yes. A year from now.”
She sounded so aggrieved that he couldn’t help smiling. “I know that seems like a long time away,” he murmured, leaning down until his face was beside hers, until a loose tendril of her hair tickled his cheek and the lavender scent of her skin was in his nostrils. “But patience is a virtue, Marjorie.”
She gave a derisive sniff, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Having exercised patience throughout most of my life—something which is very much against my natural temperament, by the way—I find it overrated.”
“Well, I’m about to prove you wrong about that.” Still looking at her reflection, he turned his head a bit, inhaling lavender fragrance, savoring the warmer, deeper scent beneath.
“Believe it or not,” he murmured, his breath stirring the loose lock of her hair as he spoke, “some things are worth waiting for. Things like this.” He pulled his hands back slightly, bringing the necklace into the proper position around her throat, letting the jewels fall against her skin as he looked in the mirror and said, “Open your eyes.”
She did, and immediately inhaled a sharp gasp. Her eyes, almost black in the dim light of his bedroom, went wide as she stared at her reflection. Her lips, the same soft pink as the sapphires, parted in pure astonishment.
She wasn’t the only one astonished. To Jonathan, jewels meant little—colored stones and bits of metal strung and soldered together, that was all—mere baubles when they were sitting in a velvet-lined box. But around Marjorie’s throat, displayed to perfection against the backdrop of her creamy skin, jewels became something else, something that made his throat go dry.
The necklace, a collar of marquise diamonds interspaced with cushion-cut rose-pink sapphires fitted perfectly around her long, slender neck. Along the bottom of the collar, larger pear-shaped diamonds dangled, dancing and sparkling in the light, grazing her collarbone. Below the hollow between her clavicles and above the cleft of her breasts, surrounded by the leaflike points of more marquise diamonds, sat the Rose of Shoshone in all its dazzling pink glory.
“Oh,” she breathed, a soft huff of air between her parted lips. “What is it, a ruby?”
“Pink sapphire—which is the same thing, really, though lighter in color. Remember you asked me yesterday what the Rose of Shoshone was?” He nodded to her reflection in the mirror. “Now you know.”
“Good heavens. This is mine?”
“When you turn twenty-one, yes. Do you like it?”
“It’s . . .” She paused, laughing a little as if descriptions were beyond her. She lifted one hand to her bosom, her fingertips grazing the Rose’s polished surface. “But where did it come from?”
“Your father found it, and all the other jewels in the necklace, long before I knew him. The diamonds he acquired in South Africa, the sapphires in Idaho. As to the latter, he was panning for gold on the Payette River—”
Jonathan broke off, his voice failing, for he saw something in her face that he hadn’t seen before, something in her dark eyes, parted lips, and quickened breathing, something that as a man, he instantly recognized—a dawning awareness of herself as a woman and the power that came with it.
His body responded at once, arousal flaring up within him like a match set alight, and he knew he was in serious trouble.
This was his best friend’s daughter, Billy’s little girl, who he’d sworn to safeguard and protect, and yet, right now, he felt as protective of her as a wolf did a lamb.
He told himself to withdraw, but then, she laughed, a low, throaty sound of feminine exultation that pinned him in place and shredded any thought of withdrawal. Instead of diminishing, the desire within him deepened and spread, and he could only stare at her, riveted, as heat spread through his body. Suddenly, a deathbed promise to his best friend seemed like nothing at all, and he realized what he’d just done had been a huge, god-awful, disastrous mistake.
He’d intended to give her a reason to do things his way. A rather selfish thing to do, he appreciated now, engineered as much for his own convenience as for her well-being, and like most selfish actions, it was coming back to punish him. In spades.
Pull back, he told himself, but he was powerless to make his body obey his will. His senses were aware of every aspect of this moment—the warmed metal of the necklace clasp in his fingers, the loosened wisps of hair at her nape tickling the backs of his hands, the lavender and woman scent of her in his nostrils. He was aware of the glittering jewel nestled above her breasts, the softness of her skin beneath his wrists, and his own rock-hard arous
al hidden by the back of the chair.
Reflected in the mirror, he could see the bed, located a scant six feet behind them. Six feet, he thought, all the distance that existed between a girl’s innocence and her ruin. He stared at the bed, anarchy inside him as he fought man’s eternal battle, the battle between desire and honor.
He tore his gaze from the bed, knowing he had to stop this sort of dangerous thinking before it could take hold, but when he looked at her again, radiant and beautiful, with glittering jewels around her throat and a glimmer of Eve’s knowledge in her eyes, he couldn’t resist postponing for just a few more exquisite seconds what he knew he had to do.
She wasn’t laughing now. Perhaps the sense of power he’d awakened in her gave her an inkling of what he felt, because she wasn’t staring at the jewels any longer, but at him, her eyes wide, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed.
Billy’s daughter, looking at him in a whole new way, and yet, still too innocent to know what she could unleash with those soft brown eyes and those kissable pink lips and that smashing body. But he knew, and as he thought of it, the heat inside him grew stronger and hotter, deepening into raw lust.
He was a dog.
Sucking in his breath, he pulled the necklace from around her throat. “You will be making your debut in the spring,” he said, his voice harsh to his own ears as he strove to regain his equilibrium. “You’ll have all the delights of a London season, complete with a coming-out ball, at which you will be able to wear this.” He paused, holding up the glittering jewels in his fingers. “But that won’t be possible if you become an object of shame or ridicule.”
In the mirror, he watched as everything he’d awakened faded from her expression then vanished as if it had never been.
“I see.” She rose to her feet, sliding from behind the chair and turning to face him. “You showed me that necklace so that I would comply with your wishes, is that it?” she asked, a cool, metallic quality in her voice he’d never heard before. “You dangled it in front of me, as if it’s a toy and I’m a child?”
“That wasn’t my intent—”
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