Heiress Gone Wild

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Forsyte Academy was a proper girls’ school, and during her time there, no one had seen fit to give her any facts regarding the intimate relations between men and women. Mothers were expected to provide that very necessary information, and though Mrs. Forsyte had been the closest thing she’d had to a mother since her own had died, the headmistress had not seen fit to take on that particular aspect of a mother’s duty.

  In addition, though Marjorie’s career as a teacher had given her access to certain books on human biology, the information provided by the volumes of the academy’s library had been vague, euphemistic, and profoundly unsatisfactory.

  But then, could any book really explain the reality? The rising tension, the exquisite sensations, the shattering conclusion?

  “Your coffee, Miss McGann.”

  Boothby’s voice, so matter-of-fact, tore her out of these carnal speculations, and as the butler entered the room with a laden tray, she returned her attention to the papers spread out on the table before her. As he poured her coffee and brought it to her, she bent her head as if fully occupied with the current financial status of her investments.

  “Set it on the table, Boothby,” she said, picking up a pencil to scribble a nonsensical note in the margin of one sheet.

  The cup and saucer rattled as he did as she had instructed. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, thank you, Boothby. You may go.”

  He bowed and departed, and Marjorie leaned forward, pressing her hot cheek against the cool sheets of paper on the table with a groan. If she was going to dissolve into blushes every time she contemplated last night’s events, how was she ever going to face Jonathan and ask him to explain what it all meant?

  That question had barely crossed her mind, however, before more footsteps sounded in the corridor. She sat up and grabbed her pencil, pretending vast interest in the papers before her, but the moment the object of all her tortured contemplations walked into the room, she felt her face heating all over again.

  He stopped just inside the doorway, and though she longed to take refuge in the legal documents before her, she reminded herself of her purpose, told herself not to be a ninny, and looked up.

  “Hello,” she said, ignoring her hot face and working to keep her voice cool. “I thought you’d be at the ball.” As she spoke, she noted in puzzlement that he was not in white tie, but an ordinary morning suit of charcoal gray. “Aren’t you going?”

  “No.” He came in, shutting the library door behind him, and this exact repetition of his first action last night jerked Marjorie to her feet. Surely he wasn’t intending to repeat the rest of those events, was he?

  Her blush deepened with her thoughts, heat spreading through her body. He perceived her reaction, his lips tightening, and her determination to confront him began to falter. When he started toward her, she looked past him, feeling a sudden, craven desire to run for the door.

  She shoved aside such cowardice, seized her courage, and shored up her pride, and as he circled the table, she turned to face him, gripping her pencil tight in her fingers as she readied herself to demand what he was doing, batting her about as if she were a tennis ball.

  He paused in front of her. “I wanted to speak with you, and this seemed the best opportunity.”

  “Indeed?” she asked, absurdly proud of the incisive tone of her voice. “That’s a change from the usual.”

  His gaze moved to the empty space of carpet on the floor, then back to her face. “I meant I wanted to speak with you alone.”

  Despite everything, she felt a stirring of excitement, but she quashed it. “Again, a change from the usual,” she muttered.

  He reached out, his fingers closing over her pencil as if to take it from her, and she felt a strange, almost irresistible temptation to grip it harder, but she forced herself to relax and let him pull it from her fingers.

  He tossed it onto the table beside them, then he faced her again, and to her complete amazement, he took her hands in his and said the last thing in the world she’d ever have expected.

  “I think we should get married.”

  Chapter 19

  He was proposing? Marjorie blinked, utterly stupefied. “You want to marry me?”

  “Yes.” Despite this confirmation, she still couldn’t quite believe it. It was just too incredible. “Yes. After what happened last night, I think it would be best.”

  Watching him, comprehension struck her like lightning.

  “Oh, my God.” She snatched her hands from his, horrified as gossiping voices of her colleagues at Forsyte Academy came back to her, whispered words about a fellow teacher that she’d paid little heed to at the time.

  It was that man she walks out with. She laid with him, the little strumpet, and he wouldn’t marry her . . . that’s why she had to leave, you know, to have the baby.

  “I laid with you,” she whispered in horror, and she cursed her aversion to gossip. If she’d paid more attention to such talk back then, she might have known enough to prevent disaster now. “There, on the floor, in this very room. I’m ruined.”

  “No, you’re not.” His voice was low and hard, and not the least bit reassuring. “Not yet, anyway.”

  She shook her head, trying to think, but she was too overwhelmed for that, any happiness she might have taken in her first marriage proposal obliterated by raw panic.

  “Marjorie,” he said gently, seeming to sense her feelings, “nothing happened.”

  “Nothing?” she echoed, her voice rising a notch. “Is that what you call it?”

  “I only meant that what we did—what I did,” he corrected at once, “won’t ruin you. It might have, of course, had anyone caught us. But no one did.”

  She made a sound, a hitching hiccough of fear, and swayed on her feet.

  His hands gripped her by the arms to steady her. “The doors were closed. Everyone was in bed and asleep. No one saw us.”

  “But . . . but . . .” She paused, thinking hard, but there was just no delicate way to bring up the crucial point. “But what about a baby?” she burst out.

  He blinked, and then, to her complete consternation, he gave a shout of laughter.

  “This isn’t funny!” she cried.

  “No,” he agreed, assuming his former grave expression, but in his eyes, there was a lurking hint of wry humor that made her scowl.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I know this isn’t amusing. But Marjorie, you do have a way of forever knocking me off my trolley. I had thought myself thoroughly prepared for this moment and anything you might say, but knowing you, I should have known better.”

  “What you’re prepared for isn’t of much concern to me just now, Jonathan,” she said crossly.

  “No, but I took it for granted that someone would have explained all that sort of thing to you ages ago. Mrs. Forsyte, or one of your married friends . . . someone . . .” His voice trailed off, implying a question, but when she shook her head, he resumed, “What happened last night isn’t how babies are made. That’s not how it works. At least, not precisely. I mean,” he added as she sucked in another panicky breath, “things between us didn’t go far enough for that.”

  “Oh,” she gasped, relieved that her apprehensions were groundless, but curious, too, for she couldn’t imagine what “going far enough” would have entailed. To her mind, the intimacies of last night had gone pretty far.

  “But they could have done,” he said before she could ask, the humor vanishing from his eyes. “And that would have put you beyond the pale. I fear they will go that far at some point.”

  “I see,” she said, an inadequate reply, for she didn’t see at all, but she had no idea what else to say. She couldn’t seem to think straight.

  Jonathan was proposing. Marriage. To her. She still couldn’t take it in.

  “So, I’m not ruined?” she asked. “And,” she continued when he shook his head, “there’s no possibility of a baby after . . . after . . .” She paused, giving him a dubious look. “Are you sure?”
/>
  He smiled, a tender smile that sent her heart slamming into her ribs. “I’m sure.”

  “But then, why on earth would you want to marry me? Are you—” She broke off, staring at him in renewed shock as a new reason occurred to her, one she’d never even thought of as a possibility before, but she had no chance to voice it, for he spoke again, and it was almost as if he’d read her mind.

  “You want to know my feelings, of course.” He let her go and took a step back. “I shall confess them, though it means confessing things that are never easy for a man to admit. First, let me say quite bluntly that I want you.”

  Heat hit her in the belly, spreading outward, overtaking her entire body, and she could manage only one word. “Oh.”

  “I feel for you a deep and passionate desire.”

  Romantic thrills began shooting up inside her like fireworks, but given his infuriating disregard of late, it seemed incumbent upon her to appear as unmoved by this exciting confession as possible. “Yes,” she said, but her matter-of-fact reply came out in a strangled whisper and shredded any pretense of sophisticated indifference. She gave a little cough and tried again. “Yes, I . . . umm . . . ahem . . . I did gather that much.”

  “I’m sure, but what you may not know is that I have wanted you almost from the very first moment we met.”

  “What?” Marjorie was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland, except that the six impossible things she was supposed to believe were happening at midnight, not before breakfast.

  “Given my position as your guardian, I have known all along such desires are inappropriate, but even I was not aware of how ungovernable my desire for you would become. I instinctively tried to shield you from it—first, by leaving you behind in New York, then by putting Lady Stansbury between us, and then by attempting to leave you with my sisters and escape to Africa.”

  He gave another laugh, a caustic sound of self-deprecation. “I told myself and you that all these actions were motivated by my duty, and that I was protecting you from the unsavory attentions of other men. But after last night, I can no longer even attempt such hypocrisy. I am compelled to be honest with both of us.” He met her eyes, his gaze resolute and steady. “What I have really been trying to protect you from all this time is me.”

  Marjorie’s heart was thudding so hard in her chest, it was as if she’d been running, and her head was still in a whirl.

  “To be blunt, the past two months have been hell for me. Being mere friends with you is impossible, for the more I am near you, the more I want you. Despite my attempts to resist, I feel that resistance fading, making you more vulnerable to attentions of this sort from me with each day that passes. As I seem to repeatedly demonstrate,” he continued with obvious self-disdain, “I cannot be trusted to behave honorably where you are concerned.”

  Marjorie, who’d never been the subject of masculine attentions, dishonorable or otherwise, could not share his low opinion of his conduct. Perhaps she had a wild streak in her nature, but what Jonathan had done to her last night was the most thrilling, glorious thing that had ever happened to her. She might have said so, but words were beyond her at this point.

  “In such circumstances,” he continued, “the right thing to do would have been to remove myself from your society altogether, but my sisters gainsaid me there, insisting that I stay through your birthday. Having broken my word to them once before, I knew I could not do so a second time.”

  “Wait,” she implored, spurred out of her speechless state. “Go back to the part about your ungovernable desires, for I’d like to hear that part again. I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” A smile touched his mouth. “After last night, I think you do.”

  She bit her lip, unable to deny it, too embarrassed to admit it, though she supposed her own wanton behavior last night made any admission unnecessary.

  “Because of that,” he continued in the wake of her silence, “there can be only one result, and I would prefer that result to be an honorable one, made by choice and not by circumstance.”

  She frowned, trying to understand. “So, you think we’ll lose our heads and do . . . something stupid and be forced to marry.”

  “I’d prefer it didn’t come to that. In marrying me, you wouldn’t need to worry you were marrying a man who had designs on your money. And no one could argue that it wouldn’t be a suitable match. It’s quite fitting, really—you and I.”

  “But—” Marjorie broke off, uneasiness seeping into her consciousness, nudging aside delirious, romantic thrills about her first proposal. “Are you—”

  She stopped again, though she didn’t know why it was so hard to ask the obvious question. But she had to know. “Jonathan, are you falling in love with me?”

  Even as she said it, she laughed a little, for it seemed so absurd, despite his confession of passion.

  “No,” he said. “I’m already there.”

  Any inclination to laugh vanished. She stared at him, feeling as if the floor was sliding out from beneath her. She didn’t believe him. How could she? It was just too ridiculous. All he’d done lately was snub her. And besides, men like him didn’t fall in love and settle down, not for real, not for life. And that was what marriage was—at least for her. A life, together, forever.

  “And after last night,” he went on as she didn’t speak, “I thought perhaps you might have similar feelings.”

  She inhaled sharply, fearing he was right.

  “That’s ridiculous.” She jerked her hands free. “Two months is far too short an acquaintance for feelings like that.”

  “Is it?” He made a rueful face. “I think I started falling for you the moment I found you in my cabin aboard the Neptune. It was only after last night that I finally stopped fighting it and admitted it to myself.”

  Inside, she began to shake. “Well, even if that’s true for you, it isn’t for me!” she burst out. “I refuse to fall in love with a man just because he’s the first one who’s ever kissed me! It’s the principle of the thing,” she added, scowling as he pressed a smile from his lips.

  “I hope that doesn’t mean you intend to sample other men’s kisses before you decide? Because if so, I fear I shall have to jump off a cliff.”

  She made a stifled sound halfway between a panicked sob and a wild laugh, and, desperate, she changed tactics. “So, let me see if I have this right,” she said, her voice hardening as she forced herself to cast aside romance and consider the cold, hard facts. “We marry, we have a few weeks together, satisfying our . . . our . . .”

  “Mutual passion?” he supplied when she couldn’t find the words.

  “Infatuation,” she corrected. “And then you go off to explore Africa while I wait by the fireside like a dutiful wife. Is that the plan?”

  “Well, I hadn’t got as far as making definite plans, but as for South Africa, you can’t come with me. If war with the Boers breaks out, things could get dicey. I won’t put you in that sort of danger. But—”

  “But you’d put yourself in it,” she interrupted. “God, Jonathan, if anything happened to you—” She stopped, the horrific possibility of his death choking her, indicating that his guess about her feelings had some validity, and she worked to regain her composure and prove him wrong. “If you died out there, I’d be a widow,” she said at last, managing to inject a prim disinterest into her voice she didn’t feel in the least. “No, thank you.”

  “I could just as easily die hit by an omnibus while crossing a London street,” he pointed out.

  “It’s not the same thing!”

  “It would be to me,” he said dryly.

  “Stop joking!”

  “Sorry,” he said at once. “But I’m a bit nervous, Marjorie, I admit. Most men are, I suppose, when they come to propose marriage. As for my death, I don’t intend to die in South Africa. I have too much waiting for me here.”

  “Only if you decide to come back.”

  “Ah,” he murmured, “now we�
�re getting to it.”

  She didn’t reply, and when he cupped her cheek, she stiffened, his touch threatening to shatter her resolve.

  “I will come back,” he said.

  “When?” she asked, trying to harden herself against him, for she wasn’t about to let the abandonment and loneliness of her past become her future. “In eight months? Ten years? Someday?”

  “All right, then. Let’s make this simple.” He let her go, his hands falling to his sides. “I won’t go. I’ll find an envoy to go in my stead, and I’ll stay here.”

  Oddly enough, instead of assuaging her apprehensions, that suggestion intensified them. “Even if you did stay, what then? If we marry, how would it be? How long before society starts to bore you, and you’re tired of it all, and you want to move on? What then? I’ll be stuck, waiting, wondering when you’ll come back from wherever you’ve gone off to. I watched my father do that to my mother plenty of times. I heard him make the same promises to her that he later made to me.”

  “But I am not him,” he said, his voice so tender, it almost dissolved her composure. “And it wouldn’t have to be like that for us. If I do want to go off and roam a little, there’s nothing that says you’d have to stay behind. You could come with me.”

  “And do what?” she cried. “Hole up for a year or two or three in a mining cabin in Idaho or a beach hut in Florida or a shack beside a South Africa shale field?”

  “I think we could afford better accommodations than that.”

  “That’s not the point, and you know it. You told me that you live the way you do because you’re searching for something to replace what you lost. But I have no intention of wandering across the globe with you while you keep looking for it. And what if you never do? I don’t want the sort of aimless life you live, and I certainly don’t want it for my children.”

  “Marjorie,” he began, but she shook her head, refusing to listen to some description of how exciting it would be to go off with him to parts unknown and explore the world.

  “No, Jonathan. I told you what I want the very first day we met. I’ve been sheltered and secluded most of my life, I know, but I have a new life now, a life of company and society, and I’ve only just begun to enjoy it. I haven’t come out, or had suitors, or even been to a ball. I’m not ready to marry anyone and, as you said yourself two months ago, I have plenty of time. I shall take that time to find the right man for me.”