She smiled up at him. “There’s hope for you, Mr. Dolan.”
Another turn, and he was doomed. “Generous of you to say so, Miss Amy.”
“Try to let the rhythm of the dance keep you relaxed. You’re stiffening up on me.”
Mother of God. He dropped his arms and stepped back. “We need music if we’re to accomplish my objective.”
Her expression turned mulish. “Do you always accomplish your objectives, Mr. Dolan?”
“No.” He ran a hand through hair made a good deal shorter and peculiarly fluffy by her damned little scissors. “No, I do not, though that usually only increases my determination. For example, you would not call me Jonathan, no matter how politely I asked it of you.”
“It would not be proper. You’re my—”
He was glad for the tiff, glad for the distraction of it, but when she pinched up her mouth in that pruny, lecturing way, it made him want to kiss her all the more.
“Music, Miss Amy. Now.”
The housekeeper was summoned. She took her place at the piano, back to the room, and launched into a surprisingly competent triple-meter introduction without so much as glancing at the couple for whom she played.
Jonathan bowed, his partner curtsied, and after more than a week of waiting and anticipating, Jonathan had the pleasure of dancing down the room with the woman about whom he dreamed.
He had the odd thought that Amy Ingraham was real. Where his hand rested on her back, he felt the slight wrinkle of a chemise and stays beneath the fabric of her dress. When he drew her into his arms, the aroma of lemon verbena mingled with laundry starch and something else—a faint trace of ink, perhaps?—to bring the schoolroom to mind.
And Mother of God, the woman could dance. She’d been keeping her powder dry in the earlier drills, maintaining the fiction that she was a governess even in waltz position. With the music filling the room, she became lissome and buoyant, not a sylph, but a woman with a body a man could worship, given privacy and leave to do so.
So he prolonged the exercise by the few means at his disposal.
“Wrong way, Mr. Dolan.”
“Beg your pardon.”
Then, “You’re a trifle ahead of the music, sir.”
“I do apologize.”
Several phrases later: “I think we’d best start from the beginning.”
On the third attempt he grew daring.
“Not so tight on the turns, Mr. Dolan.”
“Your pardon, of course…”
“Not so many turns, Mr. Dolan.”
Bless her, she was a very patient woman, and very determined to see her pupil succeed, too.
“I think we’d better start again, Miss Ingraham.”
Perhaps he was tiring her out, because the feel of her shifted, from competent and graceful to yielding and maybe even…submissive. To Jonathan, her following became instinctive.
This had such a salutary effect on his breeding organs that he finished the final tour of the room without a stumble, a wrong turn, or any other diversion to mar his pure enjoyment of the waltz. When the music came to a close, Jonathan realized that he’d just danced himself out of further instruction.
And maybe his teacher realized it too, for she leaned in a little, as if winded.
“I think you’ve acquired the knack, sir.”
He’d acquired a cockstand, most assuredly, and because a man in desperate straits needed some small token in recompense for his forbearance, he bent down and brushed his lips over her cheek.
She didn’t pull immediately away. She sighed, the sound to Jonathan one of long-suffering, redolent of the trials of governessing a grown man on the dance floor.
“You’re supposed to kiss the lady’s hand, Mr. Dolan, or more precisely, to engage in gestures suggestive of that aim without actually putting your mouth to her person or her glove.”
“My mistake.” Except it wasn’t a mistake. Kissing Amy was the best move he’d made all week. He followed up by raising her bare hand in his, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles, and pressing his lips softly to the back of her hand.
At which moment, the piano lid banged shut, and Miss Amy took a decisive step to the rear.
***
“Imagine my frustration when I find the damned woman has hared off to the country.” Nigel stormed into Bonham’s study, tossed a bouquet of daisies aside, and helped himself to a glass of whiskey.
Bonham picked up the bunch of abused flowers. “I rather thought governesses were supposed to remain in the vicinity of their charges, not go ruralizing at will.”
“She’s in the employ of Dolan, the quarry nabob. He’s gone off to Surrey, taking the child with him, ergo, Amy is in Surrey as well.”
“Surrey’s right across the river.” Bonham fished a penknife out of the desk drawer and began to trim the flower stems. “The Season’s mostly over, and I for one am not enthusiastic about remaining in Town for the balance of the summer.”
Nigel paused in the contemplation of his drink—and his future—to peer at his friend. “What on earth are you doing?”
“The flowers last longer if you trim the ends up a bit. Nerissa was particular about her flowers.”
“You let that woman lead you around by a certain appendage, Bonny.” Nigel made this observation as much in commiseration as judgment, for the fair Nerissa was now enjoying the patronage of some duke. “I bloody hate the bloody countryside. Fresh air makes my nose run.”
“Well, cheer up.” Bonham gathered the flowers and rummaged through the sideboard’s cabinets. “I’ve a little place out in Surrey, probably use it for a dower property for one of my sisters. If you need to track your prospective viscountess down, we can jaunt out there for a few weeks before I take the yacht North for the shooting.”
“Bonny, I should love you even if you didn’t have such excellent cellars.”
Bonham stood back and surveyed the flowers he’d stuffed into a pitcher of water. “Doesn’t look quite right.”
The daisies stood at various heights, pointing in all directions, with a couple poking up several inches above their confreres, and the whole thing listing badly to starboard.
“When I marry, my wife will busy herself with arranging all the bouquets just so,” Nigel said. “Why can I take no solace from this sanguine eventuality?”
Bonham ambled over to the sofa and plucked Nigel’s drink from his hand. “Take solace from being able to spend your wife’s fortune, Wooster. On Maria, at the tables, at Weston’s and Hoby’s establishments, at the races, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
He took a sip of the whiskey and passed the glass back to his guest. “Surrey signifies a deal of countryside. Where exactly has the quarry nabob dragged your affianced wife to?”
“You recall that match race a few weeks back that had all the fellows aflutter?”
Bonham came down on the sofa beside Nigel. “Fellows don’t flutter, but yes. Supposedly a friendly wager, but nobody believed it, except that’s apparently exactly what it was.”
“Dolan’s country place is not far from where the race was held.”
Bonham appropriated the glass again and drained the contents. “Ergo, your cousin is off to Surrey, ergo, you are off to Surrey.”
“Ergo, you are off to Surrey as well.”
“Be still my beating heart. More whiskey?”
“Of course.”
***
“You look different.” Lucas Denning, the Marquess of Deene, scowled at his brother-in-law. “Evie will know what’s changed.”
“We Irish only grow more handsome with time.” Jonathan sauntered into Deene’s library, affecting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. Deene had more books in one room of his country retreat than Jonathan had seen prior to leaving Ireland. Though the man was several years Jonathan’s junior, he had centuries of aristocratic breeding to his name, and blond, blue-eyed good looks to go with them.
Deene wrinkled his patrician nose and made a circumnavigation of Jonathan’s pe
rson. “You appear to be thriving. Is that jacket from Weston’s?”
“It is, though I’ll not patronize them again.”
Deene’s glower eased. “They’ve grown too popular and thus charge too much and take too long to make a simple garment. Would you like a drink?”
That Jonathan would share even something as basic as an opinion regarding a tailor with the handsome marquess was vaguely disturbing. “What have you got?”
“My marchioness said you’d be a man of uncomplicated tastes, and thus the sideboard boasts only brandy, whiskey, chilled hock, and, um, cold lemonade.”
Deene’s fair countenance colored slightly at the mention of this last beverage.
“Lemonade, Deene? Does your marchioness think I’m an eight-year-old man of uncomplicated tastes?”
The marquess swung away from the sideboard and spoke with cool civility. “What can I get you, Dolan?”
Insight struck with an unaccustomed shaft of compassion for Lord Deene. “Your marchioness is breeding, isn’t she? She’s avoiding spirits, and you’re humoring her. I’ll have the lemonade then, and so will you.”
Deene looked sheepish, relieved and not a little surprised. He passed over a tall, sweating glass, then poured one for himself.
Jonathan lifted his glass. “To the lady’s health.”
Deene followed suit. “To her health and my nerves.”
Jonathan remembered not to gulp his drink, though the ride out from London had been hot and dusty. “I assume you’ll want to establish some sort of schedule for Georgina’s visits in future?”
Deene set his glass aside—empty. “You assume correctly. When last you and I spoke of the matter, you agreed that Georgina should have regular visits with me and my marchioness. Your idea of regular is no doubt at variance with my own.”
Every five years could be quite regular. “At some variance, I’m sure. How far along is your wife?”
“She keeps saying ‘not very.’” Deene went to take another swig of his drink then scowled at his empty glass. “I realize these things happen in the ordinary course, but one doesn’t… I mean to say…if one can’t…it’s all very well in theory, but…”
“In reality,” Jonathan said gently, “the notion of childbirth scares a man to death. Raising children is very much in the same line. I suggest we get out a deck of cards, repair to the billiards room, or otherwise engage in the fiction that we’re getting along, lest your marchioness work her wiles on you any further.”
“Evie has no wiles. She’s quite forthright, and I’ll not put off the matter of an agreement regarding visits with my niece.”
What a shame Marie had not lived long enough to see her brother fall so hard and so wonderfully in love.
“Your determination has me quaking in my dusty boots, Deene.” Jonathan went to the sideboard, topped up his own drink, and poured a fresh one for his host. “In case you are dreading the prospect, I have no intention of getting along with you, though your marchioness is charming beyond endurance. In your presence, however, I’m happy to shout and carry on at great length regarding the days Georgina spends in your house—”
“Weeks, at least!”
“—But the womenfolk will have the matter quite in hand by the time they finish ambling down the barn aisles. They might need until teatime to contrive a way to make us think the terms they reach are entirely our idea.”
Deene blinked, accepted his drink, and muttered, “My thanks.” His lordship drank half of this glass as well, then paused, one side of his mouth quirking up. “Billiards or cards?”
“Billiards.”
Deene remained quiet until they reached the game room on the second floor. “Have you deputed Miss Ingraham to negotiate on your behalf?”
“With some women, it isn’t a matter of delegating authority, it’s a matter of managing on the crumbs of dignity they leave us.” Jonathan took down a cue stick from the rack on the wall, and put his choice back as too light.
“Evie would never threaten my dignity.”
Jonathan eyed the lemonade in the younger man’s glass. “Not intentionally, of course. The only consolation is that you manage on those crumbs of dignity willingly to ensure her happiness and safety.”
Deene chose his cue stick and sighted down it toward nothing in particular that Jonathan could determine. “Would you have me believe this is how it was between you and my sister?”
So casual, but behind the question was a younger brother’s worry, and a surviving sibling’s guilt. Without planning to, without wanting to, Jonathan addressed both.
“Deene, I loved your sister very much. I took years to understand what a gift the Almighty and your impecunious father put in my hands, but I am confident that by the time she was taken from us, she was at least certain of my regard. Now prepare to suffer a sound drubbing in the name of hospitality.”
Whether in the name of hospitality or as a function of a new husband and expectant father’s nerves, Jonathan’s host did in fact lose to him handily.
All three times.
And perhaps because Jonathan was feeling expansive in victory, but more likely because he could see that Deene’s anxiety over the marchioness had robbed him of even the ability to concentrate on a game of billiards, Jonathan hazarded a question.
“You consider yourself a gentleman, don’t you, Deene?”
Deene looked up from a table devoid of easy shots. “Are you contemplating calling me out, Dolan? It’s a bit late for that.”
“I will take that as a yes, and thus I will put a question to you: Is there any circumstance under which a gentleman may make advances toward a woman in his employ?”
The vague air of distraction left Deene’s countenance. He straightened without making a shot and regarded Jonathan with a half smile. “Advances of a romantic nature? No, there is not. Is this about that blue-eyed governess?”
“Miss Ingraham’s eyes are gray, and do you think I’d admit to you that I enjoyed an attraction to the lady?”
“You just did, but the answer is still no, not if a fellow wants to keep his honor in good shine. Alas for you.” Deene grinned evilly, bent over the table, sighted down his cue stick, and by virtue of skillful use of the bumpers and a judicious application of spin on the cue ball, managed to sink two balls and leave Jonathan not one decent shot.
***
The waltzing had about killed Amy’s self-discipline, left it a miserable, whining mess of shoulds and oughts cowering in the dingiest corner of her conscience. Mr. Dolan brought to waltzing the same intensity of focus he brought to his business endeavors and his parenting, which meant he’d not simply swayed around the room with her, he’d danced.
“Mr. Dolan’s lack of refined antecedents isn’t what gives him such a feel for the music.”
Charles cocked his head, his big brown eyes conveying both concern and curiosity.
“I’ve danced with country lads by the score, and they lack Mr. Dolan’s…grace.”
They also lacked his height, his muscle, his blue eyes, his aquiline nose, his particular lavender-and-fresh-air scent, his smile, his way of narrowing those eyes when he became determined on something, his way of moving a woman around on the dance floor like she was both safe and cherished in his embrace.
“I’m an idiot.” More than twenty-four hours after turning down the room with her employer, and Amy still wanted to close her eyes and recall the moments she’d spent in his arms.
Charles rose from the hearthrug and parked his hairy chin on Amy’s knee.
“I will see much less of Mr. Dolan now that we’re ensconced here with Lord and Lady Deene. I shall recover my equilibrium. You may depend upon it.”
A knock on her door had the dog looking askance at her.
“Come in.”
She would recover her equilibrium later, because at that moment, Jonathan Dolan appeared in Amy’s doorway, looking windblown, sunbrowned, and delectable in shirtsleeves and riding attire.
“Mr. Dolan.” Amy ne
arly startled off the settee at the foot of her bed. “If you’re looking for Georgina, Lady Deene tarried with her in the stables to see this year’s foals.”
“Kidnapped her, you mean. I expected you to be a more ferocious bodyguard, Miss Ingraham.”
He ambled into her room without an invitation and took a place beside her on the small settee.
“Hold your peace, my dear.” He leaned back and crossed his feet at the ankles. “A gentleman does not take a seat without a lady’s permission, a gentleman does not presume on a lady’s private environs, a gentleman does not—in my opinion—get to exercise a great deal of common sense. Do you mind if I take a seat? I was up late last night seeing to business and woke early to make the journey here on horseback.”
Amy cast a minatory glance at the open door. “If you are tired, of course you should sit.”
“Walk with me in the garden, Amy Ingraham. I have matters to discuss with you.” He heaved out a sigh, and it was all Amy could do not to touch him. Weariness was evident in the way he rolled his shoulders, the grooves bracketing his mouth, and the informality of his posture.
“I was about to change for dinner.”
“We have plenty of time. I’m not sure whether Deene is hovering more closely over his marchioness or his niece, but he was no damned—I beg your pardon—no challenge at all at billiards. I sent him out to the stables lest he embarrass himself further.”
Mr. Dolan rose and extended a hand down to her.
Were she at home—at Mr. Dolan’s home—Amy would have pointedly ignored that hand and even glared at her employer for his presumption. But the marchioness had been so friendly, and his lordship so welcoming, Amy had been given to understand that in this household, she would be treated like a guest. The idea that this visit was a holiday in truth, a small holiday from the strictest observance of the most inconvenient rules, was too attractive to ignore.
She took Mr. Dolan’s hand.
“Are you content with the arrangements here, Miss Ingraham?”
Not Miss Amy. Ah, well.
“I am. The maid detailed to the nursery is cheerful and the oldest of seven. She’ll manage Georgina quite easily.”
Jonathan and Amy Page 3