by Claudia Dain
“Can you see my brothers as well?” she asked slowly, the shock fading from her eyes. Now they were lit with that spark of wit and sweetness he had seen in them when he’d first set eyes upon her. He could hardly make himself tear his gaze away and look around the room for her brothers.
“Yes, I see them,” he said. The elder brother was standing with Katherine, which he supposed must be acceptable as Sophia and Ruan were with them. Otherwise, he would not have been at all sanguine about having an American captain anywhere near his fragile sister.
“Good,” she said, nodding, the barest trace of a smile teasing her mouth. “Now, what you must do, your grace, for me to win my wager is to . . . kiss me.”
His eyes snapped back from studying his sister to Jane’s face. She gave every appearance of being serious. He could hardly credit it.
“The wager was for me to kiss you?”
“No,” she said crisply, “not at all, but as it would take too long for me to explain all the details of the wager to you, and as I do not trust Louisa not to run from the room again, I have decided that the quickest way to accomplish the essence of the wager is for you to . . . kiss me. On the mouth.”
She stared at him, waiting, he supposed.
Edenham felt the nudge of warning along the length of his spine. There was no wager, on any continent, that two women would make that would involve a public kiss between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman, not if there was any intention of them staying unmarried. It was a trap. A marriage trap.
On the other hand, since he had determined to marry Jane Elliot upon first laying eyes upon her, it wasn’t much of a trap, not when he was skipping to it like a schoolboy on holiday.
And what woman would set such a trap? A woman who wanted to marry him as desperately as he wanted to marry her. Edenham felt joy run along his spine, making mock of warning. He had no need for Sophia. Jane was his. All for the price of a single kiss.
As to why Jane would endure such public humiliation by being publicly kissed, he had the answer to that as well.
She would because she was as in love with him as he was with her. She wanted to marry him, and once kissed, ruined before this vast crowd of witnesses, her troublesome brothers would be powerless to cause any trouble at all.
She was asking him to ruin her, and by doing so, to secure her future as his wife.
What a clever, resourceful girl. Small wonder he loved her.
The room seemed to still for him. The noise of conversation faded into the soft yellow glow of afternoon sunlight.
Jane, her pale hazel eyes shining up at him, her lovely mouth tilted in the gentlest of smiles, awaited his kiss. She glowed.
Her white muslin gown, done in a striking Grecian style, her arms exposed, made her look all the more like a statue come to life. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She was going to be his wife. All he had to do was kiss her and she would be his.
He arched his head forward, putting one finger beneath her chin, lifting her mouth to his. She didn’t resist in the slightest, though her eyes widened, in alarm he supposed.
It was a bold thing they were doing, highly scandalous.
Such a brave, daring girl, he couldn’t let her lose heart now.
In just moments it would all be settled.
“Jane,” he breathed, laying his hand along her jaw, lifting her head up, the white arch of her slender neck as long as a swan’s. “I knew the moment our eyes met that I loved you, would love you, for as long as I live.”
The final words of his declaration blended into his kiss, a gentle brush of his lips that should have been the most decorous way to ruin a woman that had ever been seen before. But something happened. At that first touch of his lips against hers, as the warmth and sweet softness of her mouth moved against his own, he fell into a well of desire of which there was no way out. He rushed down, light dimming, noise muffled, falling into her, losing every sensation, every thought except the word Jane, and the sensation of Jane in his arms.
In his arms . . . entirely without thought, his arms wrapped themselves around her waist, lifting her slender form clear off the floor. Her hands rested on his shoulders in delicate submission. But her mouth. Her mouth kissed him back.
She wanted him. He could feel it in her kiss.
What glorious children they would have.
A slight disturbance in the air tugged at the spell they had created between them. He fully intended to lift his mouth from hers, was halfway to doing so, when the slight disturbance boiled up into something entirely more distracting.
Jane was pulled from his arms, which he was certain would not have happened if he hadn’t been so distracted by kissing her, and his eyes opened just in time to see Jedidiah Elliot throw a solid blow to his midsection.
Not the way these things usually went, but as they were Americans, he supposed they were ignorant of that.
Edenham buckled over, took a few steps backward, and raised his hands, palms open. Not in surrender, mind you, merely in a gesture of peace and goodwill. They were going to be family, after all, and he did believe in harmony within families, even if they were American. He was quite forward-thinking that way. He’d chosen Jane, hadn’t he?
Jedidiah ignored his peaceful posture, came in close, and hit him again, or tried to. As Edenham’s arms were raised, he used them to block the punch. That seemed to enrage Jedidiah further, though it hardly seemed possible that anything could, and Edenham found himself kicked on the thigh, just above his knee; kicked! If the man had managed to connect with his knee he’d have been hobbled for life.
Edenham fell arse first on the floor before jumping back up to his feet. His thigh pounded like the devil’s hammer and he couldn’t take a full breath since the punch to the gut.
No matter. Jane was worth it, though it was to their mutual benefit that her brothers were so often on long sea voyages. He was beginning to think that they wouldn’t enjoy the close family harmony he’d hoped for.
“I’m going to marry her!” he snapped out, hoping to break through the haze of fury that clouded Jedidiah’s storm blue eyes.
“The hell you are,” Jedidiah grunted, throwing another punch.
Edenham, having a far better understanding of whom he was dealing with now, dodged it.
“What’s in the wind?” Joel yelled, running, running! , across the Hyde’s reception room, the crowd clearing for him as quickly as they could. With such an inducement, they were very quick indeed.
“This English ass kissed Jane,” Jedidiah gritted out, his hands still fisted, his neck thick and distended. He threw another punch to Edenham’s gut, which Edenham blunted with his crooked arm, but as he followed it with a direct hit to the face, Edenham didn’t do as well as he’d hoped.
The blow caught him on the side of his jaw and his teeth grated against each other just before his mouth filled with blood.
Edenham spit the blood onto the floor, which he was certain Hyde would forgive, given the circumstances.
“I intend to marry your sister!” Edenham shouted out, which wasn’t very discreet, but nothing had been since first seeing Jane. Love did that to a man. Normally, he didn’t find it so uncomfortable.
“Nobody cares what you intend,” Joel said, standing before Edenham with his fists raised.
They both came at him then, which wasn’t at all a fair fight, but when a man was fighting for his sister, he didn’t care about being fair. It was over very quickly, he supposed, though it had felt an age at the time. Jedidiah and Joel Elliot, once he was down on the ground, had stopped all aggression and stood over him, breathing hard through their mouths and looking at him with all the cold hatred one reserves for a rabid wolf.
“Stay away from Jane,” Jedidiah said in a hoarse voice.
Given that the entire population at Hyde House was holding its collective breath, Edenham was certain that everyone had heard the warning. Hearing it was on
e thing, but understanding it was quite another.
Telling them again that he wanted to marry her seemed unwise. They hadn’t responded well to that at all. Telling them that he had only done what Jane had asked him to do seemed equally unwise as it might put Jane in an unflattering light. Telling them that they should try and keep Jane away from him sounded like a petulant insult.
In the end, he decided that there was no requirement that he respond at all to a warning. He could adhere to it or ignore it at his discretion.
The only thing he was unsure of, besides the sanity of the Elliots, was what effect this beating would have on Jane. She was likely crying her eyes red, horrified by her brothers’ behavior, frightened that he would beg off and refuse to marry her.
Poor Jane.
She must have run from the room, unable to bear the sight of violence against him; he was nearly certain that he had not heard any sounds of protest from her.
The Elliots watched him gain his feet and then turned and walked across the room, shoulder to shoulder. All let them pass, silence still blanketing the room. A hand was laid upon his shoulder, gripping it firmly, and Edenham turned to see Cranleigh standing at his back, his icy blue eyes looking both sympathetic and apologetic. As well he should. Such a display, in his own house and at the hands of his own relatives.
“Where’s Jane?” Edenham asked, moving his shoulder out from under Cranleigh’s grasp. “Is she all right?”
An expression passed over Cranleigh’s face that Edenham couldn’t identify and, truthfully, had no interest in.
Cranleigh moved his head, a quick tilt of his chin, and Edenham followed the direction of the gesture to a spot just over his left shoulder.
Jane stood not ten feet from him. Her eyes were not red.
She did not look frightened in the slightest. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, a most calculating look in her eyes as she studied him.
A cold weight settled over him. She was not frightened.
She was not even concerned. She had done nothing to stop the fight. Indeed, she might even have enjoyed it to judge by the slight smile teasing the corners of her mouth. She looked, why she looked amused!
What sort of love was this?
“Even Ezekiel Biddle would have asked,” she said. “No man should be that certain of a woman’s answer.” And with that, she turned and walked away.
Edenham watched her go, and when the crowd swirled in upon itself, the swell of voices rising from a hum to a roar in mere seconds, he asked Cranleigh, “Who’s Ezekiel Biddle?”
Cranleigh shrugged and shook his head.
Eleven
Jane found Louisa and Amelia without any trouble at all.
She was having a bit of trouble walking steadily and keeping her breath from going ragged, but she managed. She was confident that no one could tell that the entire episode of the past five minutes had left her feeling distinctly jagged around the edges.
Naturally, she’d planned the entire thing. Not from the very start, of course, but from the moment that he, the mighty Duke of Edenham, had blurted out his ridiculous assumptions about her actions. And how absurd was it that the man declared himself in love with her and planned to marry her and she didn’t even know his full name? Was she supposed to have been so overjoyed that the amazing Duke of Edenham had found her interesting and desirable and worthy that learning his name could wait until she’d produced his fifth child for him? Utter absurdity. So typical of his type, really. Of course she’d wanted to see him brought low, what else? He’d assumed that her very astute observations about his character and his actions were false, merely the foundations of a wager.
Pompous ass.
She’d won her wager, hadn’t she?
It had been too completely perfect not to take advantage of. She’d win her paltry bet with Louisa and Edenham would get a proper drubbing.
He’d kissed her, for certainly even wily Louisa could not equivocate that a kiss was a kiss. There wasn’t anything shaded about a man’s interest if he kissed you, even in London.
But therein lay the jagged edge. He’d kissed her. He’d made some perfectly ridiculous, wildly romantic declaration that had softened the edges of her heart, and then he’d finished the deed by kissing her, turning her into soft pudding.
She hadn’t expected that at all. Thank goodness that Jed had pulled her off of him for she surely could not have done so herself. Most embarrassing. She did hope no one realized that she’d actually been enjoying his kiss, his hands around her, lifting her up like an empty jug.
Jane let out a harsh breath.
Jagged.
Jed and Joel had done precisely what she expected them to do; they’d made no secret over the years of how they would behave in such a situation, that’s certain. Edenham, taking hit after hit, shouting to the world that he meant to marry her . . . it had been rather sweet. Pointless, but sweet.
She wasn’t entirely certain if Edenham hadn’t fought back because he was incapable of it or because he’d been trying to make peace with her brothers. That seemed important to know. It would not do at all to become involved even casually with a man who could not handle himself with her brothers. No point to it, really. They’d kill him within a month, or so they’d always claimed. She believed it now.
Still, Edenham was entirely too full of himself, of his own vast self-deluded importance, to be anything more than highly aggravating. It would not do at all. A man should not go about kissing girls and then declaring them nearly wedded. Lazy bit of business, obviously. A man should work for a woman, desperately, ardently, and then she would decide if he’d succeed or not. Not him.
And while she was certain, though surprised, that his kiss had been quite wonderful, that did not at all mean that she was going to marry him. Not even close. He was duke.
He was British. He was . . . the enemy.
Speaking of enemies, Louisa stood staring at her, her very pretty mouth agape. Amelia stood at her side. Amelia seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
“I win,” Jane said, narrowing her eyes at Louisa. “I’m not at all sure what I have won, but it had better be remarkable. You will make it remarkable, won’t you, Louisa?”
Whatever timidity, whatever hesitation, whatever desire she’d felt to make a good impression upon her English relatives had been obliterated by Edenham’s kiss. She’d made a good impression upon a very handsome, very eligible duke; that was good enough for her.
“He wants to marry you,” Amelia said in a hushed voice, still staring at Jane, her crystalline blue eyes wide with shock. How insulting. How very typically insulting.
“The Duke of Edenham wants to marry you!”
“I heard,” Jane said flatly. “As he’s been married five or six times already, it hardly seems to be an accomplish-ment.”
“Three times,” Louisa said, “two children. Three wives.
And he wanted you to be the fourth.”
Louisa couldn’t seem to comprehend it; she really didn’t seem especially bright.
“I shouldn’t care to be anyone’s fourth anything,” Jane said. It seemed such a hard, sharp, confident thing to say.
She was quite pleased with herself. “I should like to know what I’ve won. You did have something in mind for this silly wager of ours?”
If Louisa had been prepared to say anything, highly doubtful, she was interrupted by the panting arrival of Penelope. Penelope, who always looked so perfectly composed, looked nearly wild-eyed.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!” she burst out. “This puts my rose conservatory completely out of the running!
Well done, Jane! Now that you’ve got him, what do you plan to do with him?”
“Nothing,” Jane said blandly.
“Nothing?” Penelope said, her black brows rising to her hairline. “But you have a duke, Jane. He must be used. One doesn’t toss the Duke of Edenham aside. He’s so . . . why, he’s just . . .�
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“He’s the catch of this Season or any other,” Amelia said softly, “as long as you aren’t afraid of his . . . you know. That.”
Jane snorted and checked the condition of her hair.
“Hardly.”
“Quite right, Jane,” Penelope said, looking at Amelia as if she were an imbecile. “Superstitious nonsense.”
“Tell that to his three previous wives,” Louisa said. She did so love to throw rocks at things, likely small children.
“English wives, I assume,” Jane said, staring down Louisa. “He might have better fortune with a robust American woman. One not so given to the faints.”
“I don’t think it was the faints that did them in,” Penelope said musingly, “though I agree with you, they couldn’t have been at all sturdy.”
“It’s probably a good thing that you don’t want to be his fourth, Jane,” Louisa said, a slightly calculating look shimmering in the depths of her bright blue eyes. “Now that your brothers have beaten him, and in front of everyone in Society, he can’t want anything to do with you. Oh, a pleasant afternoon’s flirtation is one thing, but now that your family has been shown to be so violent, everything will return to its proper course.”
“A flirtation?” Jane said. “He literally shouted that he intended to marry me.”
Louisa shrugged and said, “To avoid a beating, obviously. And since your brothers have refused his suit, well then, he’s free and clear, isn’t he? As are you, which does seem to be exactly what you want. How well it’s all turned out.”
It was, of course, the perfect excuse. She wasn’t certain what she intended for the Duke of Edenham, though she most definitely wanted to find out his true name; she was no plodding Englishman to be content with calling a person by his title. Such an inflated bit of empty tradition, to be sure. Now that she’d rejected him and her brothers had trounced him, he might be a bit skittish about approaching her again. It wasn’t that she wanted to marry the man, but she did enjoy kissing him. As far as adventures went, the Duke of Edenham was surprisingly fertile ground.