The Amorous Heiress

by Carrie Alexander

  Billy tapped the toe of his deck shoe in irritation. “The wind is going wasting. Do you want to sail with me or not, Gussy?”

  “I’ve reserved a court,” Andrews said, indicating his tennis whites…“We can have lunch at Felicity’s after—”

  “You can play tennis anytime,” Billy interrupted. “This is sailing weather.”

  “Umm…” Gussy said vaguely as she walked into the glassed-in solarium. A jungle of hanging plants and potted palms were sprinkled among clusters of white wicker furniture upholstered with floral-and-lattice-patterned cushions. The harsh sunlight was dizzying.

  Gussy squinted. Her very own mystery date had apparently given up and gone home. Disappointed, she jerked several of the brittle canvas shades down over the windows, reducing the glare to a mellow glow, and then she saw him. Or his legs, anyway.

  He was sitting in the covered wicker chaise, the depth of its hood concealing his upper half. His very attractive lower half—his legs were long—sported tight, faded jeans gone out at the knees and…brown leather work boots. Huh?

  “H-hello?” Gussy quavered. She sounded like a pusillanimous pipsqueak. Like a pusillanimouse. Gathering her courage, telling herself that this was the first day of her new life, she strode toward the chaise, holding her chin up and her hand out. “Hello. So nice to meet you.” Her voice was brisk but friendly. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr…?”

  The third of Gussy’s gentlemen callers rose to his feet. “Kelley,” he said. “Jed Kelley.”

  If Gussy had been wearing shoes less practical than beige leather oxfords, she’d have fallen off the heels. She did have to take a wobbling step backward, putting out her hands for balance.

  Jed Kelley was her secret fantasy man come to life.

  His face was handsome, but also sort of battered looking in a way that turned Gussy’s soft heart to mush. His jaw was hard and square; his nose had been broken at least two times. The dark brown hair she’d already noticed was shaved so short it was almost military, all the better to reveal the precise elegance of his hairline as it followed the contours of his temples and high forehead. A narrow scar curved from his left temple to his eyelid and disappeared up into his brow, as if a white thread had drifted into his plane of vision and he’d blinked it away. His lashes were longer than his hair. And his eyes were blue—the most shocking electric blue.

  Maybe that was why Gussy felt jolted to the core.

  “You’re not the woman I expected,” he said in a gravelly voice, with a flat inflection.

  Put on though it was, her confidence quailed. Was he disappointed in her already? If that was the case, she’d just set a new land-speed record.

  “I’m afraid I am.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’m Augustina Throckmorton Fairchild.”

  The name sparked recognition in his blue eyes. “I see. Well, then…” He squared his shoulders and saluted. “Jed Kelley, reporting for duty as requested.”

  Gussy licked her lips and swallowed. She couldn’t imagine what friend of Grandmother’s had thought it appropriate to present her with Jed Kelley as a prospective groom. Perhaps some doting old aunt who hadn’t seen her nephew since he was in short pants had sent him over to give Marian Throckmorton’s spinster granddaughter a break.

  But…“reporting for duty”? Gussy didn’t like the sound of that. She wasn’t desperate enough to be anyone’s duty.

  Her eyebrows arched and she looked at him the same way Grandmother eyed a serving maid who’d dropped the soup ladle on the floor. “May I ask who, uh…recommended you?”

  “You don’t know?” Jed’s eyes narrowed. “Vanessa Van Pelt, for one.”

  Vanessa Van Pelt? Now Gussy was thoroughly confused. Vanessa Van Pelt would never willingly surrender a man who looked like Jed Kelley; she’d clutch him in her hot greedy hands and keep him all to herself. Unless he was a close relative, perhaps?

  “And Mrs. Throckmorton, I guess you could say,” Jed continued.

  A tiny mew escaped Gussy’s mouth. “You…you…you know Grandmother?”

  “I interviewed with her last week.”

  “You’re kidding,” Gussy breathed with disbelief.

  “And now that I recall, she did say something about you taking over from here on out.”

  Gussy shuffled away from Jed until the back of her knees hit the edge of a wicker rocker. She collapsed into it, setting it swaying back and forth with a rapid squeaksqueak-squeak.

  Abruptly, as if someone had cut the strings of three marionettes, the gentlemen callers sat as one in whichever chair was closest at hand. Silence descended on the solarium, broken only by the slowing pace of the wicker rocker. Squeak…squeak…squeak. A sound rather suited to a mouse like herself, Gussy thought morosely.

  There was something amiss. No more than Vanessa Van Pelt would Grandmother hand over a man like Jed on a silver platter. Not in a million years, and darn it all to heck, because boy oh boy, did Gussy want him!

  She wanted him so much, at so little notice, that she positively shocked herself.

  He was watching her, his finely drawn brows lifted, waiting for her to speak. So were Andrews and Billy, Andrews relatively complacent, Billy impatient. Them she could handle.

  Gussy found her voice. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go out with either of you today. Thank you anyway, Andrews.” She rose, nodding at each of them in turn. “Billy.”

  “Tomorrow?” Andrews asked, his gaze twitching in the direction of Jed Kelley.

  Billy shouldered Andrews aside. “The yacht club is having a dance next—”

  “I don’t know…I can’t…okay, call me,” Gussy said, just to get rid of them. She shepherded them toward the door, wondering why they’d chosen the absolute worst moment to turn into devoted swains. Thwaite, predictably, was hovering on the other side of the French doors. “Please see these gentlemen to the front door, Thwaite,” Gussy said, having to practically shove Andrews out of the solarium.

  “See you soon, Gussy?” he called over his shoulder.

  “I’m sure,” she sighed, and shut the doors with a resolute click, hesitating there with her nose an inch away from the glass panes and her hands glued to the warm brass latch because she’d sensed that Jed’s neon eyes were burning holes between her shoulder blades.

  Her skin felt positively twitchy—all over. A mouse no longer, she vowed, and slowly turned to face Jed. “Mr. Kelley…”

  He stood. “I’ve come at a bad time.”

  A smile fluttered across Gussy’s lips. “On the contrary.” She inched closer, swaying slightly because everything seemed so off-kilter, but swaying in a way Jed might interpret as seductive if she was lucky. “You’ve timed your arrival perfectly.”

  “And your boyfriends?”

  She waved her hand. “Just two of a dozen.” Technically true, now that she was being auctioned off to Sheepshead Bay’s elite. “They’re of no particular consequence.” Not anymore.

  His eyes glinted. “So that’s how it is.”

  She smiled determinedly. “Yes, that’s how it is.”

  “You’re a very popular lady.”

  “Not afraid of a little competition, are you?” She inched closer, intrinsically aware of the masculine breadth and heat of Jed’s body. He was strong and fit in a way that Andrews and Billy were not—fit from actual strenuous work, if the boots were a necessity and not an affectation. Taking into account the quiescent strength in his tanned arms and long, muscled legs, Gussy didn’t think they were.

  “Competition?” he asked in puzzlement. “Wait a minute, there. I thought the position was mine.”

  “You didn’t think Grandmother was the final arbiter of the decision, did you?” Gussy shook her head, smiling coyly. “I’m not entirely without a say in this, you know.”

  “But she—”

  “And I say that a trial period is in order.” Emboldened with her momentum, Gussy didn’t pause to think sensibly. If Jed Kelley had already, miraculously, passed Grandmother’s muster, then there w
as nothing to slow them down. They could be married before the summer was out. Gussy would be free, with the added bonus of a husband it wouldn’t be all that difficult to learn to love.

  “Mrs. Throckmorton didn’t say anything about a trial period.”

  “It makes sense.” Gritting her teeth, Gussy dared herself to reach out for his hand.

  “I suppose…”

  And just like that, she was holding Jed’s hand. She, Miss Gussy Gutless Fairchild, was holding Jed Kelley’s hand.

  “…I might agree,” he finished awkwardly, looking down at their linked hands, his brown and callused, hers a smooth cream. “After all, you don’t really know me. You don’t know what kind of work I can do.”

  A funny way to put it, she thought absently, cradling his hand between both of her own. The shock of feeling his skin warm against hers pulsed through her bloodstream. His fingertips were rough, just as she’d imagined. There were traces of dirt in the creases of his knuckles, probably from digging around in the mulch. His hand looked twice as big as hers, but maybe her perceptions were altered by the unique experience of touching her forbidden fantasy man in the flesh. Indeed, her head seemed lighter than air, floating six inches above the rest of her body.

  Her voice murmured distantly. “We can get to know each other, and then, if that works out…” It would; instinctively, she knew it would. “We’ll finalize the…arrangement.” Wow. If she’d known that this was what an arranged marriage could be, she’d have been a supporter of Grandmother’s campaign right from the start!

  “Are you a palm reader?” Jed asked gruffly.

  “What?” The question had flustered her. “No.”

  “Then can I have my hand back?”

  She dropped it immediately. “I’m sorry.” She cringed inside. “I’ve been presumptuous.” A first, that.

  “No problem.” His voice was as raspy as a cheap piece of sandpaper and it was rubbing her all the right ways. “That is, if you mean I’m hired.”

  “Hired! What a way of putting it!”

  Jed folded his arms across his chest. “So we’re back to the trial period?”

  “Yes.” Gussy frowned. There was definitely something amiss. It sounded almost like Jed was applying for a job. Her gaze dropped to his work boots again. Okay, so he wasn’t as well off as the majority of her suitors, but really, did he think she was going to pay him to marry her?

  Gussy froze. Oh, no. What if he was a fortune hunter? Or, dare she think it, a gigolo?

  “We can get together later then,” Jed was saying, “after I’ve finished moving my stuff into the carriage house.”

  “You’re moving in?” Gussy squeaked. The mouse was back.

  “Yeah.” Jed headed for the side door that opened directly onto the north terrace. “I was looking for a place to rent, and since your carriage house was empty, Mrs. Throckmorton said I might as well take it for convenience’s sake. I’ll be around so much, anyway…” He shrugged.

  Gussy was trying to assimilate all that he’d said and having a tough time at it. Grandmother had approved of Jed Kelley so much she was letting him move into the carriage house?

  No way.

  “You have a problem with that, Miss Fairchild?” Jed asked, halfway out the door.

  “I…no, I suppose not” What else could even the new Gussy say? Apparently it had already been “arranged” without the intended’s knowledge or consent!

  “Fine.” He flipped his hand at her. “See you later.”

  Gussy moved to one of the unshaded windows to watch him cross the lawn in long, athletic strides. She was trembling all over like a malaria victim in a snowstorm, shot with hot charges and cold shivers until her brain was numb. This couldn’t be true, could it?

  Fantasy men didn’t happen to mice like her.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, having gained some control over her extremities, Gussy stumbled into the library. Grandmother could always be found at her desk at this hour of the morning, efficiently seeing to the paperwork of running the estate and dispatching luncheon invitations or courteous thank-you notes on Throckmorton Cottage letterhead.

  “Grandmother.”

  Marian held up one finger for silence as she blotted the ink of her fountain pen and then ripped the check she’d completed out of the household ledger. After depositing the check in an envelope and using a small damp sponge to seal the flap and apply a stamp, she finally peered at her granddaughter over the top of her half-moon reading glasses. “What is it, Augustina?”

  Gussy dropped onto a cracked, oxblood-leather ottoman and hugged her knees, wishing this wasn’t the first day of the rest of her life so she could fold up like an accordion and whimper with hankering distress.

  “Jed Kelley,” she croaked.

  “Ah, you’ve met with him, then?”

  So it was true. Not knowing if she should cheer or swoon, Gussy just nodded dumbly.

  “I meant to tell you about Mr. Kelley at breakfast,” Marian continued offhandedly, “but you were in too much of a rush and I’m afraid I didn’t get the chance.”

  Grandmother was like that. Now that Gussy was nominally an adult she couldn’t be actually punished for her transgressions, but she could be reminded of them with neat little bloodless zingers that always found their mark. This time, the new Gussy actually said in response, “Kind of a big deal to overlook.”

  Marian slipped off her glasses. “Oh, dear. I do hope I haven’t inconvenienced you, Augustina.” Her stare would normally have pierced Gussy’s self-confidence; today, sharper daggers than one of her grandmother’s looks were already needling Gussy with worry.

  Holding herself tightly, she rocked to and fro on the ottoman. “Please tell me about him, Grandmother. I don’t understand how—how you…”

  Marian turned to a stack of correspondence. “While I admit it was a snap decision, I’ve learned to trust my instincts about these things. Mr. Kelley will do nicely.”

  Do what nicely? Gussy wailed inside. Marry your unmarriageable granddaughter? Abscond with her Throckmorton trust fund?

  “But what about Andrews?” she asked miserably. Andrews had been Grandmother’s grandson-in-law front-runner for years; surely he hadn’t fallen out of the race since breakfast without Gussy being aware of it.

  Marian was reading a note from her daughter in France. Nathalie and Philip would be in residence at their villa in Provence until August, when perhaps they’d fly to Maine to escape the heat. “I don’t see what Andrews has to do with it. The Lowells already have an excellent man. Mr. Kelley was recommended by both Bibi Lightford and Vanessa Van Pelt.” She frowned and flipped through a folder from one of the compartments of her rolltop desk. “Not that I’d employ anyone on Vanessa’s ill-advised word, but his very fine references checked out as well and he seemed quite knowledgeable. I know I have his résumé here somewhere.”

  Gussy bolted upright. “What?”

  “Spare me the screeching, Augustina. You know how sensitive my ears are.”

  Gussy’s face was as pale as milk and for once she forgot her pardon-me-ma’ams. “Jed Kelley…”

  “Here it is.” Marian held up the paper-clipped résumé.

  “Jed Kelley…” Gussy whispered.

  Either blasé or blind to her granddaughter’s response, Marian handed Gussy the papers. “Yes,” she said with complete confidence, “Mr. Jed Kelley will do very well as our new gardener.”

  GRUNTING AND HEAVING and remembering to lift with his legs and not his back, Jed hefted the next-to-last moving box out of the bed of his brand-new fire-engine red pickup truck. Had to be books, he thought, staggering through the open door of the carriage house and up the steps. Nothing was as heavy as books.

  He set the box on the floor by the built-in bookshelves flanking the living room’s small fireplace. As long as he was bent over anyway, he paused to rub at the twinges of pain in his right knee. Lifting with your legs was all well and good for someone with two good knees, but for a gimpy-legged ex-hockey player lik
e Jed it was a surefire prescription for a late date with the liniment bottle.

  Aw, well, what the hell. At least the liniment would do him some good, unlike the sweet-smelling feminine kind of late date he’d once preferred.

  Jed straightened and walked over to the dormer window that faced Throckmorton Cottage. It was not a cottage in any way, shape or form. It was a classic mid-1850s manor house, big, square, solid, Greek Revival probably, constructed of tawny pink brick and trimmed in white, with black-green shutters. The formal gardens were so extensive Jed would have to hire additional help to keep up with the demands of both this job and the others he’d lined up for his fledgling landscape-and-garden-design business.

  He hoped that this flighty Gussy person, the amorous heiress, as he’d already begun to think of her, wouldn’t interfere overmuch in his work around the Throckmorton estate. At the previous week’s interview, Mrs. Throckmorton had explained about Miss Fairchild’s Vassar degree in botany and how she would be overseeing Jed’s work. Jed had gotten the feeling that Miss Fairchild’s authority was nominal at best—who’d been interviewing him, after all?—and that she was probably one of those throwback Ivy League dilettantes occupying herself until marriage by dabbling in gardening, needlepoint and the occasional spot of charity work.

  Meeting Gussy hadn’t exactly changed his mind. Meeting her beaux, those two lapdogs dressed in tennis togs and sailing gear, had only reinforced the assumption.

  Still, Jed had to admit that she was sort of pretty. Her kind usually were, although she wasn’t quite the pampered, glossy beauty he’d halfway expected. Actually, he’d figured on either a glamour girl or a limp-haired wallflower wearing rumpled chinos and gum boots, with several dogs dancing attendance at her heels. Gussy Fairchild had been neither…or maybe a little bit of both.