The earl was not in the salon when Jewel entered it. She paused uncertainly in the doorway, not sure what a lady should do under the circumstances. Such an eventuality had not been covered even by the very thorough Mrs. Thomas. Her first inclination was to hightail it back to her room and forget the whole thing, but that was a cowardly thing to do and she was no coward. After assuring herself that the earl was definitely not lurking behind a curtain, she wandered aimlessly around the room, admiring the lovely things that graced it.
Gold watered silk covered the walls and draped the tall windows while the carpet was white with an intricate pattern of gold birds and green vines. The furnishings were Egyptian in style, with the satinwood legs and arms of the chairs and settee carved into tiny sphinxes. Jewel was particularly fascinated by an enormous carved wood crocodile fitted out with a green velvet cushion on its back, obviously intended for use as a footstool. The thing was so lifelike she would have feared sitting on it, and she stared at it amazed.
“Admiring Hercules, are you?” The familiar drawling voice came from behind her. Taken by surprise and feeling instinctively guilty as though she had no business in this room or even in this house, Jewel whirled around, clapping her hands behind her back.
The earl stood in the doorway, looking impossibly elegant in black evening clothes, the white linen of his shirt and cravat gleaming in the soft glow of the dozens of candles that illuminated the room. The same candlelight brought his hair to shimmering silver-gilt life. Jewel stared at it, thinking that the halo effect it gave was positively uncanny. Beneath it, his smooth-shaven face with its flawless features was so handsome as to be almost unreal. And those eyes, those sky blue eyes that looked as if they should belong to Gabriel himself, were fixed on her with an expression that made her shiver, though the room was warm.
“ ’er, Hercules?” she repeated uneasily, not quite sure what to make of the way his eyes were moving over her.
He had assured her in the beginning that he had no designs on her person, but she had since been informed by Emily that both before and after milady’s death he had been very much in the petticoat line. Not that he did anything here, where his own daughter was in residence, but the gossip that came down from London was something else altogether! He was quite the rake, Emily had reported with hushed fascination, with ladies of every sort falling all over themselves, some hoping to become the next Countess of Moorland and some just hoping to enjoy the earl’s favor for a while.
Looking at him, Jewel could well believe the rumors. On the strength of his looks alone she would have believed that he had to beat the females away with a stick. But he was rich and well born to boot—he had everything. Then Jewel remembered his dead wife and the daughter he apparently never saw though they lived in the same house, and took that back. Even the Earl of Moorland did not have everything.
“Hercules is what I call that monstrosity of a crocodile,” the earl was saying, and Jewel returned her gaze to the object in question.
“If you think it is a monstrosity, then why have it?” she asked, speaking with great care so as not to lose the proper accent.
“I like it,” he said, smiling charmingly. That glinting smile threw Jewel’s thought processes off again. She stared up at him, quite forgetting what she had been going to say. Blimey, he was a smashin’ lookin’ man.
“I asked you if you would care for a drink before dinner.” His eyebrows were slightly raised as he repeated the question. Jewel hastily got a hold on herself.
“Just a small sherry please,” she answered as she had been taught, mentally scolding herself. If his looks were going to addle her this much, she was better off not looking at him at all. With a decided nod she averted her eyes. Her gaze landed on the painting of demons writhing in hellfire that adorned the wall over the fireplace. The horror of it made her eyes widen.
“Wot’s that?” In her surprise her accent slipped and she never even noticed. The earl, coming up beside her and handing her a small glass of sherry, looked at her revolted face instead of the painting.
“That is Dante’s Inferno,” he said with a slight smile. “A madman’s version of hell. Don’t you care for it?”
“It’s ’orrible,” she said with conviction, then flushed as she realized what she had said. “I mean, I think it is quite terrifying, don’t you?”
He laughed. “I liked your original version better. The truth by all means.”
She shifted her attention from the painting to his face, turning scarlet as she realized that she had forgotten her role so early in their encounter. She wanted to impress him. Why? The answer to that was such a jumble in her head that she couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
Those heavenly blue eyes narrowed as they ran over her from the tip of her elegantly (and painfully!) coiffed head to what he could see of her tiny kid slippers. Jewel knew that she had changed a great deal since coming to live at White Friars. Her skin was smooth, soft, and very white now. Her black hair shone with health and care. She had gained weight from her greedy consumption of all the sumptuous food, and while still slender, her shape had developed soft curves where a woman was supposed to have them. Her hands, which had never before seen any attention, were creamed and cared for by Emily each day, and were now as soft and white as her face. She was clean and she smelled nice, both from the rose scented soap with which she bathed nightly and from the rose petal sachets Emily tucked in with her undergarments. She had no need to feel uncomfortable in the face of the earl’s scrutiny—but she did.
“I’m glad to see that you left the board back in the schoolroom,” he said.
Expecting praise, or at least some comment on the remarkable improvement she knew had been wrought in her appearance, his comment nettled her. Her temper sparked, and almost before she could stop it a Cockney insult rose to the tip of her tongue. But she bit it back. Her head lifted, and she looked at him with only a faint spark at the backs of her golden eyes to betray her annoyance.
“It didn’t go with this dress, you see,” she said sweetly, as if
she were to the manor born. He laughed again, looking surprised.
“Very good,” he answered. “I almost begin to have hopes for you.”
What Jewel would have replied to that was lost as Johnson announced dinner.
They dined in state with five courses and as many wines. Jewel was seated at the earl’s right, and in the face of his constant scrutiny she had to concentrate fiercely not to lose track of what implements to use and what glasses to drink from. But she was a pattern-card of perfection if she had to say so herself. She carefully ran her soup spoon from the front to the rear of the bowl before delicately sipping the subtly spiced chicken broth from the side, not the tip. When the footman brought the main course—a capon in wine sauce—Jewel took the heavy silver fork in one hand and an even heavier knife in the other, managed to cut a dainty piece off the slippery fowl, and transfer it to her mouth without spilling so much as a drop. Pardonably proud of herself, she looked up to find that the earl was looking amused again.
“What are you laughing at?” she demanded with careful restraint when the earl had been served and the footman had moved discreetly out of earshot.
“Was I laughing?” the earl asked innocently. “I was not aware of it.”
“You were laughing at me,” Jewel charged, concentrating on holding onto her newly acquired accent. Her careful enunciation dampened the ire of the words, but her eyes as they sparked at him said what her tone did not. It was impossible, she found, to argue with the earl and attempt to cut her chicken at the same time. So she carefully replaced her eating implements on her plate and glared at him.
“You are mistaken,” he said serenely as he took another bite of the capon. He had no trouble eating and talking at the same time, she noticed with resentment. “If I was laughing, it was at
myself. I really didn’t think it could be done, you know.”
“What didn’t you think could be done?” Mystified, Jew
el stopped thinking about her dinner altogether and concentrated instead on his cryptic words and on maintaining her ladylike accent.
“I didn’t think the sow’s ear really could be turned into a silk purse.”
Sputtering with temper, she abandoned her accent in favor of defending herself.
“Who you callin’ a—”
He held up one long slim finger. Seething, Jewel nevertheless swallowed the rest of her diatribe.
“I was wrong,” he said quietly. Jewel stared at him, still suspicious that he was insulting her in some way.
“What does that mean?” She recovered her accent along with some of her temper.
“In the short time you have been in this house, you have become a very lovely lady, indeed.”
He lifted his glass to her, and smiled. She misliked the look in those blue eyes. Men were men, be they staggeringly handsome gentlemen or ordinary blokes. And she had seen that look in too many men’s eyes to mistake it.
“If you’re trying to turn me up sweet, you’re wasting your time,” she told him bluntly, hanging on to her accent with an effort.
He shook his head, laughing a little. “What a suspicious mind you have! No, I am not trying to turn you up sweet. I meant what I said.”
Still she looked at him suspiciously. His face was as bland as a baby’s, his eyes sunnily clear as they met hers.
“Thank you,” she said finally, still sounding a trifle wary.
“My lord,” he prompted. Then, before she could even repeat the words, he resumed eating his meal and signaled that she should do the same. Evidently he realized her difficulty in eating and conversing at the same time because he confined himself to remarks requiring for the most part a simple yes or no answer until dessert was cleared away and they left the table.
“Shall we repair to the music room?” he asked, coming up behind her as she hesitated in the doorway of the dining room, not sure about what to do next. Mrs. Thomas’ instructions had only covered the meal itself, not afterwards.
“All … right,” Jewel said, trying not to feel nervous as he took her hand in his and placed it in the crook of his arm. Surely it was proper for him to walk her from the dining room in this way; after all, he was an earl, he must know how things were done.
But Jewel felt the heat of that arm all the way through the black superfine of his coat; the hardness of his muscles against her palm started a shivery feeling inside her that made her warier of herself than of him. Him she knew how to deal with; her own reactions were something else entirely. She was burningly aware of him so close beside her, her skirt brushing his legs as they walked, the whole of his right side close enough to warm her body. She looked up at him uncertainly, finding it unnerving to have to tilt her head back so far. He was much taller than she had at first supposed; the top of her head was not quite as high as his chin.
“Would you care for some music?”
“M-music?” She was so unsettled by his nearness that she had not even realized that they had reached the music room, so called because of the grand piano that dominated the portion of the chamber in front of the long windows.
“Yes, music,” he repeated, looking over his shoulder and adding to Johnson, who followed with a silver tea service, “Just set that on the table. Miss Julia and I will serve ourselves.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Jewel thought that Johnson sounded even stiffer than usual as he complied. Almost as if the butler disapproved of something—but what? Jewel realized that the earl still held her arm pressed against his body, and hastily pulled away. Johnson, face impassive, bowed and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Jewel found herself alone with the earl, and she felt very uneasy suddenly. Perhaps it was the gleam in his eyes as they looked at her that gave her pause. She didn’t like the way his lids half-dropped to conceal it. If he got out of line, was it permissible to slap an earl’s face? If she could even bring herself to, she thought, and went hot all over as she imagined those chiseled lips on hers….
“Why don’t you pour the tea, and bring mine over to the piano? If you care for music, I will endeavor to provide it.”
“You can play that thing?” In her surprise Jewel forgot her nervousness. She looked from him to the graceful instrument and back again.
“Certainly I can. You will be able to, too, before we’re done with you. Part of your education.”
Before Jewel could comment, he sat upon the piano bench, settling his fingers lightly over the keys. With his attention completely diverted from her, she was able to relax and concentrate on pouring the tea. Seating herself on the gold brocade settee, she concentrated on filling the delicate china cups. Only after they were properly full did Jewel even hear the music. It was pleasant to listen to, she thought as she carefully carried both cups toward the piano. A real nice, tinklin’ tune.
“Ah, thank you, Julia.” He stopped playing and accepted his cup, swiveling sideways on the bench to look up at her. His eyes seemed to take an inordinately long time to reach her face. With any other man she would instantly have known what to make of that long perusal, but with him … maybe she was just imagining the way he was looking at her because she wanted him to admire her as much as she did him.
“Sit down here, have your tea, and tell me how you like learning to be a lady.”
“I don’t like it at all, my lord,” she said tartly, sitting beside him in the space he had made for her on the bench. It occurred to her that the words had come out perfectly without her even having to think about what to say or how to say it, almost like talk did when she was just Jewel. She was so surprised that she quite failed to be flustered at the earl’s nearness, or note the droop of his lids as he stared down at the front of her bodice where her newly full breasts swelled tautly against the black silk.
“I said that quite well, didn’t I?” She beamed up at him with innocent pleasure, totally failing to notice how slowly he lifted his eyes to meet hers.
“Very well indeed.” The velvety texture of his voice as his eyes focused on the movement of her lips went right over her head in her excitement. Jewel smiled up at him with genuine delight, and his eyes widened slightly at the sudden blaze of beauty that completed her transformation in his mind from scrawny, grubby little waif to desirable woman.
“Maybe I do like learning to be a lady,” she added cautiously, considering. “I like having lots of food to eat, and being warm and clean, and having nice clothes to wear—even if they are all black.” This was accompanied by a mock reproachful glance up at him. He was watching her with lazy attention, Jewel saw, and felt warmed by this evidence of interest in her words. “I don’t like all them, uh, the things Mrs. Thomas makes me do. I hate having that board strapped to my back—it hurts! And I hate doing curtsies over and over almost as much as I hate talking into candles all the time.” Jewel realized what she had said and flashed him that radiant smile again. “But I do like talking properly when I’m doing it. I didn’t leave off a single ‘h’ just now!”
“I applaud you,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving her face as he took a meditative sip of tea. “But you do seem to have trouble remembering to address me as ‘my lord.’ ”
Her eyes twinkled saucily. “That’s because I never think of you as my lord.”
“Indeed?” Those surprisingly dark eyebrows lifted again, but for some reason the expression didn’t anger her this time. “And what do you think of me as, if I dare to ask?”
She grinned, showing a definitely unladylike amount of small white teeth and a bewitching dimple in the newly plump contours of her right cheek.
“Now that would be telling.” Jewel laughed up at him, feeling suddenly gay. If she had been thinking, she might have been inclined to wonder if her unaccustomed comfort in the earl’s presence might not have something to do with the glasses of wine she had consumed with her dinner. Indeed, she had drunk rather more than she had eaten because drinking did not require nearly as much skill as eating di
d. In the length of time it took her to chase, capture, and properly subdue her capon alone, she had easily swallowed three whole glasses of wine.
“Something rude, no doubt.” The earl’s answering smile was somewhat speculative, but Jewel smiled saucily back at him. She really felt very happy sitting beside him while he smiled down at her with those devastating blue eyes.
“No doubt,” she echoed in a beguiling voice, her eyes blinking into his. She felt as if she could drown in their cerulean depths….
His hand came up to stroke lightly down the side of her soft cheek. Jewel felt that small touch like a thunderbolt right down to her toes. Her eyes stared into his, and she felt as if she were melting helplessly.
“My lord,” he murmured, his eyes moving over her face like a caress.
“I always forget that part.” Her voice was plaintive, and a faint frown puckered her forehead. He reached up to smooth out the wrinkle with the same finger that had feathered her cheek. Jewel’s lips parted under the impact of that soft caressing touch.
“Never mind.” His voice was as caressing as his fingers. “I propose that we dispense with the formalities altogether. You may call me Sebastian.”
Jewel stared at him, feeling warmly befuddled. So close, his skin had the texture of soft grainless leather. It was naturally fair, but had been tanned to a light golden brown by the amount of time he spent outdoors, and was shades darker than her creamy whiteness. Beneath the halo of gleaming silver-gilt hair, his eyes with their surprisingly dark brows and lashes were as blue as the summer sky. His nose was straight, his mouth elegantly carved, his cheeks and chin finely drawn but indisputably masculine. Jewel vaguely recalled dismissing him as no more than a man-milliner at their first encounter. Now that she had become acquainted with the broad-shouldered, hard-muscled strength of him, she realized that the beauty of his face was mere camouflage for a very masculine male. In fact, looking at him now, she was reminded irresistibly of the old tale of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Loving Julia Page 12