by Regina Scott
He did not seem to expect her to disagree with him. Instead, she found him watching her closely again.
“Tell me honestly, Eloise,” he said suddenly, “when we met that last time in the hayloft, did I force myself upon you?”
She could not suppress a shudder at the idea. He closed his eyes as if she had struck him.
“Not forced,” she assured him hurriedly. “It was not rape, if that’s what you ask.”
He opened his eyes. “Thank God for that. Given today’s discussion, I had begun to wonder. I truly thought you were out for a bit of fun, just as I was.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever considered our activities ‘fun.’ Exciting, romantic, a bit terrifying at moments, but never ‘fun.’”
“The exciting and romantic part I can certainly understand. Why do you add terrifying?”
She felt her eyes widen. “Did you never stop to consider what would happen if we were caught?”
He quirked a smile. “I never stopped to consider we might be caught.”
She shook her head again, this time at his unshakable belief in himself. “But when we were caught, did that not concern you, even a little? You walked away as if there were no need to look back.”
She could hear the kindness in his voice as he attempted to tease her away from a painful subject. “I didn’t walk, if I recall. I limped.”
She wished again that she had his gift for making light of things. “I suspect Cleo, Lady Hastings, was as embarrassed about the situation as you were,” she told him. “She came after you because she thought it was force, you see.”
He shook his head. “What a mess all around. I suppose we should be pleased that we three were the only ones the wiser.”
“Four,” she admitted. “Cleo was so certain I had been hurt that she unburdened herself to Miss Martingale.”
His smile faded. “The headmistress? How can that be? Had she known, she would have gone straight to the earl. I have little doubt my older brother Adam would have insisted that I do right by you and offer marriage. At the very least, Miss Martingale would have alerted your father. Certainly he would have been out for my blood.”
She had long ago thought out all those possibilities. “Oh, never fear. Neither of our families knew of our contretemps then.”
He breathed a sigh of what had to be relief. “I had no idea the old girl was willing to listen to you that way.”
Eloise sighed as well, but she knew it did not come from relief. “She wasn’t. Miss Martingale owes her allegiance to one thing: the name of Darby. When I threatened that, she made sure I was silent.”
“What do you mean?” he asked with a frown.
She almost told him that it was none of his affair, but she knew that for a lie. It was more than time that Jareth heard the whole. She took a deep breath and plunged in. “After Cleo chased you off ...”
“After I wisely withdrew,” he amended.
“We argue over semantics, but very well. After you wisely withdrew, I was in no condition to reason with Cleo.”
“Why was that?” he interrupted. “Did I hurt you after all?”
She knew he meant physically. “No, but it was a little unnerving being left in dishabille in the stables. Then after I returned to the school, I spent a great deal of time pondering your hasty exit.” If he could use words to cushion his conscience, so could she. She did not need to tell him the hours she had cried, the number of times she had slipped away the following day to check the tree where they had met each other so many times.
“Cleo became more concerned that I had been ill used,” she continued resolutely, “so she told Miss Martingale everything she had seen. I was summoned to the headmistress’ office. I did not fear she would insist upon our marriage. I had already learned who Miss Martingale favored.”
“Lady Hastings was a pet, I take it.”
Eloise shook her head. “Oh, no. I was Miss Martingale’s pet, her best pupil. I am certain that’s why she took my fall from grace so hard. You see, she took your side, Jareth. She said I was a brazen little tart for leading you on and I deserved any unhappiness I had brought upon myself.”
“Eloise,” he started, paling.
She rushed on, wanting only to get the confession over with. “She said that if I ever mentioned the incident to a soul, including my own father, she would denounce me to the world. She confined me to the sick ward for the remainder of the term and burned the letters I tried to send my father. When I was late for my monthly cycle, she had the doctor purge my body in case I was carrying something of embarrassment to the great Darby family.”
“You were with child?” His face was as white as his silk cravat, but she could feel no pain except her own. Why was this so hard to relive? Had she not done so dozens of times over the years? Of course, she had never had an audience before, especially an audience who had helped precipitate the events.
“I was not with child, thank God,” she told him. “If I had been, I shudder to think what would have happened—to me or to the babe. As it was, when I was allowed to return to classes, I looked ill, which made Miss Martingale’s lie seem the truth. Only Cleo knew otherwise, and she was too confused by Miss Martingale’s story to even speak to me.”
“My God,” he murmured. “Small wonder you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Jareth.” She felt tears coming and blinked them back. “I don’t know what I feel anymore. I thought I’d finally put it all behind me, and then you appear and expect me to be civil and simply wave my hand as if none of it ever happened, and I can’t. God help me, but I can’t.”
The tears came harder. Despite all her efforts, she could not hold them back. He crossed the coach to take her in his arms. When she resisted, he shook his head.
“You need this. Pretend I’m someone else.”
She pressed her hands against the wall of his chest, holding him away, the gold buttons of his waistcoat biting through her gloves. “Don’t you see, that’s part of the problem? It would be all too easy for me to pretend you are someone else. You’ve been nothing like the picture I’ve painted all these years. I don’t know who you are anymore.”
He did not attempt to pull her any closer, but even through her tears she could see the sadness on his face. “I am not so hard to know, Eloise. I’m just a man, a man with faults and foibles, imperfect, prideful, but attempting to better himself. I have no wish to cause you pain. Can you not accept that?”
“Then tell me why.” The words were out before she thought better of them. But she knew as soon as she said them that the truth of the matter was what she needed to hear. If she could just understand what had gone wrong, what she had done wrong, perhaps she could hope to find love again.
“Why what, my dear?” he coaxed.
She could not let her courage fail now. “Why did you simply walk away?” she begged. “I know you were wounded, but when you healed, why did you never return for me? I checked our tree. You left no note.”
His gaze skittered away from her, as if something beyond the window drew him. “Leaving a note seemed a cold way to speak to you after what we had shared.”
She felt her brow rise. “And simply vanishing was better? I had no word from you at all.”
“I had my valet ask questions at the school. I thought you were a teacher on staff, not a student. When he relayed that no gossip was circulating among the staff, I assumed you were safe. I feared to contact you again lest your position be compromised.”
She could hear the defensiveness in his voice. Her own voice sounded tired to her. “Then, after all, you never loved me.”
“Not then.” He succeeded in getting his arms around her, as if he too needed to feel her near. “I cared, Eloise, but not, I see now, enough to be the man you expected. I was too green, too spoiled. I listen to you tell me how my actions affected you, and I cringe.”
She gazed at him in wonder. “Really?”
He smiled as he used his thumb to wipe away her tears.
“Really, my sweet.” His smile faded, and lines appeared on the sides of his mouth and eyes as if he had suddenly aged. “I was stupid, Eloise. And in my stupidity, I hurt you badly. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I don’t know.” She held herself stiff in his arms, resisting the almost overwhelming desire to lean against his strength. She feared that that strength was largely illusionary; it would not be there if she really needed it. “I know it is wrong to hold these feelings against you, Jareth. I begin to believe you are changed. Is it too much to ask that you prove it?”
“It is your right,” he replied simply. His hand caressed her cheek, his touch gentle. It would be all too easy to read a promise in the sweetness. She fought against the urge.
“I meant what I said at Comfort House,” he continued. “You should be with a man who respects and cherishes you, Eloise. I am sorry I was unable to be that man when last we met. Have I lost all right to be that man now?”
She blinked back tears. His face was once again solemn, his eyes deep with emotions she could not name.
“Do you truly wish to be that man?” she challenged. “This time I will settle for nothing less than a commitment of marriage.”
He did not flinch. “Agreed. And yes, I begin to think I do so wish. No woman has ever touched my heart as you do. That hasn’t changed. Do you feel anything for me? Could you come to care again?”
She felt herself start to tremble. The truth was she was already coming to care all too much. Unfortunately, her ability to trust him did not seem to be growing apace with her other feelings. “I ...I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Perhaps this will help you decide.”
He leaned forward to caress her mouth with a kiss. Unlike the hot, urgent kisses she remembered, this touch was a promise of tenderness, of utter devotion. She felt herself sinking into it, drinking him in. He deepened the kiss, gathering her even closer, until her body was cradled by his. Her hands slid up around his neck, stroking hair that was indeed still like satin. She relished the strength of the arms that held her. She wanted to believe, needed to believe, that that strength would be hers forever. That this time, the end of their passion would be a joining, not a dissolution.
He broke off and pulled away from her so suddenly that she gasped aloud. His eyes were deep pools of blue, his face flushed. He let his hand caress her face a moment.
“Jareth?” she asked with a frown.
To her surprise, he reached up and rapped sharply on the roof. “Stop the coach!”
She grabbed his lapel. “What is it?”
“Merely practicing what I preach,” he assured her. While the carriage slowed, he pressed a quick kiss on her lips. This one was more insistent, as impulsive as the ones she had once shared with him. He broke off as the footman opened the door.
“Something wrong, sir?” the young man asked with a frown.
“I shall get out here,” Jareth explained.
Disappointment stabbed her heart. He was running away from her again.
“Jareth,” she began in warning.
Already at the door, he paused to glance back at her. “You are magnificent,” he pronounced, stopping whatever else she had been about to say. His smile changed from appreciation to teasing once more.
“Remember,” he advised, “dark, enclosed spaces tend to send my mind in inappropriate directions. And as I am a reformed rake, I shall leave you before I am tempted further. Let me know when you wish to begin the next test, my dear Eloise.”
He was honoring her wishes, above his own desires. Her heart swelled, but he was gone before she could tell him he may just have passed the only test that mattered.
Chapter Fifteen
Jareth returned to his room that night with a great deal on his mind. He finally understood what Eloise held against him. He could not change the past, but he could change the present. He would not wait until she told him what the next, and hopefully final, test would be. He had a renewed opportunity to persuade her. The question had become what exactly he wanted to persuade her to do.
Certainly he still needed her forgiveness. Only that day, Justinian had received a note from the local pastor for the church nearest the estate at Cheddar Cliffs. The caretaker had been relieved of his duties because of poor health. A new steward was needed immediately. If Jareth didn’t follow through on his promise, he could very well lose the position entirely.
Yet his interest in Eloise had progressed beyond the desire for the estate. He meant every word he had said in the coach that day. Marriage, particularly marriage to Eloise, did not look so undesirable. Unfortunately, particularly given their last conversation, he knew how hard he would have to work to prove to her that he was worthy of her forgiveness.
He started by sending her flowers. Of course, he had to negotiate with a fellow who owned a greenhouse out in Kensington, but after tutoring the man’s two sons in fisticuffs, he was able to procure Eloise five dozen roses, one dozen for each year since they had parted. The bruises he endured were worth it, for the flowers were prominently displayed when next he called. Eloise’s reception of him was also beyond the polite, which gave him hope that he might be succeeding.
Indeed, it appeared that her attitude toward him had changed as well. Not only did she readily accept his invitation to dance when they attended the same balls in the days that followed, but she let him call upon her, take her driving, join her on visits to friends.
But as he went about living the life of a proper English gentleman with her, he began to see additional changes, in himself. His old pastimes had lost their luster. Gaming amidst the stale stench of cigars and old Madera was not nearly as heady as inhaling the scent of Eloise’s hair as she bent close to him at the theatre. The excitement of holding the reins of his brother’s curricle for a race could not compare to the thrill of holding Eloise in his arms, however fleetingly, on the dance floor. Telling her about his future hopes was infinitely more satisfying than contemplating those dreams alone.
She had seemed surprised by his desire to become the master of Cheddar Cliffs. “I have not known you to rusticate,” she told him after one of their discussions of the place.
“I cannot see it as rustication,” he assured her, “but living well. Hunting, fishing, living off the fruits your lands produce, your loved ones gathered round you.”
The picture was easy to paint. And it did not surprise him that the mother in the center of that picture bore a striking resemblance to the woman seated beside him. He was clearly on the road to reformation.
Other people noticed the change in him. Mothers of eligible young ladies, though still watchful, were more likely to allow their daughters to dance with him. Portly older gentlemen who once had grunted gruffly or turned their backs on him now were willing to engage him in conversation. If he happened to air an opinion before the members of Parliament with whom his brother associated, they listened.
Only Portia Sinclair went out of her way to attract him. She and her stepmother could be found at nearly every event he attended. Still, even Portia was more likely to smile at him from across the room rather than approach him directly.
That changed the night of his brother’s literary reading.
Years before the scandal, Justinian had confided in him his interest in being a novelist. Although Jareth had encouraged him then, it had taken Eleanor to find a way for his brother to feel comfortable publishing his work. His three novels so far had been issued anonymously, but to some acclaim.
Justinian delighted in using his position to bring new writers into fashion. But, if tonight’s event was any indication, his brother had his work cut out for him. Jareth had to keep pinching himself to remain awake as the author droned on about his home in the heathery hills of Hampstead.
It did not help that Eloise had declined the invitation he had insisted Eleanor send. Since their conversation on the way home from Comfort House, they had had little time alone. He knew any number of locations in the Darby townhouse in which to secl
ude themselves without anyone being the wiser. The desire was contrary to his reformed image, but he didn’t much care. Being with Eloise made him feel good. He had been a perfect gentleman of late, and he was hoping he might convince her to let him be just the tiniest bit bad.
But she could not attend, claiming a theatre engagement with her father. To make matters worse, the Hastings did attend. He had asked Eleanor to invite them as well, thinking that their presence would please Eloise. As it was, he had to endure Lady Hastings’s censorious frown for much of the evening.
The only person who seemed pleased to see him was Portia Sinclair. She obviously saw the fact that he was alone as an open invitation. She and her stepmother took two chairs beside him, and the girl spent much of the reading finding excuses to bump her body against his. At any moment, he was never certain whether he’d find some bit of her gauzy white gown draped over the blue velvet of his coat and knee breeches.
At first it had been mildly flattering. Within a half hour, it was tedious. By intermission, it was embarrassing. Several of the other attendees had obviously noticed, as he saw the number of frowning glances in his direction increasing. It didn’t help that the room boasted large, gilt-framed mirrors at one end that seemed to magnify everything Portia did. Even Portia’s stepmother began to fidget as if nervous.
The matter equally annoyed his sister-in-law. She sought him out as soon as her guests had been directed toward the refreshment buffet next door in the forward salon.
“I have had to swear to your reformation to no less than five august personages,” she murmured, taking his arm with one hand and lifting her gray satin skirts with the other for a promenade about the nearly empty room. “Do you intend to make me a liar in my own house, sir?”
“Not in the slightest,” Jareth promised her, being careful to avoid eye contact with Portia, who was hovering near the door. “But the chit persists in clinging. Short of a firing squad, I cannot find a way to rid myself of her.”