Like a clear bit of sky breaking through and sweeping away the clouds on the horizon, Wellesley lowered his head with a frown but looked up at her with a beaming smile.
“I can see your mind is set on going, but allow me to hope you’ll come back. Are you going to leave a note for him? Or for Lady Stamford?”
Jess shook her head. She’d tried, but her own hand betrayed her, shaking furiously every time she put pen to paper until she’d scratched out and splattered, finally crushing two sheets of precious paper and tossing them in the bin. She’d always trusted words, loved them, memorized them, but they’d failed her today. None seemed sufficient to describe her reasons and rationales. Those were all about emotion, feeling, and all the feeling words seemed pale, too feeble to explain her agonizing choice.
“Rob?” It seemed so long ago, that first night they’d met at Hartwell, when he’d asked her to call him by the diminutive. “Would you tell him that I love him?”
Tears slid down her cheeks as her voice broke, and a slashing pain ripped her, not just an ache in her heart but an agony so complete it seemed to wind its way into her arms, her legs, into every fiber of her form.
As she lifted her bag and turned to leave the room, Wellesley moved as if to stop her.
“I must go now.” Now or she’d falter, now or she’d forget all her reasons and rush downstairs to find Lucius, and let duty and dowries be damned.
“What if the carriage hasn’t returned from delivering Miss Adderly to the station?”
Jess moved around him. “Then I’ll walk.”
“It’s nearly six miles.”
Jess took one step over the threshold. “That’s nothing to me. I’m a Londoner, Mr. Wellesley. I’ll walk.”
And she did, mechanically forcing her feet into motion. Behind her, she heard Wellesley mutter.
“That’s just the sort of thing a heroine would say.”
Chapter Thirty
“ARE YOU GOING to tell me the rest?”
Jess sat with Alice McGregor at the back of Bourne Street Hall. Alice was due to give Jess’s speech at the top of the hour, and they’d gone over notes and main points so many times the words had begun to blur.
It was her fourth day back in London and much had started to blur. Depleted of tears and exhausted, Jess had lost the ability to concentrate or take pleasure in anything, not in food, not even in books.
She’d been living off the charity of Kitty Adderly and had yet to find employment. Lady Clayborne, Kitty’s mother, tolerated her temporary presence in their household but had refused the suggestion she stay on as young Violet’s governess. Not well-bred enough to teach a marquess’s daughter, apparently.
“I’m not sure there’s enough time for the whole story.” Jess’s voice sounded hollow to her ears, and that was fitting. It matched the hollowness in her heart.
“Indulge me. Distract me. I don’t admit this often, but I have a wee tickle in my belly before each speech.” Alice turned in her chair, nudging Jess with her arm. “Besides, we still need to fill more of these chairs before I begin.”
The group of women was sizable and growing, and Alice expressed hope more would filter in as the morning progressed. As it wasn’t a regular Women’s Union meeting, they’d secured a more spacious venue and invited guest speakers to draw a larger attendance. Kitty had accompanied Jess to the event but disappeared among the crowd the minute they’d walked through the door.
“As I said, the role of lady’s companion didn’t suit me.”
“Yes, you did say that, several times. But why? I know the decision to work for Lady Stamford was a difficult one, but you said she seemed kind and extremely generous.”
Alice turned in her seat to look at Jess directly. “Were the duties very challenging, then?”
Alice’s teasing undertone was impossible to miss, but Jess couldn’t blame her. Thinking back to her time at Marleston, Jess recalled her first days filled with dress fittings and selecting sumptuous fabrics for gowns, and later days writing letters, walking the dogs, and teaching Tilly to read. None of it had been onerous or difficult. She’d slept in a luxurious room and had it all to herself. Aside from the few hours a day Lady Stamford required her assistance, she’d been given time to read and write, more hours of leisure than she’d ever known in her life. And then they’d gone to Hartwell.
“No, it wasn’t the duties. Though you can’t imagine the rules and things you must remember. Points of etiquette most people never dream of worrying about.”
“Oh, do tell?” The mockery was thick now, but Alice’s dimpled grin lessened the sting.
There were so many rules of propriety. How could she pick just one to illustrate their collective ridiculousness?
“How about this? On the table at formal dinners, they have multiple glasses at each place setting. There are multiple spoons at each setting too, a separate spoon for soup, another for fruit, and even a tiny one just for salt. Multiple forks and knives too. There’s even a fork that’s just for fish!”
Alice stared at Jess as if waiting for more, distinctly unawed.
“What if you didn’t have fish?”
“Then they wouldn’t put that fork on the table.”
“But then you wouldn’t have to remember it.”
Jess huffed at Alice’s refusal to agree with the silliness of multiple forks for a single meal. “But you still needed to know what to do with it.”
“I see. That does sound terribly taxing.” Alice said the words in her best aristocratic accent and it was the worst Jess ever heard.
“Oh, all right. The work itself wasn’t difficult. I suppose I could have gotten used to it eventually, but I don’t fit in that world. Lady Stamford is a countess, her brother is an earl, and her nephew’s a viscount. And look at me.” Jess lifted her skirt, a simple black bombazine handed down from the Adderlys’ lady’s maid. There was a slight tear in the skirt Jess had only just noticed and had yet to repair.
“I see that you’re showing me your skirt that needs mending, but I suspect you’re attempting to make a different point.”
“I’m making the point that I don’t belong in that kind of society.”
“Because you need to mend your skirt?”
“Because I wasn’t born with blue blood.”
“But there’ve been other people who entered into the aristocracy and weren’t born to it. The man that you . . . you know . . . at the gallery. You said he was planning to marry an American.”
“Whose grandmother was a viscountess. She knew the rules.”
“But you just told me the rules can be learned. I now know fish forks are an essential part of a formal dinner.”
Oh, she was infuriatingly literal. Jess knew it was a strategy she often employed to draw others around to her point of view.
“Learning it and being it are two different things.” Jess uttered the words emphatically, but they sounded silly echoing in her mind.
“Well, of course you can’t go back and be born under a different sun, but you can marry into it. You could be a viscountess.”
She really needed to introduce Alice to Mr. Wellesley. They seemed possessed of the same vein of unshakable confidence in her ability to step into a role she was woefully ill-prepared for. As if being a suffragette and a viscountess were compatible.
“When would I come to meetings in London or write speeches?”
Alice looked at Jess as if she and her question were well and truly daft.
“When do you do it now? I suspect you’d find the time or you make it. Don’t most lords and ladies have homes in London and spend part of the year in the city?”
Jess hadn’t given it much consideration. Lucius never mentioned a home in London, and yet it wasn’t as if they’d taken the time to converse about the list of Dunthorpe family holdings.
“Lady Stamford has a London home. That’s where you went before departing with her to Wiltshire. Does her nephew have a place here too?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?�
��
Jess had never truly argued with Alice. They debated, and she enjoyed the back-and-forth tussles of intellectual discussion. But this was different. She felt pursued, routed, as if Alice was strategically knocking down each of her defenses.
“Because I suspect the point you’re making with your skirt and excuses is that you can’t marry him.”
Alice turned away and sat quietly for a moment, as if she knew her mention of marriage would set Jess on edge and send her pulse galloping.
Then she turned back. “Did he ask you, Jess?”
She nodded, but that didn’t seem sufficient. Alice loved words as much as she did, and she’d always told her the truth.
“Yes. Not formally, but he said the words.”
“If he said the words, then he asked you.”
Alice was merciless, and Jess felt exposed, as if it wasn’t just her skirt that was torn, but the flimsy bulwark of excuses she’d erected around her heart.
“Yes, he asked me.”
Alice’s tone was less strident, but no less persistent. “And did you answer?”
There had never been a simple yes but she’d told him, as he’d assured her that he was all she needed. She’d laid her heart open and let him in, shared her body with him, and wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her days by his side.
“I gave him an answer. He knew I wished to marry him.”
“And you left? He asked you to marry him and you left?” Alice reared back and stared at Jess. “To come here to Bourne Hall and listen to a speech you wrote? You already know everything I’m going to say!”
Jess stood, too full of emotion to contain it.
“It’s not that simple. There were very practical reasons for him to marry someone else. He needed money. He needed a rich wife, one who understands the role of viscountess. He could find that in any number of women, and none of it in me.”
Alice listened to her shout, ignoring the women who turned to listen nearby.
Jess slumped back down in her seat, drained and depressed by her own excuses.
After a moment, Alice nudged her arm gently. “And yet he asked you to marry him.”
He had. He’d said he wished to marry her and asked her to give him time to make all the rest right. And she’d up and left. She hadn’t given him the trust he deserved, and she hadn’t trusted herself. That confounded her most of all. She’d relied on herself from the age of fourteen, even run a shop, however ineffectually, on her own.
Why hadn’t she trusted herself? Trusted him?
“Yes, he did.”
Alice crossed her arms across her chest. “Surely there are ways for a rich man to find more money.”
Jess was almost afraid to tell Alice the rest. She could already see what her friend would do with it, how Alice had very neatly pulled all her fortifications down.
“He did have a plan.”
Victory lit Alice’s eyes and she turned on Jess with a satisfied grin. “Then there’s no real impediment, except your torn skirt and doubts about yourself.”
Alice was good. So good that Jess allowed hope to tremble into life, to spread its leaves and bloom in her mind. She’d been a fool. A good, strong, honorable man loved her and wanted her, no matter the challenges. He wasn’t her father, with vices and false promises. He was like her. He’d done his duty all his life and she was his heart’s desire, as he was hers.
The only weakness had been on her part, giving in to doubts and fears, rather than relying on her strength and good sense as her mother had taught her to do.
Jess turned to Alice. “When I a little girl, if I would cry over something silly or have a tantrum, my mother would take me by the arms, look me in the eyes, and tell me that I was made of sterner stuff.”
Grief, a familiar pointed ache, surged up, but Jess swallowed it down.
“Sometimes, when things were difficult and I could see that they were both worried about money, I would hear her tell my father to be strong. And he would be. She had magic in her words, I think.”
Alice reached out to pat her hand, the same gesture of reassurance she’d offered when Jess lost her shop.
“Once she went, Father didn’t try to be strong. Maybe he tried. I don’t know, but he wasn’t strong anymore. I tried to tell him once, in the way that she did, with that fierce and loving look in her eyes, but it just made him cry. I reminded him of her, I think. It didn’t make him strong.”
Alice edged forward in her seat and turned so that she could look Jess squarely in the eyes.
“Do you need me to tell you?”
Jess nodded. “Maybe I do.”
Reaching out, Alice took her by the upper arms and spoke, her tone both gentle and firm.
“Jessamin Elizabeth Wright, you are made of sterner stuff.”
Looking down, Alice continued, “I suggest you mend your skirt, if it bothers you so much. Though you can hardly see it.” Then she looked up to meet Jess’s gaze again. “And then get yourself on the first train back to Berkshire and the man who wants to marry you. It’s clear you can’t stop thinking about him. And I bet he misses you too. Don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Those were questions she’d tried to hold at bay. Did Lucius miss her? Did he hate her for abandoning him? If he did, would he ever forgive her?
“You did your best for your father and his shop. You proved your mother right. You are made of stern stuff. Don’t forget it again. If you do, send me a telegram and I’ll come and remind you.”
Jess couldn’t keep a few tears from escaping, but she swiped them away. It seemed incongruent to blubber while Alice insisted on her strength.
“Thank you, Alice.”
Her friend nodded and grinned. “Wish me luck with the speech.”
“Of course I do. Good luck.”
“I’d wish you luck too, Jess, but I don’t think you need it. You have all the makings of a happy life. You just have to grab it.”
“Thank you, Lady Katherine Adderly, for your generous donation of fifty pounds!”
At the sound of the announcement, Alice and Jess exchanged a wide-eyed stare, as if recalling how this had all begun with a “generous donation” in Kitty’s drawing room.
“Kitty’s mother gave her a check to donate,” Jess explained. “The marchioness says she loves being charitable.”
“And we welcome that sort of charity any day,” Alice said through a smile, still clapping with the crowd to acknowledge the noble lady’s donation.
“Well, well, look at us. It’s our own little reunion. Hello again, Miss McGregor.” Kitty joined their group. “What’s the goal today? How much have we to raise for the Union?” Kitty asked.
Always blunt, Alice said, “We’ll take as much as we can get, though we did set our goal at two hundred pounds. I thought it quite ambitious, but your donation will help immensely. Thank you, my lady.”
Kitty’s mouth flattened, her pleasant expression fading, and she stared with wide eyes at something behind Jess. Before Jess could turn, a deep, familiar voice rumbled at her back.
“I think you’ll make your goal, ladies. I’ve just put a check for one hundred pounds in the donation box.”
Jess closed her eyes, breathed deep through her nose, and prayed for the bravery her mother and now Alice claimed she possessed. Then he touched her, resting his hand on her upper arm, and electricity zinged through her—reigniting her heart, sending her pulse galloping and her head spinning.
“Jessamin?”
He’d leaned in, speaking behind her ear, tickling the hair at her nape with his hot breath.
She whirled on him. He was breath-stealingly beautiful, and yet far too pale. The dark shadows beneath his eyes made her ache, and the days they’d spent apart, all the frustration and pain, welled up to choke her.
“One hundred pounds.”
Those who saw her kiss him in Mayfair thought her the kind of woman to be bought for a sum, and on that night she was. Kitty Adderly had bargained for her actions with on
e hundred pounds. But she wasn’t for sale anymore. She wasn’t desperate anymore. There was no bookshop to preserve. Just her heart.
“It seemed fitting. My aunt told me you returned the money to Lady Katherine.”
Kitty cleared her throat and turned away at his words, as if too embarrassed or displeased to hear more.
But the knowledge that Jess gave back the money clearly pleased him, the satisfaction of it softening his eyes and tilting the edges of his mouth until Jess thought he might smile. She realized she was holding her breath, eager for the sight of it.
But he didn’t smile, and Jess feared she’d broken the easiness and trust between them.
“I did give it back. I couldn’t take money for kissing you. It wasn’t appropriate.” She ducked her head. She didn’t mean kissing him. It certainly hadn’t been proper, but it never felt anything but right.
She reached out her hand and he grabbed it fiercely, grasping so tight that he whispered an apology and loosened his hold. But only a fraction.
“I didn’t want kissing you to be about money, as everything else in my life had been.”
Jess leaned in, close enough to catch his scent and wish they were alone, far away from the curious gazes of dozens of women.
She whispered, “I hope you felt that each time we kissed.”
He dipped his head, speaking low, though the women around them leaned in to catch every word.
“I did.”
She looked up and then it came, breaking over his face and setting off his dimples, a smile of amusement that kindled a warmth deep in Jess’s breast, chasing away the chill that had been with her since leaving Hartwell. Leaving him.
“I’m sorry I left.”
He reached up to cup her cheek, then slid his long fingers down to stroke her neck. Jess trembled and the heat in her chest spread, flames licking at every inch of skin he touched.
“Are you?”
Jess nodded, tongue-tied, brain addled, her mind focused as intently on his lips as she’d been the first night she kissed him.
Then he pulled away and she gasped at the shock of it, the loss of his heat.
But he continued to watch her, his gaze locked on hers as he slipped his hand inside his coat and retracted his closed fist. Then he took one step back, glanced at the ladies nearby pretending not to gape and failing miserably, and bent his tall frame down on one knee.
One Scandalous Kiss Page 29