The Temptation of a Gentleman

by Jenna Petersen

  Tabitha had won and her smile was one of quiet triumph as Lady Latimer dropped her eyes back to her plate. The tension in Marion’s chest began to loosen and her shoulders relaxed as it became apparent no one else at the table intended to challenge her presence there.

  Just as they had at some of the other events they’d taken her to, the Jordan women had scooped her up under their wing and given her the protection of their name and their reputation. It was becoming increasingly clear that those protections would continue until the ton forgot or chose to ignore any remaining scandal associated with her.

  She couldn’t help but smile softly as the remainder of their luncheon came to an end and the ladies around them began to leave. Tabitha chatted with their hostess for a moment before she returned to Audrey and Marion’s side and ushered them toward the door.

  “You made a very good impression on Lady Oswood,” Tabitha whispered as they climbed into their coach.

  Marion gave her a nervous smile. “But probably not on Lady Latimer.”

  “Pish posh.” Audrey waved off her comment as if it were meaningless. “Lady Oswood is far more important.”

  “I appreciated your coming to my defense, Lady Woodbury.” She smiled at her future mother-in-law.

  “You’re family now,” Tabitha reassured her with a gentle tap of her fan across Marion’s gloved knuckles. “We’ll never allow someone to hurt our family.”

  Audrey nodded her silent agreement. Marion felt a rush of love that she hadn’t felt in years. Here she’d spent a lifetime without allies or sisters to call her own. But with a few twists of fate, she was now in the midst of a family who would bring down the entire city if it caused a threat to her. The feeling was indescribable.

  “If this is how the Jordan family operates, I cannot wait to meet the rest of the clan,” she said with a laugh before she gazed out the window.

  Audrey’s smile fell as she exchanged a quick glance with her mother. “I’m afraid that may never happen. Virginia doesn’t speak to our family often. She may not even make it to your wedding.”

  Marion frowned. “Why?”

  The color drained from Tabitha’s cheeks. “I arranged her marriage and it is a very unhappy one. She still blames me and the family.”

  She said the words in such a way that it was clear the subject was closed. But Marion didn’t wish to speak about it any longer as it was. Just the idea of an unhappy arranged marriage made her ill. Were she and Noah much better? After all, they’d shared a few beautiful hours together a handful of nights before, but he had disappeared just as soon as he could after.

  Audrey assured her that Noah wasn’t angry with her or unhappy about their situation, but Marion had to wonder. Had he run for some purpose other than the secret he’d claimed to his sister?

  Marion could only judge her own emotions, not Noah’s. The night they’d spent in each other’s arms had only solidified the love she felt for him. His mouth on hers, his body pressed against and in her, that explosion of pleasure so intense it was almost painful. All those things only made her love for him grow.

  Perhaps it was different for him. Making love to her could have bored him. She’d heard of the joy of the chase before, how a man would pursue until he had what he wanted and then grow tired of it and move on to the next challenge. Perhaps that’s what had happened with Noah. She prayed not.

  “Here we are.” Audrey smiled at her as they pulled through the gates of Bentley Square, and Marion shook away her troubling thoughts to smile back.

  She was the first to escape the confines of the carriage and welcomed the cooler air outside. But as she gazed around her, she noticed a second carriage was parked on the drive. The carriage with a special seal on the door that identified it as…

  “Noah,” she breathed as she took an involuntary step toward the door. He was inside. He was waiting for her. And something told her that what he said to her that day would let her know if he still wanted her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Noah paced the sitting room and hated how tense he felt… and probably looked. Concealing his emotions had always been easy for him, but he couldn’t do it now. Not when he knew that at any time Marion would walk in that door and he’d be forced to change her life forever.

  Going to Dover to find her aunts seemed like such a simple gift. But what he found there changed everything. Now he feared he’d be giving his future bride a curse rather than a blessing.

  He heard the front door open and the three women come giggling and talking into the foyer. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the hallway with a false smile.

  Marion noticed his presence first. Her eyes lit up and her face filled with pleasure. For a brief moment, Noah forgot his twisted emotions and fought against the need to cross the room and take her into his arms in front of his mother, his sister, and the butler.

  “Noah!” she said with a grin and took three quick steps toward him before she skidded to a halt with a guilty glance back over her shoulder. Her face filled with hot color.

  “Noah?” Audrey tilted her head as she removed her hat. “What’s wrong?”

  Trust Audrey to notice his inner turmoil. Years of working together had sharpened her ability to see his emotions even when he was trying to hide them. Marion had seemed to have gained that same ability in only a few weeks.

  “I need to speak to my fiancée alone.” He locked eyes with Marion. Her face paled.

  “Something has happened?” she asked.

  He nodded slowly.

  “What is going on, Noah?” his mother asked with concern. “Where’s Griffin?”

  “In the Green Parlor. He has a guest there, and I’m sure they’ll explain everything to you. But for now I need to speak to Marion.” He reached out and she took his arm without waiting to hear if his proposition was appropriate.

  He led her to a sitting room and shut the door behind him. Marion took a seat by the small fire and smoothed her skirt reflexively all while she watched him pace around the room. The tension rolled off of him in waves. But why? Had he changed his mind about their upcoming union and was now trying to find a kind way to tell her? And who was the guest he’d brought with him from whatever mystery destination he’d gone?

  She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Please tell me what’s going on. This tension is too much.”

  He stopped pacing to look at her. His blue eyes held hers with such tenderness that she wanted to weep, but she controlled her reaction and gave him a weak smile.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to start,” he muttered as he shook his head. Finally, he crossed the room to stand before her. He looked down at her for a moment, then, to her complete shock, dropped down to kneel in front of her. He took both her hands in his and squeezed gently. “How did your father tell you your mother died?”

  She pulled back at the question, but he held her fast and didn’t let her move away. They hadn’t said much on the topic of her deceased mother, and she was surprised at how the subject stung.

  Taking a measured breath, she answered, “She had a sudden illness.”

  His face hardened. “Did you see her during her illness?”

  Tears she couldn’t control pricked at her as she remembered the events surrounding her mother’s death. She’d been out playing with friends, when she’d returned… “No. It was all so sudden. She was just… gone.”

  “What of her funeral, her grave?”

  She winced again. Why would he be so cruel as to press her for the details of a time that was the worst in her life? Without her mother, her life had gone from generally happy to barely tolerable. All the love Marion had felt had evaporated, replaced by her father’s resentment.

  “I don’t wish to speak further on this topic.” She yanked her hands away. Noah blocked her escape, so she turned her head and stared into the fire instead.

  But he didn’t take her not-so-subtle hint. Instead, he turned her face back toward his with a gentle finger on her chin. “I realize this
is a painful subject and I would not force you to relive it if it wasn’t very important. Please, Marion.”

  Her anger faded slightly at his earnestness. It seemed to pain him to ask her these questions as much as it pained her to answer.

  “My father wouldn’t allow me to attend any services in her honor,” she explained. “And he never parted with enough money to give her grave a proper marker. A blank slab of stone is where I put my flowers each year on her birthday.”

  The tears in her eyes finally began their slow slide down her cheeks, no matter how she blinked and fought to keep them at bay. She’d done her best to keep her feelings about her mother to herself. First it had been because her father became angry when she mourned. He’d only let her wear black for a few scant days after her mother’s passing.

  Later, her privacy in her grief had become more personal. There was no one in her life that she felt close enough to share her private pain. Until now. Now, sitting before the man who she’d soon marry, she wasn’t ashamed by her tears. In fact, sharing her anguish seemed right.

  And he took that pain exactly as she would have wished. He raised a hand and gently brushed the tears from her eyes.

  “Hold my hand, Marion,” he whispered as he leaned up and kissed her temple.

  She did as he asked and slipped her fingers to intertwine with his. The warm cocoon of his palm soothed her, but she still felt an enormous trepidation. Though he smiled as he comforted her, she saw the worry in his eyes. The worry about whatever he’d brought her into this room to reveal.

  “I don’t think you brought me here to ask about my mother.” She gazed into his face. “What is it?”

  He swallowed as if what he had to tell her was difficult for him. “You probably wonder where I’ve been these past few days.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes. But you’ve no need to report your activities to me, Noah. We aren’t married. And even when we are, a man must have a certain freedom to…”

  He cut her off with a frown. “I wasn’t off gallivanting with other women, Marion.”

  The pain in his eyes made her wish she hadn’t said anything. Noah actually seemed hurt by her implication. “Then wh-where were you?”

  He sighed. “I went to Dover to collect your aunts and bring them here to you as a surprise.”

  Marion’s shock was quickly replaced by joy. Her aunts here! At this very moment? She could talk to them, ask them questions about her mother, bond with them as a family. But why did Noah still look so upset?

  He answered as if she’d spoken out loud. “What I found there was shocking and I’ve been tormented by it ever since. What I know may hurt you and God, but I hate to do that again.”

  Her heart rate increased two-fold and her eyes widened. “What is it?”

  His grip on her hand tightened as if he were afraid of her reaction to what he said next. “Your mother didn’t die as your father told you.”

  “Wh-what?” Marion had heard him perfectly well, but she didn’t understand. Perhaps she was becoming daft from all the things that had happened in the past few weeks.

  His eyes softened. “She didn’t die, Marion. Your father sent your mother away.” His grip on her tightened again. Though he didn’t squeeze her painfully, she felt his support. “She’s alive.”

  “What?” She couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say.

  “One of the ‘aunts’ who’ve corresponded with you all these years was actually your mother.”

  Marion’s tears were gone now, replaced by a cold shock that crept through her blood until she actually shivered in the warm room.

  “I. Don’t. Understand,” she managed to croak out as she searched his face for a better explanation.

  Perhaps he was jesting. Because it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. If her mother were really alive, she would have come for her long ago. Wouldn’t she?

  “I wish there were a better way to tell you this.” He released her hand to run it through his thick hair. “She’s here right now. I brought her to London. If you don’t want to see her, we both understand.”

  Her eyes widened. “No!” She took a deep breath to calm her raging nerves. “No. I want to see her.”

  Noah closed his eyes, rocked by the inner strength the woman before him possessed. Most of the young ladies he knew would have swooned when they heard such shocking news. And once they’d come back to consciousness they would have gone into hysterics. But Marion, though pale and shocked, handled his revelation with the calm serenity of a woman, not a foolish girl.

  “Very well,” he said with a soft smile he hoped would comfort her. He brushed the back of his hand across her soft cheek before he pushed off his knees to stand upright. Before he could turn to the door, he felt Marion grip his hand. He turned back and looked down at her.

  She stared up at him with brown eyes that were wide and clear and full of trust, trust in him. Even in her shaken state, her beauty and good soul were as evident as her worry and fear. And Noah realized, with the strength of a thunderbolt, that he loved her. Not loved her as a friend, but an all-consuming, earth-shaking love that rocked him to the very center of his soul. He loved her and had loved her from the very first moment she’d stormed around the lake and given him… and his horse… a tongue-lashing.

  He staggered back from the force of the realization and stared gape-mouthed at her.

  “You aren’t going to leave me, are you?” she asked, so wrapped up in her own tangled emotions that she didn’t notice the passion in his eyes.

  He shook off the reactions that made his body tremble and put his focus back on Marion. There would be plenty of time later to analyze and over-analyze the feelings that had just changed him irrevocably. At this moment, the woman he loved, the woman he’d soon marry, needed him, and he would be there for her.

  “I won’t leave if that’s your wish.” How he managed to make the words come, he wasn’t sure.

  She nodded slowly. “I need you to stay.”

  A great swell of pride and love filled Noah’s heart at those words. Marion needed him. She wanted him to be a part of this, the most important moment of her life so far. And if that was what she wanted, than he would do all he could to help her.

  ***

  Marion shifted in her place, trying to find a comfortable position while she waited the eternal moments for her mother to walk through the door. When she couldn’t relax, she stood with a sigh and paced over to the fireplace.

  Noah sat in the chair in the corner of the room as he had since he’d told a footman to fetch Ingrid Hawthorne. To fetch her mother.

  She caught his eye and his smile soothed her. “Don’t worry.”

  She felt the strangest urge to go to him and kiss him, to pull him up against her just to prove that something in her life still existed as it had before she’d learned her mother was alive. Everything but Noah seemed different now, changed irreversibly. Her life, her feelings had all been lies. She had no idea how to carry on.

  The door creaked softly as it began to open, but to Marion it sounded like a gunshot, and she leapt in her place as she spun to face the intruder.

  “Mrs. Hawthorne,” the footman announced before he stepped back and allowed the woman behind him to come into the room.

  Marion wrapped a hand around the mantelpiece and gripped it with all her might as the woman stopped and looked directly at her. If Marion had been harboring any suspicions this wasn’t real, they evaporated in an instant. Her mother stood not six feet away from her, looking much as she had when Marion had last seen her fourteen years before.

  Her hair was still the same chestnut brown Marion herself saw in the mirror each morning, only her mother’s had a few streaks of gray running through hers. Her eyes sparkled with kindness, though the humor that had always made her look like she was laughing was now gone, replaced by a depth of sadness Marion often felt herself.

  “Marion,” she breathed as she took a step into the room. She seemed to think better of it and halted abrup
tly. “My, how beautiful you’ve grown.”

  Though Marion hadn’t noticed him move, she felt Noah’s strong hand on her shoulder. She leaned back against his chest, needing his warmth and his dependability. Both seeped into her skin, and she suddenly felt strong enough to speak.

  “I-I’m not sure what to say.” She straightened, though she lifted her hand to cover Noah’s for a brief moment.

  Her mother let out a short, nervous laugh. “Nor am I.” Ingrid edged forward a few steps, and Marion found herself meeting her mother halfway until they were just inches apart. “I’m so sorry.”

  Without thinking, Marion fell into her mother’s arms and the two women held each other tightly. She wasn’t sure if she spoke, but she knew they communicated, sharing apologies and forgiveness, as well as the tears that flowed freely.

  “Come and sit down,” Marion finally said when she found her voice and could bear to separate herself from her mother’s warm embrace. “We have so much to talk about.”

  As the two women sat, Marion found herself looking toward Noah. He had settled back into a quiet corner of the room. Like the man she knew him to be, he didn’t interfere or make himself a part of her reunion, but stayed close by in case she needed him. Her love for him swelled as she threw him a fleeting smile then returned her attention to her mother.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Her mother dropped her eyes to the floor with a sigh. Her cheeks colored to a dark red. “You have a right to know, but it’s a long story.”

  Marion brushed her hand across her mother’s. “Mama, I’ve waited fourteen years to hear it.”

  Ingrid nodded and slowly lifted her eyes to her daughter. “My marriage was never a happy one. Your father and I had an arranged union. He wanted me for my family connections and our money. Once he damaged my family’s associations and spent my generous dowry, he tired of me.” Her mother’s eyes clouded with painful memory. “The things he’d say to me…”