Tales of a Viscount_Heirs of High Society

by Eleanor Meyers

  "You don't understand. My uncle is not... a well-considered man. He is not someone who is as kind as he should be or as well-considered. But he's not some mustache-twirling villain from a story."

  "He doesn't have to twirl a mustache or dress all in black to do selfish things."

  "He's my family."

  Tempest's ears went back at her sharp exclamation, and the mare fidgeted a little, forcing Jo to take the time to bring her back under control. In truth, she was grateful for the distraction. She knew her face was warm and there was a sick feeling in her stomach. She couldn't stop to think about what it meant.

  "He sent men after you, and he had wanted posters printed up. Does that sound like what a normal family member does?"

  There was something barbed about the way James was speaking now, a kind of urgency Jo didn't understand, and right then, understanding was the last thing she wanted to think about.

  Once she had gotten Tempest back under control and walking along the track, she lifted her eyes to glare at James.

  "And what do your family members have to say about what you're doing in the country?"

  James glared at her. "What are you talking about?"

  If she were someone else, that lowering tone might have driven her off. However, she was hardly some fluttering London girl used to sweet words wherever she turned. Instead, Jo straightened in the saddle and met James' eyes squarely.

  "I mean, you never told me why you were in the country when the season is still going on. What are you running from? Does your family know where you are or care that you are banging around the north country?"

  For a moment, it was as if James had been struck by lightning. He stared at her, his mouth open, and for the first time since James had brought up her uncle, Jo felt the haze of defensiveness and anger break, letting her feel regret for making anyone look at her like that, let alone James, who had been so kind to her.

  "James, I'm—"

  "My parents are dead," James said, his voice clipped. "I was their only child, and they died years ago. What they might think about my escapades in London, and what they might think of what I'm doing now, I cannot say. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

  Jo bit her lip, because there was a part of her that did want to hear about James’ life. She did want to hear about who he was when he wasn't traveling the Yorkshire back roads, when he was in London, and what he had been like when he was a boy. She wanted to know more about him than she had ever wanted to know about any human being.

  "I didn't mean to hurt you."

  The look he gave her was chilling, at once superior and indifferent. "The fact that you think you ever could is insult enough."

  For a moment, Jo felt like exactly what she was, a Yorkshire girl who knew more about horses and mucking out stalls than she did about dresses or dances. Her hems were muddy, and they weren't even her hems; they were borrowed clothes from a fine lady, and her cheeks colored a dull brick red.

  There was an ugly kind of satisfaction in James’ eyes and something else there she could not read. He nudged Gunner a little ahead of her on the road, and when Tempest would have hurried to keep up, she reined the mare back slightly, shaking her head.

  "We probably shouldn't be speaking to one another right now. Not if we can't be civil."

  She stared at the back of James’ broad back a few lengths in front of her on the road, and she wondered what in the world was going through his mind. She wondered if he knew how sorry she was.

  As the morning turned toward afternoon, her mind returned to what he had said, what he had implied about her uncle. It felt like handling a piece of pastry that had just come out of the oven. She couldn't hold it still to look at it. It was just too uncomfortable.

  He's my family. He may be cold and indifferent, but Uncle Francis is the only family I have left.

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  9

  CHAPTER

  NINE

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  By the time the sun was setting, James realized he was heartily sick of not talking to Jo. She had stayed quiet while they rode that day, only passing words where it was utterly unavoidable. He hadn't been much better, but as they traveled the back roads to London, he found himself wondering what she was thinking.

  Jo's defense of her uncle, when he had a few minutes to cool off and to think of it, sounded... perhaps unnervingly familiar. After all, there was a reason he was in Yorkshire and not enjoying the best that London had to offer, wasn't there? He could almost remember that night outside of White's without flinching. If James was being entirely honest with himself, he wasn't sorry for what he’d done. What had happened the morning after that would stay with him for the rest of his life, he thought grimly.

  At some point, Tempest, discontent with being second in a single thing, had surged ahead of James and Gunner, carrying her proud rider past with the erect posture of an unbowed queen. Jo was deliberately not looking at him, and that meant he could look at her at his leisure.

  She looked every inch a lady, and James remembered with a slight feeling of guilt that she was a marquess’ daughter. She had pride and breeding to spare, and there was no reason for him to speak to her as he had done.

  It seemed that one way or another, there was no way to think about Jo without some kind of heat sneaking in, whether it was anger at her prying questions or the heat of the passion they had felt together in her bedroom at the Waters' residence.

  James shifted uneasily. He was known for his licentious behavior in London. He liked women as well as he liked the gambling tables, the races, or the fine alcohol that flowed like water if one only knew where to look. However, there had never been another woman who stirred him like Jo had, brought him to instant lust or instant rage as easily.

  He might never forget the incident that brought him to Yorkshire, but he didn't regret it either, not when meeting Jo Sallings was the result.

  As the shadows started to lengthen, they came to a small inn at the side of the road. Jo turned to him with a deliberate diffidence, as if she did not want to acknowledge their earlier disagreement or to continue it.

  "Shall we stop here? It's no London hotel..."

  "But it's far better than sleeping in the woods and getting slugs in our bedding. Quite right."

  If she was startled by his easy agreement, she didn't show it, and they went about the business of getting a room. He was startled when she signed them in at the inn's registry as "Mister and Missus Finely," but she shrugged when he asked her about it in the stable.

  "It has worked out well enough before, and I suppose aside from some sulking, you make a better than passable husband."

  Her words stung a little, but James found himself grinning as he went back to the task of brushing down Gunner and settling him for the night. Neither of them had acknowledged their fault, but they weren't demanding apologies either, and he thought he might be able to live with that.

  After dinner, in the dusk, James went out to check on the horses one more time before they bedded down for the evening, and he found a little boy standing on tiptoe to peer into Tempest's stall. When the child heard James’ footsteps on the wood floor, he spun around and looked ready to flee until James nodded at him.

  "She's a fine animal, isn't she?"

  The boy looked at him suspiciously. James recognized him as the pot boy from the kitchen. "She is, sir. I ain't seen her like before."

  "You may not again. She has better blood than most of the nobles in London, all the way from the Orient."

  The boy sighed, and James thought he could see dreams of horses like the west wind, blowing along the dunes, come to life in the boy's eyes.

  "In the next stall there, that's my Gunner. His blood's not as good, but you think you'd like a ride?"

  The boy's face lit up, and in a few moments, James was bridling his patient gelding and leading him into the field behind the inn. He showed the p
ot boy how to mount a horse bareback, and then, telling the boy to hang on to his waist, took him for a brief canter around the field. When the boy shouted with pleasure, James urged Gunner up to a gallop, and the boy laughed with pure delight.

  It wasn't until they both dismounted that James noticed Jo was watching them from the shadows of the barn.

  "Go on back to the inn," he said to the boy, never taking his eyes off Jo's form. "I've kept you far too long already."

  As he led Gunner back to the stall, Jo followed him and watched as he rubbed the gelding down again.

  "I thought you were making up the bed."

  "I did, but then you never came back up. I wanted to see if you'd been eaten by an auld goggie."

  "What in the world's that?"

  "Oh, a monster we're threatened with when we're children. You know, don't go out walking at night or an auld goggie will get you. Did you have anything similar in London?"

  "Of course. Press gangs, purse-slitters, cutthroats, muggers..."

  "I take your point. Anyway, I wanted to see what you were doing."

  "And now you have."

  "And now I have. You were kind to that little boy."

  "He only wanted to see Tempest up close. He had to settle for me and poor old Gunner."

  "Gunner's a fine horse in his own right, and I am sure you know it. I suppose it is only that it is not something that my father would have done. He would have thought a horse as fine as the ones we bred wouldn't be for boys like that."

  James frowned. "I'm not sure I agree."

  Jo laughed, and James was startled by how the sound refreshed him. They had only been quietly ignoring each other for a few hours, and it felt like an eternity since he had heard that sweet sound.

  "I know that I don't. The look on his face was pure joy when you kicked Gunner up into that gallop. I suppose that's much how I looked the first time my father took me up on his big roan, Caesar. I'm glad you did it."

  James shrugged. "I'm glad I did, too."

  When he closed and latched the stable door, Jo's hand alighted on his. That sizzle of pleasure passed between them again, and from the way that Jo paused, he could tell that she felt it, too.

  She shook her head slightly.

  "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry."

  "Are you?"

  She grinned. "As stubborn as I can be, I do know when to admit that I am wrong, you know. And I was wrong today. However angry I was at you, I shouldn't have pried into your family. I mean, I want to know everything about your family and how you became who you are, but that's hardly important now. I shouldn't have pried, and I am sorry."

  James looked at her and saw nothing but sincerity in her eyes. "You're forgiven. And I am sorry for making assumptions about your family. I should have stopped when you started to get angry."

  "Good. Shall we put this behind us?"

  "If you tell me one thing?"

  Jo looked at him warily. "And what is that?"

  "Tell me what your uncle's name is? And your father's name?"

  He could tell that his request only confused her, but Jo shrugged, eager enough to put this behind them that she didn't feel the need to ask too many questions.

  "My uncle's name is Francis William Sallings, and my father's is Marion James Sallings."

  James smiled a little.

  "Your father's middle name—"

  "Is the same as your Christian name, yes. Believe me, I noticed."

  She smiled as she said it, looking away a little, and James found it so enchanting he couldn't resist taking her hand as they walked back to the inn.

  It was almost normal when they were in the quiet of the room at the rear of the inn, a banked fire on the hearth and a cheery quilt over the bed.

  "I suppose it's ridiculous to insist that one of us take the floor near the hearth," she said.

  James laughed at her a little and pulled her into his arms. She looked up at him, some tension in her body, but he could sense the same heat in her in that coiled tight at his center. Along with it came the understanding that they couldn't and shouldn't do anything about it at all.

  "We could have the fight if you want, but I'm a little tired from not talking to you all day. What if we agree to share the bed, and I promise to be a gentleman if you promise to be a lady?"

  "I think we can handle that."

  She was dressed only in her shift when she climbed into bed, and James felt a strange sense of calm and quiet fall over him when he came to lie down next to her. There was something perfect about the way that they fit together, something that was incredibly comforting, as if they had done it every day of their lives.

  I am not looking forward to losing this, when it ends. He was struck by such a pang of grief that he nearly sat up in bed.

  "What's wrong?"

  Jo's voice was already muzzy with sleep.

  He rested his arm over her hip to calm her. "Nothing, nothing at all, Jo. Go to sleep."

  He listened to her sleepy acknowledgment, and after a while, where his thoughts circled around and around, he was finally able to do so as well.

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  10

  CHAPTER

  TEN

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  Jo woke up with an unexpected sense of warmth and contentment. For a moment, she simply drifted in the pleasure of it, not thinking about the past or the future, simply relishing how good it felt to be curled under a thick blanket with James’ arm over her waist.

  Then she woke up a little further, her memories returned, and she remembered that nothing was easy or uncomplicated right now. Biting her lip, she slipped out from under James’ arm. He murmured something irritable at her, but when she touched his cheek gently with her fingers, he fell back into a deeper sleep.

  Jo paused for a moment, looking at James more closely. Asleep, he looked younger, something sweet in the line of his mouth and the looseness of his jaw. She had noted that he was handsome the first time she met him, but over the last few days, she saw that it went beyond that. There was something about his looks, about the man himself, that simply made her happy when she looked at him.

  God, as if this weren't complicated enough.

  She dressed quietly, aware that it wasn't even quite dawn yet. The sky outside their window was light, but the sun might linger under the horizon for another twenty minutes or so.

  She crept out of the room, past the people in the inn who were just rising for the day's work, and as she had so often in times of trouble, she made her way to the stable. Being around horses had always soothed her, and she sat on a small stall in the corner, just thinking.

  Jo had never had the most conventional upbringing. After her mother died, her father let her mostly do as she pleased, too lost in his own grief to do anything else. When they discovered her love for horses, that had given them something to build on together. For the first time, Jo wondered if they would have been so close without it, if she had loved watercolors or embroidery instead. Sadly, she had to conclude they would never have gotten so close, and the truth of it stung.

  No matter how unconventionally she had been raised, however, no one would condone what she was doing now. Last night, she had crawled into bed with James without a second thought. The barriers between them were dropping by the day, and it was too easy to remember that heat that always sprung up between them. Soon, it would be too hot to resist, and she couldn't even say whether he would be the one to break or if it would be her.

  I'd be ruined, utterly ruined, in the eyes of my family, in the eyes of Society.

  The thought worried her less than she’d thought it would. She had never liked the idea of marriage so very much, and she had never been a girl who craved a season in London, no matter what she was told about how beautiful it was.

  "Would you be disappointed in me right now, Papa?" she whispered. "I know I'm doing what you would want me to do. It would break
your heart to see Tempest going to strangers, but what would you think about how I was doing it?"

  There was no answer, not that she had expected one. It occurred to her that she could hear her father's voice in her mind, her heart, most clearly when she was dealing with horses and their needs. When it came to her own needs, however, he was silent. It wasn't so very different from when he was alive, and a hot spark of rage flew across her heart.

  No, I can't think of this right now. I need to get Tempest to the Earl of Leaford. After that, I'll deal with Uncle Francis. After that, I will figure things out. Hopefully, I'll still have a shred of a reputation to hang on to by then.

  She fed Tempest and Gunner from the grain box at the far end of the stable, and she stroked both of their noses before going back into the inn. Gunner only looked for treats, but Tempest seemed especially restive, dancing back and forth in her stall and shaking her mane.

  "What's the matter, sweet girl? Ready to be on the road?"

  She reminded herself to make sure that Tempest got to stretch out her legs today. The mare was made for long overland stretches, but the steady pace they set on the road wasn't showing her off to her best advantage. Tempest was a runner at heart and denying it to her never led to good things.

  Jo resolved to think no more of complicated things until she had dealt with Tempest's sale. The thought of selling her father's prized mare still sent a bolt of ice through her heart, but it was the best option open to her at this point. She was just walking out of the stable when some instinct or premonition made her look up. Coming up from the road were two men on cobby ponies. Normally, Jo wouldn't have given them a second look, but for some reason, they sent a chill of fear up her back. She realized as she looked at them that they were very much looking back, and then she recognized them.