Ten Guineas on Love

by Claire Thornton

  “I’m so glad,” she murmured and, as he bent his head to kiss her, she closed her eyes and gave herself up shamelessly to his embrace.

  He had lost his earlier unaccustomed hesitancy, and she could feel the strength in his arms as he held her against him, claiming her for his own—now and forever.

  Then he relaxed slightly, without releasing her, and let his hand glide leisurely down her spine from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. Even through the fabric of her riding habit his touch could ignite a fire deep within her soul, and she clung more tightly to him, feeling his lips on her cheek, her eyelids and her hair. She was lost in a world in which only they existed, and when he put his hand up to the lace at her throat she made no protest. He held her slightly away from him and slowly unbuttoned first her jacket, and then her waistcoat. Then he paused, a question in his eyes, and Charity smiled and drew his head down to hers again.

  “I wasn’t afraid, I’m not afraid,” she murmured, her lips moving delightfully against his.

  For a moment longer Jack made no effort to restrain his desire, but then he lifted his head and drew back slightly, though his hands still rested on either side of her waist, within the folds of her waistcoat.

  Charity sighed; she was still feeling dazed with passion, yet it took only an instant for her to read the intention in his eyes, and regret and relief mingled within her as she finally understood what had prompted some of his actions on the previous night.

  “Now you’re going to send me to bed,” she predicted. “It’s not…I mean, I don’t…” she blushed and glanced down, then looked up again, an expression of shy, almost rueful humour in her eyes.

  “People have been telling me for years that I’m unladylike,” she said, “but I never knew before how true it was! Last night you were being a gentleman, but I thought…”

  Her voice trailed away, but Jack had understood and a wave of relief washed over him as he realised that one more misunderstanding had been cleared up.

  He smiled. “That particular aspect of the situation hadn’t occurred to me,” he admitted. “But, if you must know, you make it very difficult for me to be…a gentleman. You see?”

  As he spoke his hands drifted higher until they were resting just below her breasts and, instinctively, Charity leant towards him—then she leant back again.

  “I shouldn’t…Oh, dear, am I too forward?” she asked, with such a comical look of anxiety on her face that he nearly laughed.

  But he had heard the anxiety in her voice, and he chose instead to reassure her.

  “No.” He drew her towards him until their bodies were just touching, in subtle, tantalising proximity. “Sincerity in your dealings with others is always a virtue—you could never lose my respect because you don’t play conventional games.”

  “Sincerity?” she murmured as he kissed her again. He was still holding her no closer than he had been a moment before, but the feel of his lips on hers, and the delicate tracery of his hands beneath her waistcoat, along her sides and across her back, filled her with trembling, shimmering pleasure.

  It was hard to pull away, but she knew that she had to. She had to tell Jack about Owen. It never occurred to her that she might terminate her engagement without Jack’s ever knowing about it. She had to tell the truth, and she had to tell him now. She should probably have told him sooner.

  She stepped reluctantly away from him and, when he tried to take her back into his arms, she braced her hands against his chest, holding him off.

  “Wait, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “It’s not…I mean, I’m going to do something about it as soon as I can, but…”

  “What is it?” Jack’s smile faded as he saw the expression in Charity’s eyes.

  “Owen thinks I’m betrothed to him,” she said baldly.

  For a moment there was silence as Jack stared at her in disbelief.

  “Good God!” he said at last. “I never thought you’d bring it off!”

  “You mean, you don’t mind?” Charity gasped in confusion and broke away from him.

  “Well, yes, actually,” he said quietly, and from his voice she knew she had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. “I hadn’t thought…When did it happen?”

  “At the party,” she said sadly, regretting more than ever what had happened. He had said earlier that hurting her was the last thing he ever wanted to do—and now it seemed that it was she who had hurt him. “I didn’t even understand what Owen was asking at first!” she continued. “I wasn’t really listening—it was just after you’d gone to get me some lemonade. I wasn’t really…” She broke off, looking at Jack. “Something had happened, hadn’t it?” she said.

  “To me, certainly,” he replied, his calm manner not entirely hiding his underlying tension. “I nearly kissed you in front of all the other guests! You were—you are so…” He smiled almost apologetically at her. “I had to leave you,” he said. “I’d have caused another scandal if I hadn’t! But that was when Owen asked you?”

  “I was trying to make him go away,” she said. “I didn’t want to talk to him just then—but I realised what he was asking, and it was what I’d said I was going to do, so…”

  “So you went ahead and did it,” Jack finished for her.

  The first stab of pain he’d felt when she’d told him what she’d done was easing. He couldn’t blame her for feeling bewildered by everything that had happened, and in the circumstances it wasn’t surprising that she’d stuck to her original plan when everything else must have seemed so uncertain and confusing.

  “I knew I’d made a mistake almost immediately,” she said quickly. “Please believe me. I was going to tell him this morning, but he was gone before I woke up, and after that…” She sighed as she remembered what had happened to Owen. “Oh, I do hope he’ll be all right.”

  “He will be,” said Jack quietly.

  He no longer sounded upset, but it suddenly occurred to Charity that perhaps, once again, she had been less than tactful.

  “I didn’t mean…” She looked at him anxiously. “It’s just that I’ve known Owen so long. I don’t…”

  “No, I know.” He smiled at her. “Mind you, if it had been Edward you’d accidentally found yourself betrothed to I might have been less understanding.”

  “Edward!” she exclaimed. “Why… ?” Then her lips curved deliciously and she smiled up into his eyes. “Jealous, my lord? You can’t be jealous of Edward.”

  She was standing very close to him and she lifted her hands and laid them against his chest. She had done the same thing before, to hold him off, but now she let her hands slide sensuously across the black velvet of his coat until they were linked behind his head.

  “He was your first choice of husband,” Jack pointed out, resisting the urge to put his arms around her.

  “True,” Charity admitted. “But in the past few days what I’m looking for in a husband seems to have changed. I used to be so sensible too,” she added. “It’s a sad fact that you’ve turned me into a heedless and frivolous woman.”

  As she spoke she leant against him, pressing her slim body against his until his resolution began to disintegrate. He let her draw his head down until their lips met, and lost himself in the passion of their kiss, his hands moulding her against him.

  Then he sighed and held her away from him.

  “This will not do,” he said.

  “You’re not going to send me to bed!” she protested.

  “I don’t want to, but I’ve got to get some sleep too,” he pointed out mildly. “Besides, I’m afraid this business isn’t over yet, and we’ll need our wits about us when we question Gideon in the morning. So I really think—”

  “Gideon!” Charity exclaimed, the other events of the evening suddenly recalled to her mind. “Of course, that’s what I was going to ask you! How could I have forgotten? How do you come to know the thief? And why did you fight him?” she demanded, ignoring Jack’s smile at the first part of what she sai
d. “You didn’t have to. All you had to do was wait for the others, but instead you let him goad you into nearly getting yourself killed!”

  “No, that’s not quite what happened.” With an effort Jack put Charity away from him, and guided her to a chair. Then he sat on the edge of the table, one foot braced on the floor, the other swinging freely. He felt almost bereft now that she was no longer in his arms, but rational conversation wasn’t really possible when they were too close to each other.

  “It’s what it looked like.” Charity looked at him squarely, puzzlement and something like disapproval in her eyes.

  At the memory of what had happened, the fear she had felt at the time rose within her, chilling her and making her almost angry with him. It seemed so wanton to have deliberately put himself into danger.

  “You think I let my temper get the better of me?” he asked, sensing her change of mood. “That I fought him to prove myself because he had belittled me?”

  “N-no. I don’t know,” she stammered, startled by the momentary, uncharacteristic harshness in his voice.

  “I’m sorry.” The tension left him and he smiled crookedly. “And, in a way, perhaps you’re right. But it was the end of something—not the beginning.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We attended the same school once, a long time ago,” Jack explained. He was gazing into the fire, remembering, and Charity suspected that, for the moment, he had almost forgotten her presence.

  “He’s two years older than I am, and at that age two years makes a lot of difference.”

  “What happened?”

  “We fought a duel.”

  “At school! How old were you?”

  “I was fourteen, he was sixteen. He won.”

  “But why? For God’s sake!” Charity exclaimed. “They can’t have permitted duelling at school!”

  “No, of course not. It was…unusual, even at Westminster.” Sudden amusement flared in Jack’s eyes, and just as quickly died.

  “It’s a simple story,” he said. “It happened because one of the masters temporarily had a large supply of money in his quarters with which he intended to buy a home for himself and his mother. His elder brother had inherited the family home, you see, and his wife didn’t want her mother-in-law living with her.”

  A log collapsed, hissing in the hearth, and Jack went over to tend the fire.

  “Nobody knew he had the money,” he said as he stood up. “Except Gideon. I don’t know how Gideon found out, but he has a way of hearing things. He stole it.”

  “Then what happened?” Charity demanded; she was watching Jack intently.

  “One of the servants was blamed. There was evidence against him. That was Gideon’s doing. He always liked to cover his bets. But I didn’t believe it.” Jack’s smile was slightly twisted. “And, being young and impetuous, I thought it was up to me to do something about it. Besides, I had no proof, so no one would have believed my accusations.”

  “But what about the money?” Charity asked. “If Gideon had it, the servant couldn’t have had it. So how could they prove he’d taken it?”

  “It was assumed he had a confederate,” Jack explained. “They were going to hang him. And the master didn’t have his money, and his mother didn’t have a home. So I confronted Gideon. I knew where the money was by then, but I had a misplaced notion that he deserved a chance to put right what he’d done. After all, he was supposed to be a gentleman—he’d taunted me with the fact often enough.”

  He moved restlessly over to the table and swept up the cards that were still lying where they’d been left in the middle of the game Sir Humphrey had interrupted earlier.

  Charity watched him riffle through the cards, shuffling them with quick movements. She didn’t think he was aware of what he was doing; he was just giving himself time to think before he carried on with his story.

  She was beginning to see the obstacles he must have encountered all through his life. He was the grandson of both a baron and a man who had begun life as penniless apprentice, but he did not completely belong to the world of either. Perhaps there was nowhere he felt entirely at home.

  Gideon had mocked Jack for being a moneylender’s son, and he must have been referring to Richard, who had chosen to become a banker rather than continue to live at odds with the late Lord Riversleigh. Jack was proud of his father, she knew that, but he must have been hearing such damning comments for most of his life.

  She began to understand why he had been so sympathetic to her own fear of gossip, and to see why he had been so moved by her defence of him at the Leydons’ rout. He too must have spent a great deal of his life defending himself against the unkind or unfounded judgements of others, and there must have been times when he had held to his principles at considerable cost to himself.

  It did not occur to Charity that she had done the same; she was too preoccupied by her sudden increased understanding of Jack.

  “You confronted Gideon,” she prompted gently when he showed no sign of continuing.

  “Yes.” He put the cards down on the table and turned back to face her. In the flickering candle-light she could see his expression was tense.

  “He chose to assume I’d challenge him. Naturally he accepted. And, since I’d issued the challenge, he had the choice of weapon. He chose swords.”

  “So you fought,” said Charity. It was a statement, not a question. Even if he hadn’t said as much earlier she would have had no doubt of it.

  “I thought he was going to kill me,” said Jack. “I don’t know if he intended to or not, but in the end he just put his sword through my side and stood laughing at me. That was all.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” said Charity. “What happened about the master and his money and the servant?”

  “Oh, yes.” Jack roused himself from his rather painful recollections. “Well, Gideon and I were discovered before he had time to leave. There was no scandal—too many of the people concerned wanted to hush up what had happened. But before I completely lost consciousness I was able to say where the money was, and who had taken it. I was ill for several days—the wound became infected—but when I finally regained my senses I found that Gideon had been sent down and the servant exonerated. I left school at the same time to take up my apprenticeship. I don’t think anyone was sorry to see me go.”

  “They should have been,” said Charity. “Particularly the servant and the master.”

  “I think they were both grateful,” said Jack. “Alan certainly was—he insisted on coming with me.”

  “Alan!” Charity exclaimed. “Good heavens!”

  Jack smiled. “There’s a happy ending for you,” he said.

  “I should say so!” she agreed. “And for you?”

  “And for me.” Jack frowned thoughtfully. “For a long time I thought I hated Gideon, then I realised it was myself I was angry with. I haven’t seen him for years—I didn’t know he was in Sussex. But when I saw him tonight I wanted the chance to re-fight the duel. I’m a fool, you see.” He looked at her steadily. “I had to prove to myself that I was no longer afraid of him, that he is no longer better than I am.”

  “He never was,” said Charity. “He was just older than you—older and unscrupulous.”

  “Don’t you think I should have known that, and let it rest?” Jack asked. “It would have been the sensible thing to do, and I would have saved you a lot of anxiety!”

  It would be a long time before he forgot the look in her eyes when he’d turned and discovered she’d seen the duel.

  “It might not have been the right thing,” she replied. “And now it really is over. Sometimes it’s not enough just to know; we have to prove it to ourselves. You wouldn’t believe the number of trees I’ve fallen out of, and the number of ponds I’ve fallen into, to prove I can do what I say I can. Owen used to dare me,” she explained.

  “Yes, I think you two would make a fatal combination,” Jack agreed. “Climbing trees is one thing; marriage is another!”
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br />   “I know I made a mistake, but I feel badly enough about it as it is!” she exclaimed. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

  He raised his eyebrow, a distinct gleam in his grey eyes.

  “And I still don’t really know who Gideon is,” she said hastily before he could speak. “He must have a name and a family. What are they going to say when they find out he’s going to be on trial for his life? What is it?”

  Jack was looking at her with a strange expression on his face.

  “No, you don’t know, do you?” he said slowly. “And, what with one thing and another, I haven’t thought to mention it. His name won’t mean much to you—it’s Ralph Gideon. But you might be interested to learn that he’s Lord Ashbourne’s nephew.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “He’s awake,” said Charity. “We can talk to him now.”

  It was morning, and Sir Humphrey and Jack were just finishing their breakfast when she came to tell them that Gideon was conscious.

  He had been left all night in the care of Alan and one of Sir Humphrey’s men, though in fact he hadn’t been in a condition to escape. But Jack knew Gideon was both cunning and vicious, and he had no intention of underestimating him.

  “We?” Sir Humphrey frowned. “I really don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be present, m’dear.”

  “No, but I’m going to be,” she replied inflexibly. “This matter concerns me more closely than anyone, and I want to know what he’s doing here, and what part Lord Ashbourne has played in the whole affair.”

  Sir Humphrey stared at her worriedly. There was something implacable in her determination. He was becoming more aware than ever of her uncommon strength of will, and it almost frightened him. He didn’t know what she would do next.

  “I don’t think it will do any harm if she’s present,” said Jack quietly. “And she certainly has a right to be. Shall we go up?”

  He opened the door for the others and held it as they passed out of the room. Sir Humphrey looked up at him anxiously and he nodded reassuringly.