Richard opened his pack and dropped his silver hooks inside.
Oh, she’d had quite enough. Gemma removed an arrow and shouldering her bow, she set an arrow sailing. It hissed in the morning stillness and again lodged in the tree just above his head.
He barked in surprise. Tumbling backwards, Richard landed on the muddied ground. “What in hell?” From where he sat, sprawled on his buttocks, his eyes blazed with shocked fury.
She’d gone and lost her heart to a gentleman so wholly unmoved, and he was the furious one? “You are angry?” Gemma sent another arrow sailing. Her second missile stuck in the earth just between his legs.
Richard’s eyes flared so wide, his eyebrows reached his hairline. Mouth agape, he alternated his stare between the arrow so very close to his manhood and Gemma. “Are you mad, woman?”
“Yes.” She gave her head a hard nod. “I am furious.”
“I meant insane,” he gritted out. With a growl, he motioned to her well-placed arrow. “Were you trying to unman me or kill me?”
“Neither,” she snapped. “I assure you, I do not miss, Richard Jonas. If I’d wanted to kill or maim, you’d be wearing my arrow.”
At her words, he narrowed his eyes, looking at her through thick, hooded lashes.
Gemma tossed aside her bow. “You’d simply leave without allowing me my meeting?” She detested the hurt tremble to those words. “You cared so little that you’d not allow me to tell you…” What is in my heart. She winced, as the echo of some of the earliest words she’d spoken to him, about another, echoed between them.
Richard searched his gaze over her face and in one fluid movement, shoved himself to his feet. “Gemma?”
She’d thought she could hate nothing more than the cool indifference in his previous words. She’d been wrong. This tender concern stuck in her heart. She swallowed hard. “I thought, given…what we’d shared,” She winced. For what they’d shared had clearly meant more to her than him. Unable to meet the piercing intensity of his gray-eyed stare, she glanced down at her forgotten arrow. “I thought you’d at least come to me.” Even as it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t love her, even though one couldn’t help where one loved, as she’d learned at this man’s hands, bitterness blended with regret and hurt, roiling inside in a violent maelstrom of emotion.
“You are right,” he said gruffly and she shot her attention back to his face. The column of his throat worked. “I should have stayed…and congratulated you on your…” A pained grimace contorted his face. “…upcoming nuptials.”
Her upcoming nuptials? What was he…? The world slowed to an infinite stop. She gasped and then the Earth resumed its rapid spinning. Oh, God. He’d not heard the whole of the conversation. He’d heard but a part… Hope stirred in her breast. A gentle breeze rolled through the forest and rustled the branches overhead. She closed the distance between them, stopping at the edge of the shore, and touched a hand to Richard’s arm. “Is that why you did not meet me?” she whispered. “You believed I’d professed my love to Lord Westfield.”
He remained silent so long she believed he’d not answer. “Did you not?” he said between tight lips.
“Oh, Richard,” she layered her palms to his chest. His heartbeat pounded under the weight of her palms.
A sound of protest rumbled in his chest. “Gemma.” He pressed his eyes closed, his face contorting as though physically pained. “If we are discovered, you’ll be ruined. Forced to marry me.”
Gemma’s chest tightened as though a vise were being tightened about her. Did he even now see those titled lords as superior? “Would that be the very worst thing?” she put in tentatively.
He gave his head a hard shake and opened his eyes. The emotion from within their fathomless depths seared her. “I’d not have you this way. Not like this. Not trapped and caught when your heart belongs to another. A worthy gentleman I call friend.”
Oh, Richard. How could he still not see the weight of his worth was far greater than all the dukes, marquesses, and earls combined. “Look at me,” Gemma urged with a firm insistence and he looked down at her. She shifted and the water lapped noisily, dampening the hem of her skirt. “If you had met me last night, you would have known that Lord Westfield offered me marriage.” Pain glinted in his eyes, but he remained motionless. Silent. “You would also know that I declined his offer.”
She’d declined Westfield’s offer of marriage?
The tree branches rustled overhead and the leaves danced noisily. Through nature’s soft sounds, Richard tried to sort through her words. He gave his head a shake. “I don’t…”
“I said no,” she repeated softly and claimed his hands.
Richard looked down at their interlocked fingers. “You said no?” he rasped. Why, when she’d longed for Westfield for three years? Faint hope stirred within his chest. A memory trickled in, of his meeting with that other man last evening.
You always deserved a lady who wanted only you and I believe if you but look before you, you’ll find that woman…
The air left him on a hiss. He’d known. Westfield had known.
Gemma nodded. “I did.” Emotion shadowed her eyes. Unrepentant and honest, as she’d been since the day she’d crashed into the billiard’s room, stealing his quiet, his heart, and his every thought.
He struggled to formulate a coherent reply past his thickened throat. “Why?” Silently pleading for it to be him because where Gemma existed, he had no pride. Selfishly, he wanted her in every way at his side.
“You see, I could not accept his offer until I shared what was in my heart—with you.”
“Gemma?” he urged.
With a soft smile, she squeezed his hands. “I would have you know the words I carry in my heart.” Those words eerily similar to ones she’d uttered six days earlier, but yet entirely different for reasons that robbed him of thought, froze his movements and held him suspended. “Richard Jonas, I’ve loved you since you whispered in my ear about horse vomit.” His lips pulled. “I loved you even more when you encouraged me to be no one other than myself and spoke as though I was a woman different than all others—”
“There is no one else like you,” he said hoarsely. And there wasn’t. She possessed a spirit and wit that had beckoned since the first day she’d stepped into his riding path, chattering about fishing and light.
“And a man who looks at me as though I’m beautiful,” she continued.
“Because you are.” Her beauty shone from the inside out and set her aglow with a rich vibrancy that not even Athena herself could rival.
She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping his words. “And as I love you, I thought you should know the feelings in my heart, even as I know your heart belongs to your El—”
Richard took her mouth under his in a silencing, questioning kiss. No one else: not Westfield, not Eloise had a place in this moment that belonged entirely to them. A shuddery sigh escaped Gemma’s lips and as her body melted into his, he caught her against his chest to keep her from dissolving. He broke the kiss and touched his lips to her temple. “You forced me to see that what I felt for Eloise was not love.” He paused, thinking of the vicious envy that had nearly destroyed him whenever he imagined Gemma in Westfield’s arms.
Gemma ran a questioning gaze over his face. “It wasn’t?” she asked with a hesitancy that flew in the face of the manner of woman she was.
“I loved the familiarity of her,” he conceded. And he would be forever indebted to that woman for reuniting his once fractured family. But gratitude was not love. “I loved the comfortable presence of a person I’d known for the better part of my life, but I did not truly know her.” He knew that now. Richard palmed her cheek and lashes fluttering, she leaned into his caress. “Gemma Reed, I have loved you since you spoke about a horse’s teeth and gestational period,” he whispered. A watery smile turned her lips. “And I loved you even more when you challenged Society’s strictures and expectations for young ladies.” Richard dropped his brow
to hers. “Gemma Reed, you are my heart’s greatest yearning and I would ask you to marry me.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Richard Jonas, you used my declaration.”
“That is hardly an answer, love.” His heart tripped an uneasy rhythm and he managed a lopsided grin. “Will you—?”
She leaned up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. Honeysuckle wafted about his senses, more intoxicating than any spirit he’d consumed. Of their own volition, his hands settled at her waist and he dragged her into the vee between his legs. An agonized groan burst from his lips as she drew back.
“That is a yes, Richard Jonas. That is a yes.”
The End
Courting Poppy Tidemore
By
Christi Caldwell
Dedication
For every reader who ever asked about Poppy Tidemore.
Prologue
Two and a half years earlier
London, England
Oh, hell.
Tristan Poplar, the Earl of Maxwell, had stumbled into it now.
He’d come upon a lady. Not just any lady, however…but rather, one who was crying.
He’d always been useless with weeping women. It was, in short, the only type of women he was rubbish around. If he could throw jewels and dresses to make a lady stop, he would.
What was worse? The weepy lady he’d discovered in his host’s conservatory was, in fact, Lady Poppy Tidemore. She was the sister-in-law to his best friend, Christian Villiers, the Marquess of St. Cyr, and had become a de facto friend.
As such, the last thing he could do for either of those reasons was to simply leave her here alone.
He glanced over his shoulder. Mayhap he should retrieve her sister. He could be gone and have the young woman here in hardly any time. Or he could always fetch St. Cyr. Or the mother. Or…in short, anyone other than himself. Yes, that was the decidedly safer option, given that the alternative was being caught alone with the young lady.
This, however, was a vulnerable, defeated Poppy, with her hands in front of her and her shoulders shaking. Poppy with whom he chatted often at summer picnics and chance meetings in Hyde Park—about dogs. Poppy whom he fished with.
He took a step forward…
Poppy peeked over. “You.”
As one of society’s most notorious rogues, detached annoyance was an altogether unfamiliar state to find himself in.
Tristan opened and then closed his mouth as several realizations came to him all at once: one, not only was the chit annoyed at his being here…but two, she’d decidedly not been crying.
The lady angled to face him.
Her bodice down.
“Oh, good God in heaven,” he strangled out. His face afire, Tristan squeezed his eyes shut, and promptly knocked into Lord Smith’s wrought-iron plant stand.
A porcelain planter crashed down, raining glass and soil upon the stone floor.
“Have a care, Maxwell,” Poppy groused. “Or you’ll see me ruined.”
“I’ll see you ruined? I’ll see you ruined? You’re the one with a gaping gown.” If one wished to be precise, that would actually be the culprit behind her demise. Nay, in truth, all he needed was one inopportune visit from her overprotective brother, and brother-in-law, and he’d be done for. There’d be no hasty marriage, but rather a bullet at sunrise. Two of them.
“Aww, you are blushing. That is adorable, Tristan.”
“I’m not adorable,” he said indignantly. “Kittens and pups are adorable. And even if I was red in the face, which I am not,” he said hastily, “it would be with entirely good reason.”
“Tsk, tsk. For shame, one would expect with your reputation, you’d be better at this tryst business. Why, it is even in your name.”
“I am,” he said automatically into his palms, his voice muffled to his own ears. Or he was. With the right women, and certainly not with this woman.
She snorted, as if she’d followed the silently self-deprecating thoughts.
Either way, the last thing he intended to do is provide a laundry list of all his past scandalous endeavors. “Is your gown righted?” he asked impatiently when Poppy returned to whatever earlier task had occupied her focus.
“It is.”
Tristan let his arms fall to his side. And here he’d believed she was crying.
Crying. As if fearless, spirited Poppy Tidemore could ever be brought to tears.
Just then, the lady picked up a cloth from Lord Smith’s table and dipped the fabric into the watering fountain. He rubbed his brow. It really wasn’t his business. She wasn’t his business. And yet, she was St. Cyr’s business and thereby, by default, Tristan’s. He peered into the dimly lit gardens. By the saints. “You’re dampening your dress,” he hissed.
Poppy favored him with an impressive scowl. “You’re still here.”
Why, the chit was annoyed by his presence? Which could only mean… Spinning on his heel, he yanked the door shut, and locked it.
“Maxwell,” she exclaimed. “What is wrong with you—?”
“You are meeting someone.” He’d kill the bastard. Poppy Tidemore was as off-limits as any one of Tristan’s own sisters.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve greater sense than to sneak off with some rogue.”
He eyed her dubiously.
A mischievous grin turned her lips up into a saucy smile. “If I did, I’d certainly not find myself caught.”
“Dead. I’d kill the bastard dead.” St. Cyr would expect him to do nothing less in the name of their friendship.
“I daresay the whole ‘death’ part would be the expected outcome of the whole ‘killing’ business.”
“You’re making light of this?” Tristan balled his hands.
“Oh, stuff and nonsense.” Her smile dipped. “When did you go all proper on me?”
Since he’d stumbled upon her waiting about for some scoundrel. “This isn’t about me, Poppy,” he said, exasperated as ever by the chit. “This is about—”
Poppy fully faced him and all the anger went out of him. “Oh.” A sizeable splotch of pink marred the bodice of her gown.
Over the years, every Tidemore girl who’d made her Come Out had been forced into voluminous white dresses as if the color and sheer size of their skirts alone was enough to hold scandal at bay. As such, at her debut, Poppy had managed the impossible feat not a single one of the three Tidemore sisters to proceed her had managed—she wasn’t attired solely in white.
“At least it’s not white,” she said with her usual Poppy optimism.
No, it was certainly not white.
“Well, not entirely white,” she said under her breath.
Drip.
Lemonade slipped down her waist and with that, Poppy dismissed Tristan once more.
“Poppy, since when did you begin drinking lemonade?”
The lady despised the milquetoast drink, as she’d called it. It was a detail she’d shared by some lakeside over fishing at St. Cyr’s country estate…when she’d tried—and succeeded in—convincing Tristan to allow her a sip from his flask.
“I haven’t begun drinking lemonade, Tristan,” she said as if he’d lost his mind and deserved a prompt trip to Bedlam, which given the way his head spun whenever he was in the minx’s company, was likely not far from the mark.
“Then how did you spill the drink on yourself.”
Poppy looked up. “Careful, Maxwell.” She thinned her eyes into slits that oozed danger. “I’m not the clumsy sort.”
He opened his mouth to point out that the first time he’d come across her, she’d been knocked on her buttocks in Hyde Park, but time had taught him enough to refrain from pointing out that detail. “Then, how—?”
“Someone tossed it at me.” With a sigh, she set to work wiping at her bodice. “Are you happy? Someone tossed it at me.”
He opened and closed his mouth several times. “Someone tossed it?” he finally managed.
Poppy paused mid-wiping and released a long sigh. “Tossssed.
” She managed to stretch that single, overly emphasized syllable into five. “As in ‘to throw’, ‘to hurl’, ‘to—’”
“I well know what the word tossed means,” he interrupted.
“Trust me, Maxwell, I’ve tossed enough objects and items at my siblings through the years that I can quite determine when the act is deliberate.” Her scowl deepened. “And when it is not.”
Who in blazes could possibly hold ill feelings for Poppy Tidemore? Spirited. Always smiling. Well, except, now; now she was managing an impressive scowl. “I’m sure whoever did so,” Tristan began, using the same tones he affected when dealing with his mother or sisters’ upset, “did so entirely by—oomph.”
The soggy rag she’d thrown hit his chest, and then landed on his feet with a plop.
Poppy lifted an arched brow. “Accident?”
He dusted the remnants of that sopping cloth from his jacket. “I see your point,” he muttered. Only…on the heel of that came the knowledge that someone had deliberately hurt her. Fury crackled to life. “Who is responsible?”
Poppy glanced up from her stained gown, and he forced himself to relax the tense muscles in his face into a small half grin. “Lady Kathryn Delaney.”
The Diamond of the First Water. “What in blazes issue could she have with you?”
“My family.”
Tristan cocked his head.
“She had…words to say about my family.”
Ah, of course. Loyal as she was spirited. He dropped his hip atop the work table. “And you no doubt took offense.”
“I undoubtedly did.”
He grinned. “I trust you told her where to go?”
Poppy curled her lips slowly up at the corners in that minx’s grin that likely accounted for the grey at her brother’s temples. “With very specific directions on how she might find herself there.”
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