Before she could speak, Dorry shot her a warning glance and removed the muslin from Matilda’s grasp. “Never you fret, Miss Mainwaring. I’ll see to it that Miss Gemma is everything she should be.”
Matilda beamed her satisfaction. “Thank you, Dorry. I may always count on you.” She gave an airy little wave. “Until dinner, then, my dear.”
As the door closed behind Matilda, Gemma glowered at her maid. “I don’t believe it. You are in league with her against me.”
Dorry shook out the muslin dress and laid it over a chair. “You know what a ruckus there’ll be if you don’t. She’ll start wailing as how you’re a wanton hussy just like your ma, and quoting the Bible, and then the fat will be in the fire.” She huffed a sigh. “This coiffure will look wrong with that gown. I’ll have to start again.”
Gemma murmured an apology, but in truth she was not sorry. Her maid’s deft, gentle hands working in her hair always soothed her. The tension that had wound like clockwork inside her since Matilda put her head around the door slowly eased. She would be able to meet Scovy again with some semblance of calm, at least.
She smiled, remembering when she gave him that name.
Scovy. Short for Muscovy duck.
She had caught Sebastian flirting with some of the village girls on the way home from church one Sunday. He must have been seventeen at the time, or thereabouts, very proud of his new striped waistcoat and doing his best to appear the debonair man of the world.
He succeeded well with the other girls, but he could not fool Gemma. Only she noticed the slight awkwardness of his stance as he entertained his audience with tales of Eton. He had not known what to do with his hands, and kept flicking the lid of his snuffbox with his thumbnail. The snuffbox was a ridiculous affectation for a green youth, but his admirers seemed not to remark upon it. Indeed, they hung on his every word.
Teasing Sebastian afterwards, Gemma had dubbed him “the Duck”—all cool, smooth serenity on the surface, but paddling like mad underneath. She could not quite recall where the Muscovy part came in, but he had been Scovy to her ever since.
“There.” Dorry finally jabbed home the last pin. “That should hold it.”
She stood back, and Gemma scrutinised her reflection.
More braids, arranged in a coronet at her crown this time. A variation on an exceedingly tired theme.
She did not let her smile falter. “Thank you, Dorry.” She took a deep breath. “And now, for that dress.”
WHEN Gemma paused on the drawing room threshold in a frothy cloud of white, Sebastian turned away to hide his laughter. She just looked so wrong. All that womanly warmth and sparkle smothered in the fussy trappings of a tremulous debutante. On the pretext of inspecting a Stubbs that hung in sombre splendour above the mantelpiece, he did his best to compose his features.
“Gemma, you’re late,” barked Hugo, struggling to rise from his chair.
Sebastian moved to place a bracing hand under the old gentleman’s elbow. As he looked up, he saw Gemma cast Hugo an anxious glance, but she said nothing, leading the way to the dining room. With gentle care, Sebastian settled his godfather in his place at the head of the mahogany table.
Hugo pounded the table with his walking stick, making the cutlery jump.
“Gemma! Move that infernal lump of tin out of the road, will you? Can’t see a damned thing past that monstrosity.”
While Matilda mourned her brother’s bad language, Gemma signalled to a footman.
“I’ll do it.” Sebastian reached the epergne first, and hefted it into his arms. The elaborate, silver-gilt ornament represented a jungle scene, with elephants, lions, natives, and—incongruously—the odd pineapple scattered amongst the gleaming foliage. He winced as a native’s spear dug into his chest. The damned thing weighed a ton and bristled with sharp objects.
“On that table by the window, I think,” said Gemma, her voice quiet, expressionless.
She preceded him to the table and shifted a bowl of blue hydrangeas to make room. As he set down the epergne, he caught Gemma’s flowery scent and his pulse leapt.
A little shocked by his reaction, he did not immediately look at her. There was nothing special about that fragrance to set his heart hammering, was there? Except that it was hers. It wafted from her skin, heated by the lush body under that farce of a gown.
Straightening, he murmured, “What happened to you? A fit of the prims?”
Gemma’s lips tightened. She shook her head.
Sebastian tried to study her face but she kept it averted. He frowned. Surely she could not be distraught over that silly little kiss. Perhaps they’d been observed?
“Ah,” he breathed, inspecting the epergne with his quizzing glass. “Are we in disgrace?”
“Of course not. Go and sit down.”
They took their places at the table.
Matilda fluttered beside him. “Hugo tells me your sister is to be married, my lord. How thrilling!”
Sebastian nodded to a footman, who leaned between them to fill his wineglass with claret. “The arrangement is of long standing, ma’am, so I would not describe it as thrilling, precisely. The respective families are gratified, as you might expect.”
Gemma spoke. “And what about Lady Fanny? Is she gratified?”
“Fanny is content with the match, or she would not have agreed to it.” He met her sceptical gaze with a bland smile.
Hugo looked up from wrestling with a capon. “You’ll find out for yourself how gratified she is when you see her, Gemma.”
“It is by no means settled that I am going to Laidley, Grandpapa.”
“Oh, yes it is, my girl! I’ve let you go your own road for too long.” He pointed his fork at her. “This time, you’ll knuckle under and do as I say.” He took a sip of porter and made a wry face. “Chit’s barely out of her teens and thinks she can rule the roost.”
Seeing Gemma open her mouth to retort, Sebastian intervened. “Ah, these wilful females! I sympathise, Hugo, indeed I do.” He shook his head. “How often you must have longed for a quiet little mouse of a granddaughter instead of this firebrand, sir. Someone who’d read you sermons and embroider you slippers when the weather grew chill.”
Hugo fell back in his chair with a hearty guffaw. Gemma’s eyes crinkled at the corners. She closed her mouth on her heated speech.
Matilda said, “Well, I’m sure I should be pleased to read sermons to you if you’d like it, Hugo. I am always at your disposal if you require religious instruction, you know.”
Hugo muttered something that sounded like “wish I could dispose of you,” and moodily attacked his capon.
“You are fresh from town, Sebastian, I take it?” said Matilda, selecting a portion of veal fricassee from a silver chafing dish. “Did you attend the Regent’s fête and all the victory celebrations?”
“I did, yes. Dreadful crushes, all of them.”
“I hear Tsar Alexander is a handsome man.”
He shrugged. “I believe he is accounted so.”
Gemma chuckled. “I have often observed that if you ask one gentleman whether another is well-looking he will never say yes. He might say no, the man is a toad, but he will never pronounce another man handsome. Why is that? If I see a lady who is beautiful, I do not scruple to say so.”
“Then you are in the minority of your sex, Gemma,” said Sebastian dryly. “I’ve yet to hear one woman praise another, especially in terms of beauty.”
“Perhaps that says something about the company you keep, my lord.”
Hugo grunted. “What do you know about the company he keeps, miss?”
Gemma widened her eyes. “Only what he has told me, Grandpapa.”
Brimming with amusement, Sebastian regarded her steadily over the rim of his glass. He deserved that, for introducing the subject of his amours on the terrace, but he could not let her get away with it. “Gemma told me an interesting thing, today, Hugo. She said she has never been in love.”
To his delight, she blushed an
d bit her lip. “Be quiet, you wretch.”
“Love!” Hugo gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “What did love ever do for anyone but make them miserable? Just look at my girl Sybil. Gemma’s mother. She fancied herself in love and where did it get her?”
Sebastian saw Gemma stiffen. Her gaze flew to her grandfather. Beside him, Matilda quivered with distress. “Hugo! We do not speak of that incident in this house.”
“Yes, we do. I’m speaking of it now, aren’t I?”
Sebastian wondered if Hugo had been dipping into the burgundy again. He seemed unusually belligerent tonight. “Well, since no one here is in love, I suppose love’s dire effects don’t concern us.” He waggled his eyebrows at Matilda. “Unless you have a fine beau you’re not telling us about, ma’am. Come, out with it! Who is the lucky fellow?”
Matilda giggled like a bashful debutante, which was unnerving to watch, but at least it dispelled the tension. He caught Gemma’s eye and she mouthed a “Thank you.”
He acknowledged her thanks with a quick nod, feeling oddly shaken. Watching her full, delicately curved lips form the silent words, he could not help imagining those lips performing a different function entirely.
He deserved to be flogged. This was Gemma, a gently bred lady, not some bit of muslin. Dragging his gaze away, he drained his wineglass and let the alcoholic warmth seep through his body. The heightened state of awareness that had gripped him since he first saw Gemma again was fast developing into a problem. He needed to regain control before he did something foolish. Something they would both regret.
Just get her to Laidley and get her married, he thought. She’s a beauty and an heiress. How difficult can it be?
Three
HOT. So hot.
A sultry, sizzling siren. Gemma, in his bed.
Her skin scorched his fingertips as he stroked her breasts, her waist, her thigh, and explored the liquid furnace between her legs. But even through the bright, searing agony, he could not stop touching her. Her body glistened, incandescent, slippery with sweat. She breathed steamy sighs in his ear. Her nails raked fire down his back as she twisted and writhed beneath him, wrapped her legs around him, enmeshed him, tangled him in flames.
A faint unease stirred. He should not do this, he should resist. He couldn’t remember why, and without a reason, he brushed off the niggling doubt, consigned it to the pyre with what was left of his mind.
He plunged into the inferno, drove himself into her, thrust straight to her molten core. His flesh, his bones, his every fibre blazed with ecstasy, a brief, wild, ultimate joy—
With a shuddering gasp, Sebastian woke, his body damp with sweat. He tried to move and couldn’t, realised his limbs were tangled in blanket and sheet. Sunlight lanced through a gap in the curtains. It must be morning, and he was at Ware.
Kicking away the covers, he sat up and dragged his fingers through his damp hair. His throat was parched, his head throbbed, and his muscles protested every movement, as if he’d gone three rounds with Jackson.
What the hell had he dreamed last night?
He shook his head to clear it and shifted to ease the ache in his groin.
Dear Lord, he needed a swim.
A sliver of sunlight fell across the page. Gemma looked up from her work and glanced out the window. Beyond the home wood, the sun peered over the horizon and took its first glimpse of the day. The greater part of the lake remained dark as ink, shadowed by cedars and copper beech, but it beckoned all the same.
She ignored that beguiling invitation, as she’d ignored it every summer’s morning since she turned seventeen. She planted her elbow on the desk, sank her brow into her hand, and tried, once more, to decipher Matilda’s bookkeeping.
After a few minutes, she noticed that the marks on the ivory tablet she used for rough calculations formed a series of intricate patterns that had little to do with sums. Irritated, she scrubbed the tablet clean, threw down her pencil, and sat back in her chair.
Of course she could not go to Laidley. She’d been mad to consider leaving Ware. The way her mind seemed to move in reverse at the moment, untangling these household accounts would take the best part of a fortnight.
Gemma rubbed her aching temples. How could she have thought for one minute she might go?
But she knew the reason, even as the question formed in her mind.
Sebastian.
Caught up in the joy of seeing him again, she’d been only too ready to set personal inclinations and anticipated pleasure above her duty and the comfort and happiness of people who depended on her. Just like Mama.
She traced the carved scrolls on her chair arm with her fingertips and sighed. She could not go to Laidley, but part of her rebelled against losing Sebastian so soon, and not only because it would mean an end to his easy companionship. A foreign, wanton corner of her heart wished she might experience his kiss once more before he left and the loneliness of life at Ware filled his place.
Loneliness? Gemma frowned. When had she begun to think like that? She loved Ware. She loved being the honorary squire. She loved every inch of her grandfather’s land, everyone who lived there. Of course she did.
Ridiculous! She snatched up her pencil and tapped it on the desk. Was she not the most fortunate of females? One whose life meant something beyond the role of daughter or wife or mother or sister? The solid ground of Ware was her reality, and this obsession with Sebastian a fleeting fancy.
And really, there was no point delaying the decision, was there? As if by waiting and dreaming she might hit on some way to get everything she wanted without pain or sacrifice. Life wasn’t like that. Or at least, not for her.
Gemma took a deep breath. She would finish the accounts and lock them in her desk. Then she would rise, move one foot in front of the other until she reached the library.
And tell Grandpapa she would stay.
KICKING up hard from the lake’s silt floor, Sebastian pulled and stretched through the water until his head broke the surface. He drew the cool, clean air deep into his lungs and brushed away the hair that clung to his forehead.
Turning on his back, he floated, gazed at the feathery treetops fingering the pale, cloudless blue sky and felt the warmth of the rising sun touch his face.
He imagined for a moment that he could stay here at Ware, in this near-frigid water, for the rest of his natural life.
No responsibilities. No title or dependants. No advisers telling him he must install new drainage systems or sow this field or let that field lie fallow. No interminable speeches in the House during parliamentary sessions. No dignity or lofty position to maintain.
Just him and nature and beauty and . . .
Gemma.
Sebastian groaned. He flipped to his stomach and swam a slow breaststroke. Ploughing the water with his hands, he watched the ripples fan out from his chest, disturbing the tranquil surface.
He’d dreamed of her last night. He knew they’d been erotic dreams, for the tantalising images that flashed across his mind aroused him even now, but he could not remember anything specific, wasn’t sure he wished to.
A hot wave of guilt washed over him. Gemma should be sacrosanct, not an object for lurid fantasies. And jaded, unrepentant rake that he was, even he knew better than to pursue well-born virgins. But Gemma was different from any virgin, any woman he’d ever known. So powerfully sensual, so provocative, even though she used no feminine wiles, no arts to attract. In his dreams, she’d been everything a woman could be to a man, and more.
A heron shot from the wood and soared low over the lake, skimming its feathered belly along the water. Sebastian rolled and swam a few lazy strokes to shore.
He hauled himself onto the grassy bank. He was a fool. If he managed to persuade Gemma to return with him to Laidley, he’d have to make damned sure he kept his hands off her long enough to find her a husband. Otherwise, he’d end up saying his vows before the summer was over.
And he could not marry Gemma—or anyone. That was certain. He h
ad vowed at his brother’s graveside he would never continue his father’s line. He was not about to break his word to Andy. He would not bend to his father’s will.
Sebastian rummaged through the pile of clothes he’d left under the fronds of a weeping willow. Locating his shirt, he used it to towel himself dry and began to dress.
His drawers and pantaloons clung to his damp skin, but with some contortion and a deal of swearing, he managed. As he hauled one Hessian boot over his wet stocking, he heard his name and looked up.
A footman ran out of the wood towards him. “Lord Carleton! Sir Hugo wishes to see you at once.”
“Is he ill?” Sebastian yanked on his second boot, scooped up the rest of his clothes, and strode after the panting servant.
“No, my lord. Nothing of that nature. He is in a fret, but his health is good, considering.”
When they reached the sunny terrace, the footman bowed. “In the library, my lord.” He indicated the French doors that opened from Hugo’s favourite room.
Ruefully, Sebastian glanced down at his wet, half-clad body. He shrugged and entered, pausing on the threshold.
“There you are! Took your time, didn’t you?” Hugo motioned for Sebastian to sit down.
Ignoring his godfather’s scowl, Sebastian grinned and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m dripping. I’ll stand.”
The old man squinted up at him. His expression lightened. “Been for a bathe?”
“Yes, sir. In the lake.”
Hugo grunted. He gazed past Sebastian into the distance. “Gemma used to swim in that lake.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Doesn’t do it anymore. Matilda saw to that!” Hugo hunched his thin shoulders. “She won’t go to Laidley.”
Sebastian raked a hand through his hair, showering cold droplets of water down his back. “How am I to keep my side of the bargain if she won’t come?”
“I won’t hold you to it.” Hugo fidgeted with the fob at his waist. “I sent for you because I thought you might have goaded her to refuse, but I see that isn’t the case.”
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