“Well, if I did, you may be sure it was unintentional.” He hesitated. “Perhaps I might persuade her yet.”
“She seemed pretty set on staying.” Hugo’s gnarled hands clenched and flexed spasmodically. “I’m out of all patience with the chit. The one thing I’ve done right in the last twenty years, and she throws it in my face.”
Hugo stared out to the lake. “Gemma’s unnaturally attached to Ware, you know.”
“Well, I knew she was fond of the place—”
Hugo shook his head. “It’s more than that. I’m no hand at explaining, but I’ll say one thing. It would do her a power of good to get away from here.” His jaw set. “And I shall live to see it happen.”
With piercing sadness that caught him unawares, Sebastian doubted it. Pain hollowed Hugo’s dark eyes, and though his manner and speech remained forceful as ever, he strained for every breath. Sebastian hated to see a man who’d counted among the great amateur sportsmen of his day so weak. Anger flashed through him. Couldn’t Gemma see how Hugo suffered for her stubbornness?
And then the realisation hit him. If he could not get Gemma to Laidley, Hugo would not hold him to their bargain.
He was free.
Why, then, did he feel so unexcited by the prospect?
He sighed. Because in fact, this sudden reprieve changed nothing. Hugo was dying, without the comfort of seeing his only grandchild happy and secure before he went.
Sebastian knew he must lift this burden from the old gentleman’s shoulders. How he would persuade the headstrong girl to leave Ware, he was not certain, but he must persuade her for Hugo’s sake, by fair means or foul. And there wasn’t much time. Though he sat ramrod straight in his wingback chair, Hugo looked desperately ill.
“Shall I ring for your valet, sir? Is there anything I can do to make you comfortable?”
Hugo shook his head. “Thank you, no. Go now.” Sebastian turned to leave. On impulse, he looked back, and saw Hugo pass a shaking hand over his eyes.
Sebastian averted his gaze to the long window. “Do you know, sir, I think I shall stay a few more days.”
There was a pause. “You will, will you?”
“Yes.” He fingered his chin. “I rather think I shall do a spot of fishing.”
“Oho!” Hugo’s voice crackled with renewed vigour. “Casting out lures, eh?”
Sebastian met the old man’s eyes and smiled. “As you say, sir. As you say.”
GEMMA needed to tell Sebastian her decision, but knowing the habits of fashionable, town-dwelling idlers, he would not be up for hours. Well, she could not sit around twiddling her thumbs while she waited. There were any number of tasks she could cross off her list before Sebastian’s day even began.
But as she stepped onto the terrace, she saw him leaning on the balustrade, studying the formal gardens below.
His back was to her. He was shirtless, his hair wet and tousled. His wrinkled pantaloons clung damply to his thighs.
Gemma stopped short, transfixed. She should go, right now. Eyes primly averted.
But to leave, she would have to walk past him, or retreat the way she had come and leave by the front door. Which would look odd, since she was on her way to the stables. And had she not resolved to go about her regular business, untroubled by thoughts of Sebastian? Once again, he stood, literally and figuratively, in her way.
Faith, he was magnificent, though. Flouting resolutions and maidenly scruples, Gemma let her gaze roam the broad, well-defined shoulders, muscled arms, and trim torso and marvelled at the solid strength his elegant tailoring usually concealed.
On a remote, distant plane, her mind rebelled, shocked at the way his firm, compact buttocks encased in skin-tight wet pantaloons set her own body prickling with heat. He altered his stance and she caught her breath as everything shifted in a harmonious ripple of muscular contractions.
Gemma’s sensible brain insisted she walk away. But her insubordinate feet refused to take a step, and in the midst of that heated debate, Sebastian straightened and turned around.
Surprise flickered over his face, but he did not seem embarrassed that she saw him in this state of undress. His sudden look of comprehension sent her heightened senses spinning, even as her mind cringed with shame.
He knew. He knew she had been staring.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Going out?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat, but her voice rasped anyway. “I have much to do this morning.”
“I see.” He shook out the bundle of clothes he held. He might at least have the decency to put on his shirt, but instead, he laid each garment neatly over the balustrade. “When were you going to tell me?”
For a moment, his words confused her. Then she realised he must have seen Hugo. “I am sorry, Sebastian, I truly am. But you must understand, I am needed here.”
He looked up, his eyes a warm, liquid brown. “I need you. Very much.”
She gripped her hands together in a futile effort to slow the sharp pounding of her heart. “I am sorry. I should never have let you think I might go.”
“But you must,” he said softly. “I have quite made up my mind about that.”
The arrogance of the man! She attempted a scornful laugh. “What are you going to do, drag me off by force?”
He tilted his head, considering. “The notion is strangely appealing.”
Gemma suppressed a shiver. Indeed.
Before she could dive into those dark eyes and drown like a fly trapped in honey, Gemma lowered her gaze, only to find herself studying the faint sprinkling of dark hair on his chest. Desperately annoyed that she could not control her blushes, she dragged in a breath and looked away.
Sebastian laughed. “Poor Gemma,” he mocked, sauntering towards her until he stood uncomfortably close. “Do you want to touch? You can if you wish.”
Her head snapped up. She glared at him, suddenly in command of herself. “That won’t be necessary, thank you! Now, if you will excuse me—”
“Gemma!” Matilda’s cry ripped the air between them. Gemma stumbled back, as guilty as if her aunt had caught her in Sebastian’s embrace.
The potted violets Matilda carried crashed to the ground. She stiffened all over, then collapsed on the stone floor and erupted into violent, wracking convulsions amid the pottery shards and scattered earth.
“Good God!” Sebastian started towards her. “Quick, Gemma, send for a doctor.”
But Gemma caught his arm and overtook him, hurrying to bend over her aunt. She ripped off her hat and knelt beside the writhing form, trapping one flailing hand in her own. As she chafed Matilda’s wrist, she looked up at Sebastian, who hovered anxiously over them both. “There is no cause for alarm. She is not ill, merely hysterical.”
Sebastian’s expression turned to disgust. “The vapours? Is that all? You cannot be serious.”
“You can hardly blame her,” said Gemma. “Strange as it may seem, my aunt is not accustomed to seeing gentlemen without their shirts.”
Matilda thrashed and shivered and broke into short, piercing screams. Gemma lifted her aunt’s head into her lap and crooned words of comfort, smoothed the iron-grey curls from her brow, tried everything she could think of to soothe her, but Matilda was already beyond reason.
Gemma looked up to see that Sebastian still stood there, naked to the waist and sardonic as a satyr. Exasperated, she raised her voice over the commotion. “Scovy, help me, you idiot! Go and find some smelling salts, or hartshorn or something.”
He snorted. “What your aunt needs is a good dose of common sense. What did she think I was doing, raping you?”
“Oh, do be quiet!” Gemma glared up at him. “This would never have happened if you’d the decency to put on some clothes.”
A slow smile curled his lips. “You weren’t complaining five minutes ago.”
Matilda moaned and muttered and twisted as though gripped by a fever.
“An admirable chaperone,” remarked Sebastian. “Falls into hysterics at th
e mere sight of a man.”
“Oh, go away if you’re not going to help!”
“I could fetch some water,” he offered.
Gemma nodded. “Yes, a drink might do her good.”
“I wasn’t intending she drink it. I was going to dash it in her face.”
Ignoring this last remark, Gemma slid an arm under Matilda’s shoulders and tried to raise her. “Better yet, help me get her upstairs to her bedchamber. She often takes the best part of the day to recover from one of these spells.”
“Good Lord, what a pea-goose.”
They tried to assist Matilda to her feet, but she was awkward and uncooperative, struggling one moment, a limp, dead weight the next.
“This is no use. I shall have to carry her.” Sebastian swept the afflicted lady into his arms and strode into the house.
Quashing a spurt of envy, Gemma followed.
As they climbed the stairs, Matilda stirred to consciousness. Confronted at close quarters by the very same naked hairy chest that had flung her into hysterics, she shuddered and opened her mouth to scream.
“One more screech and I’ll throw you down the stairs,” snapped Sebastian.
“Scovy!”
But it had the desired effect. Matilda’s eyes bulged, but she gulped and pressed her trembling lips together, and they reached the second floor without further mishap. Gemma directed Sebastian to Matilda’s bedchamber and rang for her maid while he laid her gently on the bed.
He did not linger. “Send for me if you need anything. I’m going to cover my shame before the housemaids start swooning.”
Gemma curled her lip and watched him go. That teasing boy had grown into the most provoking man.
In the comforting surrounds of her bedchamber, Matilda seemed less agitated, though she still moaned weakly. Gemma took a handkerchief from the bureau drawer, soaked it in lavender water, and pressed the scented linen to her aunt’s sweat-dampened brow.
Try as she might, she could not sympathise with Matilda’s violent reaction to that scene on the terrace. Even a minor shock seemed to have a cataclysmic effect on Matilda’s delicate nerves. She wished she could show her aunt more compassion, more understanding. As a spinster totally dependent on her brother Hugo, Matilda’s life could not be easy.
After a few minutes, Hoskins, Matilda’s maid, bustled in. She lit a lamp and turned it low, drew the heavy damask curtains shut, and set about making her mistress more comfortable.
Gemma rose to leave, but Matilda groaned and gripped her wrist with surprising strength. Thinking longingly of the tasks she had intended to accomplish that morning, Gemma obeyed the pressure of that clawlike hand and sat down on the bed.
“Gemma.”
Gemma patted Matilda’s hand. “Hush, now, Aunt. Try to get some rest.”
“Promise me,” Matilda breathed. In the dim light, her skin appeared clammy and pale against her grizzled ringlets. “Promise me you will never do that again.”
Gemma wondered what Matilda meant, what she thought she had witnessed. But she hesitated to ask. She did not wish to trigger another attack of the vapours.
“Do not distress yourself, Aunt.” She kept her tone even and soothing. “There is not the least need, you know.”
“There is every need! The scandal . . .” Matilda closed her eyes. A solitary tear squeezed between her lids.
Please, not again. Even as she thought it, Gemma felt like a traitor, but she could not bear her aunt starting down that well-travelled road.
Matilda’s eyes flew open and narrowed. “You knew Sebastian as a boy, my dear, but do not be fooled. He is a man now, and he is a rake.”
Gemma flinched. She had always dismissed Sebastian’s reputation as a heartless seducer of women. The gossip seemed to concern someone else, not her dear old Scovy. She could never quite believe the things that were said of him.
“Do you want to touch? You can if you wish.”
His soft words on the terrace curled through her mind, wicked, seductive. He had guessed what she wanted before she had known it herself. He knew her so well, she had thought.
But did he know her—Gemma Maitland—or was he really a man who knew women as a merchant knows his stock-in-trade? As a skilled hunter knows his prey? She supposed a rake must be like that, expert at gauging a woman’s desires, at fulfilling needs she never knew she possessed.
From her prone position, Matilda clutched at the skirts of Gemma’s riding habit and worked the dark broadcloth between her fingers. “You must promise me you will avoid being alone with him at any cost.”
“But . . . but I have known him all my life.” Gemma laughed uncertainly. “I cannot promise that.”
Matilda surged up and gripped Gemma’s shoulders. “I saw the way he looked at you. Do you imagine anyone will believe you are innocent? Your mama was just like you, reckless of consequences, always expecting people would think the best of her. Well, they did not. And look what she has become.”
Gemma raised a trembling hand to wipe a fleck of Matilda’s spittle from her cheek. Her insides churned.
She knew what her aunt said was true. But to give up Sebastian’s friendship when he had only just come back to her . . . “Do not make me promise, Aunt. I will be more careful.”
Matilda’s voice deepened. “The servants here will not talk. They are a quiet lot, and loyal. But when you are at Laidley, you must promise me that you will not give Sebastian, or any other man, the slightest hint of encouragement.”
“But I am not going—”
Matilda laid a finger to Gemma’s lips. She was so close, Gemma smelled the faint sourness of her breath. “All the ton will be at Lady Fanny’s wedding, and they will watch to see what you do. You will never be like other young ladies of your station, free to make small mistakes. You must be above reproach. You must be a thousand times more careful of your honour than the most strictly raised girl. You must remember it every minute of every day you remain under their gaze. Because you are Gemma Maitland, and they will show you no mercy.”
GEMMA left her aunt resting and went downstairs, drained and sick at heart. The servants bustled about the terrace, preparing for an al fresco luncheon, but she was not certain she could bear to sit there now. She knew she could not eat a bite.
It would be the height of rudeness to give in to her yearning to gallop Tealeaf through the fields until she grew too weary to think. Years of practice at masking her emotions stiffened her spine. She walked out to the terrace where her grandfather sat in his favourite chair, with the lake in clear view.
“Where have you been, miss?” Hugo eyed Gemma from head to toe. “Gallivanting about the place on that flea-bitten grey of yours, meddling in what doesn’t concern you, I’ll wager.”
Gemma dropped a light kiss on his forehead and sat down beside him. “No, Grandpapa, I have been tending to my aunt.”
“Had one of her turns, has she? That woman’s got more hair than wit.”
“In this case, I do not blame her,” Gemma said. “She saw Sebastian on the terrace without his shirt.”
“Did she?” Hugo’s eyes glinted. “And where were you?”
She inspected her knife and rubbed at an imaginary smudge on the blade with her napkin. “I was with him.”
“The boy doesn’t waste time,” muttered Hugo.
Gemma frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Did I hear my name?” Sebastian seemed to materialise from nowhere. He pulled out a chair and sat down facing Gemma over a bowl of fruit. There was a devilish quirk to his lips and a challenge in his eye.
Her stomach lurched, but she wrestled her thudding heart to the ground and stamped on it. Throwing Sebastian a dazzling, false smile, she said, “So glad you could manage to find some clothes.”
His lips twitched. “Ah, where is your esteemed aunt?”
“Recovering from a horrible shock.” Gemma selected a peach from the bowl and began to peel it with her knife. She could not bring herself to eat the fruit, but dismemberi
ng it would give her restless hands something to do.
Hugo and Sebastian paid scant attention to her or her hands. They spoke of racing and pedestrianism and prize-fights. Hugo had not entirely lost touch with the world, but he was eager for news of the latest mills and sporting wagers laid in the London clubs.
Gemma scowled. Was it not bad enough that she was obliged to sit down to luncheon with Sebastian? Now she had to listen to him talk about science and form and clever cross-and-jostle work, as if any of it mattered. Anyone would think him an empty-headed gentleman of leisure instead of a landowner with a vast estate to run.
The peach lay on her plate in sixteen neatly dissected segments. Her fingers ran with nectar. She wiped them on her napkin and wished Sebastian would stop talking long enough to put some food in his mouth so the ordeal of luncheon would be over.
But as he employed a handful of unshelled walnuts to illustrate the ingenious placement of fieldsmen in a recent cricket match, Gemma could not help but smile. She had not seen him so animated since he arrived at Ware. He must have combed his hair since their last encounter on the terrace, but it was still damp, curlier than usual, and he paused now and then to brush a stray lock from his brow. He laughed often, joyously, without constraint.
Once again, he was the vibrant boy of those carefree summer days. She longed to grab his hand and run with him down to the lake, as she had done so often before she crossed the threshold to womanhood; before Matilda came to live at Ware and turned her life into an endless series of rules and prohibitions.
Abruptly, she stood. “I must go and see how old Mrs. Lane fares today.”
Sebastian rose also, touched a napkin to his lips, and tossed it onto the table. “I’ll come with you. If you have no objection, sir . . .”
“No!” The word shot from her mouth before she could moderate her tone.
Sebastian’s brows rose. Hugo’s shoulders shook slightly, but it might have been a trick of the light.
“I mean, you need not come, Scovy,” she amended. “It will be tedious for you, I daresay.”
Sebastian bowed with a flourish. “In your company, my dear Miss Maitland, I could never be bored. Besides, if I recall correctly, the younger Mrs. Lane bakes the tastiest currant buns in England. I would not miss them for the world.”
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