Though if he were truly going to use them as examples, he should well consider that each time one of them had set out to help a lady he’d found himself married to the wily minx.
Jemmy wanted to groan.
Just then, Addison came in. “My lady, Mrs. Radleigh tells me that she found the extra china in the attic, and that along with the plate and silver Lady Kirkwood is sending over, we should have enough to seat all the guests for the midnight supper.” The ever efficient butler noticed Jemmy’s empty glass and immediately filled it.
The man must have known that he was going to need the fortification.
Jemmy shot a wary glance at his mother. “Just how many people do you plan to invite?” He took a sip of the rich burgundy, trying to appear as uninterested as possible.
His mother shuffled through her papers until she found the correct list. “The last count was one hundred and twelve.”
“Wha-a-a-t?” he sputtered.
“Those are only the ones I’m positive will arrive in time. Though I do hope Lord and Lady Worledge can come,” she said, barely sparing him a glance. “It is short notice, but one can always depend on Camilla to bring a crowd along—especially since all five of her sons are currently in Town.” She paused for a moment, a calculating look on her face as she surveyed her list. She glanced up and smiled. “And not a one married.”
Lord Worledge’s rabble? Oh, this had gone too far. Jemmy tried his best to remain calm as he broached the subject with his mother. He failed utterly.
“That horde of idiots?” he burst out. “Are you mad? The eldest is in his cups every waking moment, while the next one gambles without a care, or the means, I might add.” He threw down his napkin and frowned. “How can you even consider any of that lot for Miss Smythe?”
“And whyever not?” his mother demanded. “The viscount shan’t live too much longer. Lord knows, I have a hard time believing he’s lasted these past few years, what with his gout and heart ailment. That only makes his eldest son all that much more appealing, despite his unfortunate tendencies toward drink. Imagine, your Miss Smythe a viscountess, and quite possibly a widow in short order.”
“She is not ‘my Miss Smythe’!” Jemmy said, a mite too adamantly, uncomfortable with the notion of Miss Smythe being married, let alone a widow free of society’s restraints. “Truly, Mother, this is getting out of hand.”
“How so?” Lady Finch asked, setting her pen down. “If Esme is to find Miss Smythe the perfect groom, she will need a good selection of eligible men from which to choose.”
“But don’t you think this is a bit much?” he asked. “Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you’ve invited Prinny and the unmarried dukes.”
“Oh, go on. Miss Smythe is quality, but she’s certainly not royalty. Besides, Esme was quite specific about the sort of man she is looking to match with the gel. And I happen to agree with her.”
“And you think you can get enough of this ‘sort’ here on such short notice?”
“Of course, or else I wouldn’t be borrowing Lady Kirkwood’s spare china service.”
“But Mother, how do you expect the staff to handle all this? After all, we don’t entertain.” In fact, in his entire life he couldn’t think of his parents ever putting on a ball.
His mother had gone back to surveying her list. “Then it is about time we did.”
“Just like that, you think you can actually fill the house with prospective grooms?”
“Of course.”
He didn’t like the way she said that with such supreme confidence. Especially since his mother was rarely wrong when it came to predicting the whims of the ton.
Still, perhaps she was mistaken. There was one very important fact she wasn’t considering. “And who will come? The Season has barely begun. I can’t imagine now that everyone has settled back in Town, they will feel inclined to come back out to the country.”
“Never fear,” Lady Finch said. “When word gets out that your father and I are hosting a matchmaker’s ball, London will empty. Besides, it isn’t all that great of a distance to come here.”
He knew only too well his mother was right— everyone and anyone who could afford a fast carriage would come down to Kent for such an evening. Not just prospective grooms, but marriage-minded mothers and their flocks of daughters as well, for where there were eligible men, mamas and debutantes were never far behind.
He decided to try another tack. “Have you thought that Miss Smythe may be viewed as merely a curiosity in this sideshow? Really, what mother would want to see her daughter bartered off in this fashion. ’Tis unseemly.”
Even as he said the words, he knew he was defeated, for the knowing look on his mother’s face said what Jemmy should have known.
A married daughter is a fine sight better than a spinster, no matter how she finds her way to the altar.
But he wasn’t about to give up. Not yet. He still had a few more arguments to present. After all, it had been a long afternoon pacing about the gatehouse, waiting for his mother and Miss Smythe to return.
“Have you considered that Miss Smythe doesn’t want to be wed?”
His mother’s gaze rolled toward the ceiling, as if she were considering whether he was truly her son. “Jemmy, despite your aversion to matrimony, it is not the same for young ladies. Every girl wants to be married.”
He shook his head. “But I think Miss Smythe may have misunderstood Esme’s intentions, and if that is the case, marrying her off in this fashion would be a terrible miscarriage of justice.”
“Harrumph!” Her snort of disbelief went well beyond her usual derision.
Jemmy persisted, even against his own better sense. “Besides, how will the village’s reputation be served if it gets out that an innocent young lady was carted before the parson against her will? Not only that, her father may have a thing or two to say if his slip of a daughter is married off without his consent.”
There, he had finally found a way out of this for Miss Smythe. Perhaps her innocent age would serve her well.
His mother didn’t look all that defeated. “She is five and twenty and therefore quite able to make a marriage without her father’s consent.”
His mouth fell open. “She’s that old?” It left him a little unnerved that his mother seemed to know his Miss Smythe better than he did.
But she’s not your Miss Smythe, remember?
“Really, Jemmy,” she began, “it matters not how the bargain was wrought, only that it was made. You know that as well as anyone else.”
The finality of her words might have cast a pall over any remaining arguments. But he wasn’t his mother’s progeny for nothing.
“I don’t believe Smythe is her real name,” he said, hoping his conspiratorial tone added to Miss Smythe’s already mysterious background.
“Uh-hum” was all his mother murmured as she continued fussing over her various lists.
“We can’t have Esme pawning her off on some unsuspecting fellow and discover she’s mad as a hatter and poisoned two previous husbands before her arrival here.”
At this, his mother set down her pen and stared at him as if he were the one gone round the bend. She let out a patient breath. “Jemmy, really, I don’t know where you get these notions. Miss Smythe has the Bath manners of a gently bred young lady from a good family. And why she’s left the shelter and protection of her relations is her reason and hers alone, but it is up to us to see her wed quickly and her good reputation secured.” His mother straightened her papers and then looked him squarely in the eye. “If you believe a fraud has taken place, prove it. However, until then—”
“A bargain is a bargain,” he said, repeating the village’s fateful promise.
Jemmy knew it was entirely inappropriate, but after spending an hour dodging the staff and his mother, he made his way up to Miss Smythe’s room and knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
“Miss Smythe?” he said softly. “ ’Tis me, Mr. Reyburn.” H
e had to keep his voice down for her room was dangerously close to his mother’s chambers. “Miss Smythe? Are you in there? I must speak to you.”
There came no reply. No female admonition to be away from the sanctity of her bedroom, not even an invitation to come in.
Not that he’d been looking for one. He was only worried about keeping his promise to her. And in a timely fashion. It would be a far cry better for everyone if she was well away from Bramley Hollow. His quiet, well-ordered life was being turned upside down by her arrival, and he wanted his solitude back. Egads, the ball his mother intended to throw would have half the ton at Finch Manor. Old friends and flirtatious conquests. All here to view the wreckage of his misspent youth.
He clutched his cane more tightly. His leg throbbed from a day spent gadding about. Pacing about the gatehouse, climbing up to the attic to find the trunk with his old dress clothes—for he could hardly come up to dinner in his usual country togs—and then the last hour spent lurking about the backstairs. No wonder his leg hurt like the very devil, for he hadn’t been on it that much since the day he’d fallen in battle.
Tapping on the door again, he whispered a little louder, “Miss Smythe, I need just a moment of your time.”
Nothing but silence greeted him. He stared for a moment at the solid panel. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep or was suffering from one of those megrims that befell ladies. After all, she’d spent the good part of the day with his mother, and that was enough to do in most anyone.
It really would be in bad form to wake her. Yet…
He knocked on the door a little harder. “Miss Smythe, are you well?”
When yet again there was no response, another thought struck him. A premonition of disaster sinking into the pit of his stomach.
She’d left. Fled Finch Manor. And without him.
But even as he ran through the hundreds of routes she could have taken to the main road, how he would scour the countryside to find her, he heard a clunk of something falling to the floor inside her room, followed by a mild curse. Not much of an ear bender, but enough to make him smile.
Smile that she was still here.
“Miss Smythe, if you do not open this door at once, I am going to come in.”
“Go away.” There was another thump and clunk, and yet another curse.
This time he didn’t wait for an invitation. He opened the door and made his laborious way into the room.
Miss Smythe stood in front of the window, holding it up with one hand. Not only was she dressed in her traveling clothes, but there by her feet sat her valise at the ready.
So she was trying to leave. And without his help. Jemmy squared his shoulders and wished his cane to perdition. Did she think him so useless that he was unable to keep his word?
“Oh, do stop gawking,” she sputtered. “And find something to prop this window open.”
“What are you thinking?” he said, stomping into the room, his leg now the least of his worries. To his horror, there was an oddly fashioned rope—made out of, if his guess was correct, the sheets from her bed. One end was tied to the leg of the grand four-poster that took up a good portion of her room, while the rest lay coiled nearby.
“Mr. Reyburn,” she said, struggling beneath the weight of the half-open window. “Please, I need your help.”
He crossed the room and took hold of it. She sighed, then bent over to retrieve her rope. But by the time she’d turned around, he’d closed the window and flipped the latch shut.
“What are you doing?” she said, nudging him out of the way and starting to struggle with the heavy casement again. “It took me a good half hour to chisel that open, let alone the time to make the rope. And what with every servant and bothersome fellow coming in here pestering me with your mother’s questions, I haven’t much time to spare.”
“You can’t go out the window with that,” he said, pointing at her tattered sheets.
“And whyever not?”
He didn’t answer, just picked it up and held a width between his hands. Then to make his point, he gave it a good tug and watched her eyes widen with horror as her well-intentioned knots pulled apart. “If the fall didn’t kill you, Father would put you in irons for damaging his roses.”
She wasn’t thwarted for long. A wild light filled the lady’s green gaze, and she caught up her valise and started past him. “I must be away from here, away from this madness.”
He reached out and caught her, and without even thinking tugged her into his arms. “You aren’t going anywhere, not without—”
She began sputtering something, and as he stared down at her all he could see was the fire in her eyes, all he could hear was the passion of her protests.
Her passion—that was what did him in. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself into the tempest that was so much a part of her character—to steal a kiss that he suspected would make a man forget that he didn’t want to live.
And in that wild, delirious moment, suddenly all he wanted was to live—a life full of passion and adventure, everything he saw blazing there in her eyes. So this time he put aside any hesitation and caught her lips with his, kissing her hungrily.
Oh, it had been a long time, but he found that once he’d taken that devilish first step, his rakish desires had no trouble leading him back down the path of temptation.
And tempt him she did. While she continued to protest for a few moments, to his surprise, she didn’t send him flying into a heap. Just as quickly as he had taken her into his arms, she was clinging to him. She opened her mouth to him and welcomed his kiss.
A sense of awe filled his heart. Jemmy forgot his leg, forgot that she was a guest in his parents’ home, and kissed her thoroughly, tempting and teasing her until her arms wound around his neck, and she rose up on her tiptoes to get even closer to him.
Then came the unavoidable part of temptation, for once he’d tasted her lips, a kiss wasn’t enough. His fingers tugged off her bonnet so they could splay in the silken strands hidden beneath. Emboldened by his success, he pushed aside her pelisse, his thumb tracing the neckline of her gown, down to the rounded curves of her full, firm breasts. Beneath his palm he could feel the hard peaks of her nipples, the hammering of her heart—thrumming with the same desire that had his blood pounding.
Reverently he cupped her breast and started to stoke a new fire within her.
At this, she broke away from him, one hand at the neckline of her gown, the other covering her lips, her eyes alight with a newfound awareness.
Then the realization hit him. Egads, she’d never been kissed. And while his next thought was to kiss her again, Miss Smythe had other ideas.
She backed away from him until she hit the dressing table chair. “Why not?”
“Why not, what?” he asked distractedly, his gaze fixed on her lips. He took a step closer to her, to those damnable, kissable lips.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why can’t I leave? I thought you were going to help me.”
Oh, that again.
“I will,” he told her, dipping his head down to steal another kiss, but the lady wasn’t as willing this time. She dodged him and shoved a chair between them. He counted himself lucky that she hadn’t chosen to send him sprawling as she had earlier in the day.
“No more of…of…that,” she sputtered, pointing at him with an accusing finger. “I doubt such foolery will see me to Brighton.”
Jemmy grinned. “Ah, but it would make the journey more pleasant.”
She blushed quite prettily.
He took a step closer to her. “I promised to see you out of this bargain, and I will.”
“The sooner the better,” she told him. “Before this betrothal ball of your mother’s gets out of hand.”
Jemmy flinched. Nothing better to warm a lady’s heart toward one than being the bearer of bad news. “Too late for that,” he warned her. “Mother’s determined to empty London for your sake.”
Whatever color had been in her cheeks draine
d away. “What has she done?”
“Invited most everyone. The house is going to be overflowing. She’s determined to make a spectacular match for you.”
The bride-to-be shot a hasty glance back over at the window. He didn’t blame her. If he were about to be offered up before society like a sacrificial lamb, not even Finch Manor’s three stories and the thorniest collection of shrubbery in the land would keep him from escaping.
And neither would it prevent Miss Smythe, he guessed.
He shoved the chair aside and took her in his arms again. “I will help you,” he insisted, mostly because the last thing he wanted was her leaving without him. Not for the reasons some might suspect. He tried telling himself again that it wouldn’t do for her to go gallivanting across the countryside unescorted.
Why, it was scandalous and dangerous to boot.
Unlike being alone in her bedchamber and kissing her? his conscience prodded. He shook off that notion. His intentions were honorable. Well, almost noble.
Though if he was entirely honest, with her lithesome and delectable body pressed against his, he knew his intentions were anything but virtuous. More like agonizing. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her and not stop there.
“I must be gone,” she said, struggling a bit in his arms, though even he knew that if she’d wanted to be away from him, she could have mustered the wherewithal.
“You can’t sneak out now,” he told her. “Not with everyone up and in a frenzy over this ball. Why, they’ll be at it until after midnight, I would guess.”
Even as he said the words, he saw her catch hold of that one piece of essential information. Midnight.
Damn the chit. But before he could tell her not to consider leaving without him, there came a knock at the door.
“Miss Smythe! Miss Smythe! I have some more questions for you.”
They broke apart, staring at each other, mirrored expressions of horror on their faces.
“Your mother,” she whispered.
Jemmy groaned. Of all the perfect timing.
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