Some of the fight seeped from her tautly held frame. “A horse breeder?”
He didn’t believe it bore repeating a third time and, yet, for the lady’s benefit he nodded anyway.
She leaned up on tiptoe and peered at him. He shifted under her focus. Did she believe his profession should be stamped on his skin? Then, she smiled. A genuine grin devoid of mockery and, instead, full of wonder. “A horse breeder.”
That truth had been met with either disdain or disinterest from ladies of the peerage through the years. He didn’t know what to make of this slow, approving smile that, by the sheer honesty of it, contradicted all his earliest misgivings and suspicions of Miss Gemma Reed.
He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable with seeing her in any way other than the title-hunting schemer who sought to maneuver a meeting with Westfield. For if he’d been wrong about the lady in this regard, then she became a person he…well, a person he could very well like. Richard smoothed his palms down the front lapels of his jacket. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly. “I will leave you now.” He made a bow. “It was not my intention to force you to suffer through my presence any more than you already have.” He turned on his heel and started from the copse.
“Wait.” her softly spoken request brought him to a stop.
From their first meeting, with all the confounded, inexplicable fluttering caused by his kiss aside, Mr. Richard Jonas had been…well, a proverbial thorn in her side. A gentleman who, with his mocking grin and baiting, she really hadn’t much liked. As such, she’d quickly judged his whisperings in her ear a short while ago at the breakfast table as an effort to mock her. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d been…why goodness, he’d been trying to rescue her from abject humiliation.
He wheeled about to face her. This man she hadn’t much liked and she now stared at him through newly opened eyes. Towering over her and with his sharply chiseled features, he was, despite her first and hastily formed opinion—really quite handsome. Which mattered not as much as the discovery of this new and unexpected kindness in the gentleman. Richard arched a chestnut eyebrow up.
A guilty flush suffused her cheeks and she scuffed the earth with the tip of her boot. “I was of an erroneous opinion.” How coolly polite that sounded. She cleared her throat. “I believed you were making light of me and reacted defensively, and for that, I apologize.” How was it that she, who was singularly unable to string together two sentences amidst Polite Society, should speak so unabashedly before this man?
He took a step in her direction. There should have been an unease in being alone in his presence. Though a friend of Lord Westfield, she knew Richard Jonas not at all beyond a handful of meetings. Still, for that, there was an ease in being around him that she’d never experienced with any other gentleman. “And I judged you also in unfairness.”
His words yanked her from her inexplicable musings. “Mr. J—Richard,” she amended at the piercing gaze he trained on her.
“Given the purpose of the duke’s summer party and your own attempts to secure a private meeting with Westfield, I gathered your intentions were driven by nothing more than an interest in that respective title.” The wind whipped her hair and that recalcitrant strand danced before her eyes. He took in that limp lock a moment. “It has become apparent that I was incorrect in my suppositions and for that, I apologize,” he murmured. He closed the distance between them and the intense glint in his gray eyes momentarily stole her breath.
“I—”
He shot a hand out and with that slight movement went coherent thought. Richard collected that strand of hair and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, and there was such a beautifully sweet intimacy in that almost caress. For she, who’d long bemoaned the dullness of the hopelessly flat, refusing to curl, strands, felt almost beautiful for them in that moment. Then, as though she’d merely imagined the appreciation there, he tucked the strand behind her ear and let his arm fall to his side.
Her skin heated with the embarrassment of making more of that action than there was. Still, they were not the snapping, snarling strangers they’d been since their first meeting. For all the errors on both of their parts, there had been much she’d shared with Richard Jonas and for that, she would have a truce with him. She held her fingers out. “My name is Gemma Reed. I prefer horses and dogs to people.” The ghost of a smile played on his firm lips. “I am Lord Smithfield’s sister and I have had three, soon to be four, miserable Seasons.”
Richard looked at her bemusedly and she stood there so long with her hand outstretched and the moments ticking by that a slow-building embarrassment grew within her. She made to lower her arm when he quickly claimed her palm in his. “My name is Richard Jonas. I am the brother of Viscount Hereford. I breed horses and I’m here at the Duke of Somerset’s summer party as a guest of Lord Westfield.” Gemma stared at her smaller, delicate fingers dwarfed in his large, callused palm. Olive-hued and slightly coarse from his work, there was a masculine rawness to that hand which caused a thousand butterflies to dance within her belly.
Then his words registered. Lord Westfield. The man she’d loved for years, whom she would confess her feelings to.
Gemma quickly pulled her hand free. She should let him leave and, more, she should return to the estate for the afternoon festivities planned for the day. Instead, reluctant to go back and face the awkward humiliation of mingling in a world in which she’d never felt to belong, she asked, “How long have you known Lord Westfield?” Because surely questions about the man she hoped to marry were permitted and safe reasons to remain shut away in this copse with a man who was decidedly not the marquess.
“We attended Eton as children. He never minded that I was merely the second son of a viscount and I didn’t give a jot that he would inherit a dukedom. It was a natural friendship.”
Yes, that was the manner of man Lord Westfield was; one who didn’t preen and brag for his title before lesser lords. Yet, all she could focus on was Richard as he would have been, a young boy of perhaps seven or eight, shunned by members of the ton who, in fact, saw him as lesser. As the unmarried, unsought after daughter of a viscount, she could well identify with what it was to be so casually dismissed by the peerage.
“They are not always the kindest, are they?” she said quietly.
He inclined his head. “I prefer the company of horses and dogs.”
They shared a smile and the slight connection forged a gentle bond between them. Which only reminded her that he was here…with her…when the other gentlemen had intended to ride. She cleared her throat. “I expect you wish to rejoin the other gentlemen on the hunt.”
He appeared as though he wished to say something, but then sketched another bow. “And I will leave you to your thoughts, madam.” Except, he didn’t leave. He remained fixed there with a handful of paces between them. She studied him expectantly. Richard beat his palm against his thigh. “There is no need for you to be anything other than yourself…in Westfield’s presence,” he added as more of an afterthought. “Westfield will appreciate your sincerity and lack of fawning.” With that, he turned on his heel once more and stalked from the copse.
Gemma stood staring after Richard long after he’d left, not knowing what to do with this gentleman who saw past the nervous, oft silent, and then stammering girl seen by the rest of the ton.
Chapter 6
Seated in the Duke of Somerset’s library with the express intention of avoiding the evening’s festivities, the more Richard peered into the contents of his snifter, the more he studied the droplets clinging to the side of the glass. And the longer he stared at the contents, the more he appreciated that if one studied the French liquor in just the right way, it bore a remarkable similarity to Gemma Reed’s eyes.
With a strangled sound, Richard swilled the remaining spirits.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and he glanced up just as Westfield pushed the door open and stepped inside. He took in the snifter in Richard’s hands and closed the
door behind him. “I suspected I might find you closeted away with my well-stocked sideboard,” he said, not breaking his stride as he made his way over to that very mahogany piece of furniture.
Seated in the folds of the leather winged back chair, Richard shifted in his seat. His friend spoke as though Richard was one of those drink-indulgent carousers.
Westfield touched the edge of the bottle to his glass and the clink of crystal hitting crystal filled the room. “Will you attend the evening recital?”
Once again, Richard stared at those nearly brown droplets clinging to his glass. What manner of singing voice would Miss Gemma Reed possess? He’d wager she sung with a gusto and passion…but then his smile slipped. I prefer the company of horses and dogs…
But then, a lady treated so unkindly by Society, a woman who would bury her gaze in her plate and stammer through discourse, was one who’d not sing with such abandon. Not on display, as was expected of ladies of the ton. When alone, however, she no doubt sang with great zeal and a carefree, unbridled passion…
Westfield cleared his throat.
She would be the manner of lady who secretly rode astride and galloped through the countryside with the wind whipping at that same belligerent brown tress and—
Westfield again made a clearing sound.
Richard stared unblinkingly at his glass and then raised his gaze to where his friend stood eying him perplexedly. Fighting the urge to tug at his cravat, Richard set his glass aside. “I will join your recital.”
His friend snorted. “It is hardly my recital.” Then he rolled his glass between his fingers. “Just an event by which the young ladies assembled by my father can be presented to display the worth of their candidacy as future duchess.” His lips pulled in a cynical, humorless smile.
Gemma flitted through his thoughts. Richard drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair. Given the heartbreak Westfield had suffered at another woman’s hands, he’d celebrate a pairing that saw the young marquess happy. So what was this selfish yearning to have Westfield choose another rather than the clever Gemma Reed? “Tell me. Is there a certain young lady who might, indeed, fit that role of future duchess?” He infused a deliberate boredom into his tone. After all, it wouldn’t do to seem interested in whether a certain lady with brown hair and brown eyes had, indeed, garnered Westfield’s notice.
“There is—”
Whatever there was or was not, Richard would never know because the door was thrown open and Lady Beatrice spilled into the room. Both men promptly came to their feet.
“Robert, there you are,” she said, slightly breathless, and her heaving chest hinted at the quick pace the lady had no doubt set for herself. “The recital is set to begin and I…” She staggered to a stop and looked between Richard and her brother. “Oh, Mr. Jonas,” she said and dropped her gaze demurely.
“Lady Beatrice,” he said politely and dropped a bow.
She smiled. “Forgive me, it was not my intention to interrupt your meeting. The recital will begin shortly, and…” She returned her attention to her brother. “I thought you might join me in the recital hall and sit beside Gemma and me.”
The marquess downed the contents of his glass. “Of course,” he said with the brotherly devotion he’d demonstrated to the young lady through the years.
Richard lowered his eyebrows at the lady’s less than subtle attempt at matchmaking. Were her efforts a result of her own attempts or did she work on behalf of Gemma Reed? And why should it matter either way?
Casting a regretful look back, Westfield held out his elbow for his sister. The pair stopped at the door. “Changed your mind about joining the fun?” The dry humor in that last word earned him an elbow in the side.
“On the contrary,” he replied automatically. “I am quite looking forward to it.” It was hard to say who was more shocked by that concession; Richard himself, or Westfield who eyed him, mouth agape.
“Splendid,” Lady Beatrice said with a cheerful smile. “Come along, then. I promised Gemma I would not leave her to her own devices.”
There was a complete selfishness in accepting an invite and removing himself from all the respective and respectable events planned for the week. That is what he told himself as he fell into step behind Westfield and his sister. How else was there to account for the willingness and, more, desire to attend an infernal recital with marriageable misses in the market for a husband?
“…Do be nice to her,” Lady Beatrice was saying to her brother.
With no doubt about the identity of the “her” in question, Richard carefully attended the discourse.
“Have I ever been anything but nice to the lady?” Westfield’s dry whisper earned another nudge from his sister.
“Behave. You know the ton is cruel to her.”
Westfield’s hushed response was lost to him and his gut clenched. He’d long despised the world of Polite Society. Theirs was a glittering falseness where titles reigned supreme and worth was decided by one’s possession of or linkage to those titles. As a viscount’s second son, he’d been spared the disdain Lady Beatrice spoke of but he had, by his birthright as spare to the heir, known that disinterest. In truth, he’d quite welcomed that imposed distance presented by Society. For Gemma, however, she’d been received with cruelty; jeered and mocked, even with her rank as viscount’s daughter. No doubt, the ton preferring ladies who prattled about the weather and Society events failed to see Gemma Reed as an original with a keen wit.
And he found himself despising those pompous lords and ladies for having treated her so through the years, and equally hating himself for having mocked her since their first exchange. He came to a slow stop and stared blankly down the hall. Through his actions, he’d neatly placed himself alongside those who’d been cruel to her. He curled his hands into tight fists. What a horrible, humbling moment.
“Jonas?”
Richard started and looked to where Westfield and Lady Beatrice stood outside of the recital hall. A dull flush climbed his neck and he hastily made his way to the room.
“I thought you’d changed your mind, after all,” Westfield said with a grin.
He inclined his head. “I am going to occupy a row at the back of the room.”
Before Westfield could reply, Lady Beatrice fixed a firm stare on her brother. “Blast, we are too late. Gemma is already seated. You are decidedly not leaving me to be on display in this room.”
He chucked her under the chin. “Never.”
As brother and sister made their way into the room, Richard passed his gaze over the neatly arranged chairs. Most of the guests had already assembled and now sat in their perfect rows, with heads craned back. They gawked with a shameful notice at the duke’s offspring, the way powerful lords surveyed the horseflesh in Richard’s stables. All gazes were trained on the pair, except one particular bent head.
Gemma occupied the last seat in her row, speaking with a blond gentleman, near in age to Richard. Through their discourse, she periodically nodded and said something back that earned a chuckle. The easy familiarity between them spoke of a close, sibling relationship.
Richard walked behind the duke’s children, who claimed shell-backed chairs in the first row beside the pale Duke of Somerset. The man’s drawn features and the pain in his blue eyes hinted at the effects of his wasting illness. A wave of sadness ran through him. A little over two years ago, his own father had died so, with pain, and desiring to see closure to his time on earth. For his suffering, and the freedom death had brought to that suffering, the loss was still sharp. It reminded one of the brevity of life and the foolishness of wasting one’s time with these inane events. He turned to go when Gemma picked her head up. She angled her neck and did a quick search of the room.
He stood transfixed as her deep, brown eyes went to Westfield. The other man said something that brought color to her cheeks and an unpleasant knot tightened in Richard’s belly. Something that felt…he blinked…why, remarkably like jealousy. Which was utter madness.
The lady didn’t much like him. He frowned. That wasn’t altogether true. Not any longer. Not following their lakeside meeting in which the lady had dashed his every negative misconception of a woman desiring a title of duchess.
Gemma slid her gaze away from Westfield and, from across the makeshift auditorium, their stares collided. He lifted his head in silent greeting and an unabashed smile turned her lips. It was one of those sincere, joyous expressions not commonly evinced by ladies of the ton and it momentarily froze him.
Her brother again said something and, with a slowness hinting at reluctance, she returned her attention to the gentleman at her side. That jerked Richard into motion. He walked to the left of the grand gold parlor and claimed the furthest left seat in the entire room.
Adjusting the tails of his jacket, he slid into the chair preparing to endure the torture of the evening’s performances by those ladies in attendance. Except, as Lady Beatrice took her place at the grand piano at the center of the room, Richard’s attention remained solely focused on one small, slender form shifting back and forth in her seat.
What was the lady thinking?
In her readings of scientific books deemed inappropriate by Mother, Gemma had come across a fascinating natural phenomenon in the Americas in which the earth shook with such ferocity that for months after, those aftershocks were still felt. Just then, with her mother casting glances her way, Gemma quite knew the only thing saving her from subjecting herself to the self-torture of performing this evening was one of those sizeable events.
Beatrice’s soaring lyric soprano filled the room—crisp, clear, beautiful. In short, everything Gemma was not. Oh, she was not so envious that she’d begrudge her friend that talent. Nor did she even wish for a great deal of that aptitude for her own. Why, Gemma would settle for her voice not cracking while she sang. If that was what one truly wished to call it.
As Beatrice brought her song to an impressive finish, the room erupted into more than polite clapping. Gemma ignored the way her mother leaned forward in her chair and gave Gemma a meaningful look. You are going to perform… She held her breath but then saints love her friend, Beatrice launched into another song. Through her flawless playing and singing, Gemma shot her gaze about the parlor.
Tempted by a Lady's Smile Page 6