Perhaps she didn’t truly need a natural disaster such as the earth quaking. She could very well feign a megrim, or…she chewed her lower lip. Why, she could swoon from her seat. She sighed. Then, she’d never been the elegant, graceful swooning sorts. Where other skilled ladies had long practiced and perfected that not-quite-an-art faint, Gemma had attempted it once as a girl. All she’d received was a bloodied nose for her efforts. In this moment, however, the whole swooning business would prove a remarkably handy, certainly beneficial, skill.
Or she could… Or… Blast. She’d not a single worthy scheme to get her out of this inevitable humiliation. Gemma shifted in her seat and discreetly angled her head back, eying the path of escape.
Yes, she was only looking to the doorway. And most assuredly not for…
Richard.
He sat in the last row of the parlor with his gaze trained forward. With his arms folded at his chest, his biceps strained the fabric of his elegant, black evening coat. There, with certain humiliation moments away, she no longer fixed on potential escape but on the sheer broad size of him. With his thick, unfashionably long chestnut hair he had the look of a warrior of old, or Viking or…
Clapping filled the hall and, heart pounding, Gemma yanked her attention forward.
And promptly ignored her pointedly frowning mama. She looked all about; at the sconces lining the walls, up at the mural upon the ceiling done in pastel pinks, purples, and blues, with dancing cherubs and…
“Gemma,” her mother snapped, none-too-subtly, and Gemma jerked her head to position with such force she wrenched the muscles in her neck.
“I am certain the audience would greatly prefer another performance from…from Lady Beatrice.” Or any other person present.
Alas, Lady Thelma had already hopped to her feet and rushed to the front of the room to claim her spot at the piano. As she proceeded to play, Gemma looked on. The haunting strains of Mozart’s Ave verum corpus echoed from the walls and danced around her mind. All these ladies assembled, brought together to vie for the marquess. By sheer nature of his future title and power, life with him would bring with it one of constant attention and public scrutiny. The lady he chose as his wife would serve as hostess for dreadful ton events. In all her musings of a marriage to Lord Westfield, she’d carefully omitted any such intrusions into the life that included anything but they two.
She looked to Beatrice, now seated beside her father and brother. Was this cloying, suffocating world one she truly wished to belong to? With his devotion to his family and the kindness of his soul, Lord Westfield was a man worthy of enduring that misery.
So why did it feel that thought was half-hearted and belated?
“You know she’s going to force you to perform?”
She started at her brother’s whisper. Gemma bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “I could feign a swoon.”
Emery winked. “You were always a rotten actress.”
Gemma sighed. There was all number of things she’d proven rotten at, to their mother’s consternation.
“But do you know what?” Emery said quietly.
She looked questioningly at him.
“You are clever and ride better than most gentlemen I know and are more worthy than any of the ladies here this week.”
Emotion clogged her throat. “Thank you,” she said softly. He’d always been hopelessly loyal in his regard. When their father had passed almost ten years earlier, Emery had stepped into the role of viscount and been in ways, both brother and de facto father to her thirteen-year-old, gangly, awkward self.
Polite applause went up for Lady Thelma, signaling the end of her set.
“And if I could, you know I would save you this unpleasantness?”
She furrowed her brow.
“Gemma, it is your turn to sing,” her mother said loudly and the sharp command echoed in the quiet, bouncing off the walls. Whispers went up about the room.
Oh, God, please let the earth quake, or the floor open or… Her skin burning from the attention trained on her, Gemma swallowed hard. She could not. Her brother gave her a commiserative look and Beatrice matched that show of support from the front row, smiling gently at her.
Bloody hell and damn. Feeling not unlike one being forced to march those final doomed steps to the guillotine, Gemma shoved to her feet and with her shoulders back, walked the short distance to the piano. She stood beside the massive black instrument and stared blankly at the pearl white keys.
Ten years. Ten years she’d been tortured with lessons upon this bloody instrument, and she was as unremarkable and unskilled now as she’d been a girl of twelve first sitting at their modest pianoforte. A nervous giggle bubbled up her throat. It was a shame Society did not judge the merit of a lady on her equine knowledge or her understanding of those earthquakes she still desperately prayed would save her from—
Mother cleared her throat loudly and Gemma jumped. Skin heating, Gemma dropped a curtsy and, averting her gaze from the crowd, she slid onto the bench. The delicate wood groaned in slight protest as she shifted back and forth. Fingers poised over the keyboard, she began to play the lilting tune. Or it would have been properly lilting if a skilled performer such as Beatrice or Lady Thelma now sat. Alas, she stumbled over the keys. Fixing her attention on her task, she shut out the watching eyes of the Duke of Somerset’s guests.
Because the longer she shut them out, the more it was as though they were not even present, as though it was simply her galloping over the countryside with her books in her packs, free of judgment, free of Society, free of it all.
“Thou bonnie wood of Craigielee,
Thou bonnie wood of Craigielee,
Near thee I’ve spent life’s early day,
And won my Mary’s heart in thee…”
Gemma’s voice cracked and a snickering went through the crowd. And she made the mistake of looking out across the hall to the sea of gaping, gawking peers. At the front sat Lord Westfield, a gentle smile of encouragement on his lips. Gemma drew a breath mid-chorus and proceeded through the remainder of the Scottish tune. That is why she’d loved him, because he’d always smiled at her when others had sneered.
“Tho’ fate should drag me south the line,
Or o’er the wide Atlantic sea,
The happy hours I’ll never mind,
That in youth ha’e spent in thee.”
Granted, he’d never studied her in that heated way, through thick-hooded lashes, singeing her with the intensity within their depths. But love was comfortable and kind, and…
Her fingers slid, creating a discordant, unharmonious cacophony, which ushered in more furious whispers.
“Away you thoughtless murd’ring gang…” Gemma’s voice broke and wrenching her hands from the keyboard, she sprung from her seat. A tight, boulder-like pressure weighted her chest, squeezing off airflow. Her chest rose and fell in painful spurts as she looked to the silent, gawking crowd. Lord Westfield stared at her, with that blasted gentle smile. God, how that pitying look grated.
Yanking her focus from the marquess, her gaze collided with her mother, mouth agape. All the while, the other would-be future duchesses with their mean smiles and amused eyes no doubt reveled in this prolonged moment of humiliation. A panicky laugh bubbled up her throat. This miserable showing would knock her out of the proverbial running as a potential bride faster than one could utter “spinster forever”.
With humiliation twisting her belly in knots, Gemma gave a toss of her nonexistent curls and took large, lurching strides toward the side of her chair. She marched past her row and quickened her pace. She continued walking until she reached the back of the hall. As she broke into a near sprint, the next flawless lady filled the hall with the appropriately perfect melody of Der Wanderer. German lyrics of which Gemma couldn’t even make sense.
Fearing her mother would send Emery after her with the express purpose of dragging Gemma back to take part in another bloody song, she set off running through the duke’s long,
quiet corridors.
Chapter 7
As Gemma continued her rapid flight, her heart beat loud and fast in her ears, thundering from the need to escape. To get away. To disappear from this stilted world of unkindness and inanity.
She skidded to a stop at the end of the hall and then studied the intersecting paths. Footsteps sounded behind her and her pulse kicked up a frantic beat that matched her ragged breathing. Gemma raced on down the hall to the double doors. Nearly suffocating from the oppressiveness of this whole affair, she shoved them open and stumbled out onto the moonlit terrace. With quaking fingers, she closed the massive oak panels behind her and leaned against the solid wood, taking support from it.
In a bid to blot out the humiliating shame forced upon her by her mother, Gemma closed her eyes tight. She concentrated on the symphony of crickets and night birds singing their nighttime song and allowed the soft summer air to caress her heated cheeks. A peaceful calm stole over her and she shoved away from the door and walked slowly down the length of the stone terrace. Gemma stopped at the edge of the balustrade and layered her palms upon the smooth Cast stone. She surveyed the stretch of country landscape bathed in the full moon’s soft, white glow.
She’d long been an oddity; first among her family as the hopeless, socially awkward daughter and then when she’d been presented to Society. Words that came so freely and oft times eloquently with her family escaped her in the presence of strangers. Drawing in a breath of cleansing summer air, Gemma rested her forearms upon the ledge and leaned forward. She had not registered the true depth of her strangeness until she’d been thrust amongst the ton. Since that painfully awkward entry into Polite Society, she’d endured Season after Season, all to the same result—a continued marriage-less state.
She laid her cheek upon her arm. The truth was, she’d not truly minded waiting for the right gentleman. She’d never wanted a cold, emotionless union. She’d long dreamed of a gentleman who saw her as worthy; a man who appreciated her for her intelligence and celebrated her peculiarity. The rub of it was, she’d hoped with a naïve young lady’s belief in happily-ever-afters that there existed such a gentleman.
Time had shown her but one. One gentleman who did not share her blood who waltzed with her. One gentleman who smiled and actually spoke to her, and not at her or about her. Yes, Lord Westfield had proven himself wholly unlike any of those others and he’d earned her heart for it.
So why should that smile he’d cast her way during the recital grate on her nerves?
Fighting a sigh, Gemma smoothed her palms over the stone balustrade. Because his was the pitying kind, is why. Never had the marquess stared at her with any real passion or desire in his eyes, but rather a benevolent warmth that she suddenly despised. Had it always been that way? Had she been so desperate for any kindness and the dream of love that she’d failed to note as much, until now? Until Richard.
The soft footfall of boots split her confounded musings and she spun about. Her heart skittered. As though she’d conjured him with a mere thought, Richard stood ten paces away with his hands clasped at his back. The moon cast a soft light upon his rugged features. She wetted her lips. “You.”
He nodded once. “Me.”
Which begged the question… “Why?” There was really no helping that, or her inexplicable ease around Richard Jonas.
Richard rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and glanced past her at the countryside. “What if I said because I tired of the evening’s entertainments?”
Gemma managed her first real smile that night. “Then I’d say we are remarkably similar in that regard.” Yet, the more they spoke, the more alike she came to find they were in so many regards. She cleared her throat, uneasy with that revelation, and returned to her place at the balustrade. She looked down below to the ornate water fountains sculpted in the likeness of the Greek gods and goddesses of nature and harvest. From the hand of a chiseled Pan, water arced, glimmering in the moonlight and Gemma fixed on the soothing calm of the trickling water. “It was awful,” she said softly.
The tread of Richard’s footsteps indicated he’d moved. At his nearness, a thrill of awareness ran along her spine. When he remained silent, she shot a look over her shoulder.
“Yes,” he said straightforwardly. “It was.”
Most would be insulted at that blunt concurrence and, yet, she appreciated that honesty. She appreciated that he did not fill her ears with lies and platitudes. For her performance had been dreadful, as had been the entire experience this whole evening.
She started as he stopped beside her. How was it possible that a man of his sheer size and power should move with such a sleek grace and elegance? In a like manner to her own, Richard pressed his palms to the stone ledge. “You misunderstand me,” he murmured. “It was dreadful but not in the way you are thinking.”
Gemma creased her brow. “What other way is there to think of it?”
“Well,” he said as he perched his hip on the ledge. He removed a flask inside his jacket and uncorked it. A frown formed on her lips as he drank from that flask, but his next words killed her intended chiding. “You, no doubt, referred to your performance.” She warmed under his unerring accuracy. “Am I correct?” he prodded, winging an eyebrow up.
Gemma gave a slight nod.
“But all of this,” he waved his flask over the countryside. “Is awful.”
She eyed him perplexedly, as he tucked his drink inside his jacket pocket. “The duke’s property?”
A smile hovered on his lips; those lips that had explored hers not once, but twice…and shamefully, lips she’d thought scandalously of in the privacy of her mind since. “The summer party arranged by the duke.” Those lips twisted in a wry grin. “An event hosted with the sole purpose of marrying off his children. Then, there is the state of his health which quite explains why he wishes to see what is most important to him properly tied up, or in this case, married, before he dies.”
Gemma tried to place herself into the duke’s proverbial boots. She tried to imagine facing the end of her life and worrying over her children’s marital state. Would she worry about witnessing a match made while she lived? Or would she wish that they know happiness and find love when fate decreed?
“Regardless, this is the way of our world. And so daughters are paraded before gentlemen who must see to their responsibilities after years of avoiding those very ones,” she said unable to keep the regret from creeping into her tone. Suddenly, the frustration with a woman’s lot in this stifled world boiled over and set her into a back and forth frantic pace. “Women are to fit within Society’s stiff expectations and excel in each ladylike skill deemed worthy. Stitching—”
“Which I gather by your tone you’re rubbish at?” he interrupted.
“Oh, quite,” she said with an automaticity, never breaking stride. “The proper way to hold a fan.” She made a show of holding an invisible hand and fluttering it before her face.
Richard swung his leg back and forth, elegant in his repose. “And I take it you have not perfected the art of using a fan?”
She sniffed. “Do I seem like the manner of lady who would perfect the art of using a fan?” She slashed her hand through the air. “No, my thoughts and knowledge of them are of the practical sort.”
He rolled his shoulders. “Practical sort?”
“Ladies are expected to use them to signal a message to gentlemen,” she said, coming to an abrupt stop so they faced one another. “But royal servants of Egyptians, they would use them for fanning insects and inciting flames to stir a fire.” A mayfly landed on Gemma’s cheek and she brushed it back, giving Richard a pointed look. “Do you see how a fan would be helpful for this? But no.” She firmed her mouth. “Instead, the ton expects a lady to hold it to her mouth and send unspoken messages that can be interpreted one way by a gentleman where she really might mean an altogether different thing, and—” She let her breath out on a slow exhale as tension cloyed at her chest, threatening to suffocate her.
Gemma searched Richard for signs of amusement.
She’d despise him if he made light of her. And yet, there was nothing but a stoic calm to his rugged features as he studied her. Faced with his silence, Gemma clasped her hands together and studied the interlocked digits. “But regardless, Society has their expectations of skills and attributes a lady should possess and, as such, it is ordained.” Expected. Without an appreciation that not all women fit within the same proverbial mold of Societal perfection. That some ladies were invariably horrid singers, with clumsy fingers as it pertained to the pianoforte and embroidering. She sighed and drifted closer to the edge of the patio. “As such, it, as you indicated earlier, was awful. It, as in the recital and my singing.” Gemma stared blankly out at the fountain of Diana and the water that spurted from the stone statue’s arrows.
Richard reached a hand out and captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Her skin tingled from his touch. “The recital was awful, but you, Gemma Reed, were the one thing sincere about the whole event.” His expression grew contemplative. “Perhaps, the sincerest thing about the duke’s entire summer party.”
Charged silence met that powerful declaration. Her breath froze and parting her lips, she looked up at him.
Richard dipped his head and a hint of brandy and honey caressed her lips. No gentleman had a right to that blend of scandalous and sweet upon his breath. Her lids fluttered and she leaned up on tiptoe—
The press of a door handle resonated like a shot in the night. Richard wrenched away with a quiet curse. In one fluid movement, he hefted himself over the edge, landing on his feet with a quiet thump of his boots.
She gasped and peered over the edge as he strode over to the duke’s towering fountains.
Tempted by a Lady's Smile Page 7