Confusion receded and Richard winked. That slight, seductive movement set off another round of fluttering in her belly. “Do you think because I breed horses that I’m unable to dance a waltz?” There was a dry teasing to that inquiry and, yet, layered within that question, hinted a vulnerability that came from his birthright as spare to an heir.
How could he not fully know a man was defined by more than his title, but by his strength of character and wisdom?
“No.” Leaning up on tiptoe, Gemma shrunk the distance between them. “I believe because you haven’t asked me to partner you that you’re unable to dance.”
By God, the lady had shamelessly challenged him.
Nay…
Holding her bold-eyed stare twinkling with mischief and merriment, Gemma Reed had done something more. She’d, in a roundabout way, asked him to dance. At her uncompromising commitment to saying the words she wished to speak and not cowing to Society’s strictures, she rose all the more in his estimation. His throat worked as he accepted that safe description of how the young woman had buffeted his world.
At his continued silence, she waggled her eyebrows in a teasing manner. “Well?”
He could easily make light of her question and present an equally teasing response. He could make his excuses and turn on his heel and run as far and fast as was safe. And given his friend’s revelation last evening of his intention to ask for Gemma’s hand, well, if Richard was at all honorable, he’d reject the unspoken request.
But he was a bastard and a miserable excuse of a friend.
Wordlessly, Richard extended his elbow and Gemma automatically placed her fingertips on his sleeve and allowed him to guide her from the tucked away corner she’d found herself this evening. “So tell me, Gemma,” he began as they took their places among the other dancers. “Do you make it a habit of lingering on the sidelines?” First the copse and now the edge of the ballroom.
She lifted her hand to his shoulder and he placed his at her trim waist. “Yes.” A surge of heat burned through her satin gown, singeing his gloved hand, and he ached to yank the glove off so that small barrier between them was gone.
“Yes, what?” His voice emerged a garbled cough.
With a maddening, but equally sobering, nonchalance, Gemma rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do prefer to hover on the fringe.” As he set them into motion, twirling her in the meticulous, requisite circles, Gemma nibbled her lip. A contemplative glimmer glinted in her brown eyes. “I’ve never craved, nor desired, to be noticed by Society.”
Yet, with her marriage to Westfield and her ascension to the role of duchess, she’d be vaulted forevermore into the realm of Society’s notice. That statement of truth hovered on his lips. To utter that deterrent to her quest for Westfield’s hand would be the height of selfishness. He was a bastard. He was not, however, that much of a selfish bastard.
So instead, he asked a question that only deepened this useless bond between them. “What do you crave?”
At his soft whispered words, her slender body tensed in his arms. She raised stricken eyes to his. “No one has ever asked me that.”
His fingers curled reflexively about her waist and her full lips trembled apart. “Then, that is a great travesty, Gemma Reed.” And there in the midst of the ballroom of his best friend’s home, and Society surrounding them, Richard dipped his head. “Because you matter,” he said gruffly. “You matter more than the match you might make or the approval of Society. You matter because you are a woman so wholly different than any other,” I’ve known. “Here,” he stumbled over that word. Only, she was so very much unlike any he’d ever known. Even Eloise.
A shuddery gasp slipped out and floated to his ears. It was that faintly breathless admission that said nothing and everything, all at the same time. The most significant in that moment being that he was going to hell for wanting her as he did.
The long, graceful column of her throat moved. “I want to be loved,” she said on a tremulous whisper and he went taut. “I want to be loved for who I am by a gentleman who has no desire to change me.” Only a fool would attempt that useless feat. “I want to be with a man who will speak with me about things that matter and who won’t expect me to be nothing more than a pretty arm ornament.”
I could give you all that.
And he would have. If he’d but seen her first. Richard worked his gaze over her face. If he’d been the gentleman three years ago to attend that same blasted ball Westfield had and instead of the marquess rescuing her, it would have been Richard there. Then what would this moment be even now?
But it could not have been him. Because three years ago, he’d pined for the dream of a woman who was never meant to be—not for him. For that useless absorption in another, he’d failed to enter the living and see who was before him.
“You deserve that, Gemma Reed,” he said solemnly. “And I have no doubt you will know that love with a deserving man.” He spoke with a matter-of-fact truth that came from a genuine knowing. Westfield would care for her, and respect her, and not stifle her the way most of the mindless dandies scattered around this very ballroom would.
Gemma opened her mouth, but no words came out. She closed it and then opened it again. “I would speak to you. Alone.” As soon as the scandalous admission left her mouth, her face exploded in color.
His muscles went taut. “Regarding West…what brought you to Somerset,” he swiftly amended. Oh, God, she’d enlist his support with Westfield. If it weren’t cutting him open inside, he would be laughing at the comedy of errors his life had become in five days.
She hesitated and nibbled at her lower lip. “Yes. It is about Westfield.”
“Westfield,” he repeated dumbly. At his audible utterance, Gemma stole a frantic look about.
“Yes.” A wave of coldness invaded every corner of his being, chilling him from the inside out. When Eloise had chosen first an earl and then, after that gentleman’s passing, Richard’s own brother, over Richard, there had been a melancholy regret. For what could have been, but would never be. How could Gemma’s disregard cut to the quick so that he could not even string together two rational thoughts to form a sentence. “In a way,” she swiftly added. “I thought as we’d become…friends, that you would honor me that meeting.”
Friends. “I see,” he said flatly. So they’d moved from needling strangers, to passionate embracers, to…friends. No doubt she wished to ask questions about Westfield and ways that she might win the gentleman’s favor. His lips twisted in a pained grimace. Of course, she could not know that with a too-quick, but not erroneous decision, the marquess had already settled on her for his future duchess. A growl stirred in his chest, until he wanted to toss his head and spit and snarl like an enraged beast. Bloody hell, he wanted so much more. By the prodding in Gemma’s eyes, she expected him to say something and, coward that he was, he wanted to escape. “Meeting in private,” any more than they had, “would not be prudent,” he managed. It was a desperate appeal to the fates to kill a private meeting that entailed her singing the deserved praises of Westfield. For that was vastly safer and preferable than uttering the truth.
Of course, he should know a woman of her courage and determination would not be swayed. “There are some who are worth braving all for.”
Her words drained the breath from his lungs, leaving his chest frozen. By God, she was right. Some were most assuredly worth braving all for. He’d spent the better part of his life burying his own feelings deep. She deserved more than to be settled on. Westfield had three bloody years to see Gemma Reed before him and he’d failed. Seeing others as more worthy than himself, he’d, not unlike Gemma, stood on the sidelines of life. And if he let her do this thing, if he waited for Westfield to decide whether she was “suitable” for his future bride, then Richard would spend the rest of his life hating himself for not having the courage to at least tell her what was in his own heart. It would be a life of constant wondering and regret. “You are correct,” he said quietly.
&nbs
p; She peeked about and then lowered her voice all the more. “But it cannot be here, Richard.” The orchestra drew the dance to a slow stop and Richard had never been more mournful and more grateful for the sudden conclusion of a dance. They stood at the side of the ballroom with rapidly departing couples moving all around them. “Will you meet me in the duke’s library after the next set?”
Chapter 12
For a long moment, Richard said nothing. And for an even longer, more horrifying moment, she expected he’d refuse. It was as he said. If they were discovered or overheard, she would be ruined. And yet, there were surely worse things than being ruined. Never telling the gentleman who’d shown her the wish she’d never known she carried in her heart, that she loved him. That was far worse. Unease roiling in her belly, Gemma fidgeted with the card at her wrist, momentarily bringing Richard’s attention there.
Then he gave a brusque nod. “Of course.”
Her shoulders sagged in involuntarily relief and she let the mortifyingly empty card fall into its respective place. With her profession, Richard would, no doubt, see a fickle lady who’d carried a regard for the man he called friend for three long years. How to make him see that for their brief acquaintance, she’d been more alive, more herself than she’d ever been? In him, she’d found a person who embraced her knowledge and would never stifle her keen need to know. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Dark emotion flared in his eyes, momentarily robbing her of breath and thought. These were the eyes that had the power to delve into a woman’s soul and with his gaze this too-brief moment, she was that woman. He lowered his head so close his breath tickled her cheek and she fluttered her lashes.
“Miss Reed—?”
No! At the unexpected interruption, a string of unladylike curses that would have shocked the king’s guard ran through her head as she and Richard turned as one. Lord Westfield stood there, his usual, affable, charming self. And she’d never been more unmoved.
He looked pointedly to her dance card. “Will you do me the honor of this set?”
From the corner of her eye, she looked to Richard. The harsh planes of his face were set in an inscrutable mask. Those hard lips, that had given her the first taste of passion, and set off this hungering for more in his arms, formed a hard line. “Of course,” Gemma said with forced cheer and held her card out to the marquess who promptly scribbled—She yanked her gaze to his.
As though taking some distant cue from the marquess, the orchestra struck the chords for the next set. A quadrille.
She stretched her smile to the point of breaking as she allowed him to escort her onto the dance floor. She cast a quick, lingering look at Richard, willing him to see the truth she’d only herself just discovered. He stood, hands in his pockets, and rocked on the balls of his feet, eying her and Lord Westfield a long while, and then he strode away.
“Are you enjoying yourself this evening, Gemma?” he murmured as they completed the first steps of the dance.
“Indeed, my lord.”
With his hand at the small of her back, he led her in a small circle, and then they were briefly parted. Gemma used the moment to search out Richard and a pang of disappointment went through her when finding him gone.
The natural steps of the quadrille brought her and the marquess together once more. “You perform the steps of the quadrille with remarkable flourish and grace.” He was everything gracious and polite and flattering and, yet, how empty those compliments rolled from his tongue.
You matter more than the match you might make or the approval of Society. You matter because you are a woman so wholly different than any other.
She could not maintain this oppressive facade, even for the benefit of Polite Society. With every utterance, Lord Westfield’s words stifled her breath and hopes. Is this what life with him would be if they married? Heart hammering wildly, Gemma came to a sudden and jarring stop that brought the other partners in their circle to a stumbling halt. “I…” Aware of the flurry of whispers from the dancers about them, the confusion in the marquess’ eyes, Gemma dropped a curtsy. “Please, excuse me.”
Then, she fled. Gemma moved with a stealth and speed her mother would have lamented and her brother would have applauded. Slipping between the crush of guests, she attracted curious stares before they registered it was merely Miss Reed, whom they’d never felt deserving of that regard. Gemma escaped the ballroom and then with her heart beating a frantic rhythm in time to her footsteps, she tore down the hall. She skidded to a halt outside the duke’s library and fumbled with the door handle before managing to open it and slip inside. Some of the tension seeped from her heaving shoulders as she closed the panel behind her and leaned against it, taking support from the wood surface. She pressed her eyes closed and found a soothing comfort in the dull hum of silence that drowned out the peals of laughter and buzz of whispers she’d left behind.
Gemma took deep, steadying breaths and opened her eyes. She blinked. It took a moment to adjust to the darkened space. The thick scent of leather flooded her senses, calming and reassuring. How many years had she lost herself in the comfort of the pages of books? When she’d been friendless and battling the blunt, unkind honesty of first governesses and then the ton, she’d escaped within her quest for information and learning.
Now, with Richard having stolen into her life and heart, she could acknowledge the truth: how very lonely her life had truly been. None of those inked words could ever properly convey the depth of feeling to be had in—
The door opened and she went sprawling to the floor. Gemma landed hard on her knees with a loud grunt as pain shot up her legs. But through the pain was a thrilling charge of excitement. “R—” Her greeting died a quick death. Oh, God. Disappointment sank like a stone in her belly as the Marquess of Westfield quickly closed the door and rushed to her side.
“Gemma,” he said with a familiarity that really should have existed for years given her friendship with Beatrice, but had only come to be during this week.
“M-My lord,” she stammered, as he set her on her feet with a masculine ease. Except, the moment she was on her feet, the ticking long case clock in the opposite corner of the room punctuated the awkward pall between them. A thousand questions trailed through her mind as she fiddled with her skirts. Why was he here? Why…?
“I take it there is no surprise to you that my father has the expectation I will wed,” he said suddenly with such casualness that she blinked several times.
For surely he’d not said… “My lord?” she blurted.
“Robert,” he corrected. Then, he crossed over to the sideboard at the back wall. His hand hovered over the crystal decanters and then he froze mid-movement. “My father, I take it you know, is dying?”
There was an eerily haunting quality to the marquess’ words; a dark emptiness that hinted at a man in pain, and as he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. But then, he shot a glance over his shoulder; his face a carefully expressionless mask.
“I am so sorry,” she said gently, as some of the uncertainty around him lifted. Having lost her own father years earlier, she knew the pain of loss; particularly a beloved parent. She drifted closer and hovered at his shoulder.
He gave a terse nod and then returned his attention to the neatly arranged bottles. His Adam’s apple bobbed, but then he gave his head a clearing shake and swiped the nearest decanter. “My father expects me to wed before…” The blood in his knuckles drained under the force of his grip upon his glass.
At his silent suffering, Gemma took another step closer. In times of grief and suffering, she’d come to appreciate that no words were needed. There was no need for ramblings or useless platitudes. Oftentimes, the assurance of another’s presence, the truth that one wasn’t alone in their misery, brought a soothing solace.
“Yes,” he cleared his throat. “Well, he expects me to wed,” he finished, neatly omitting the painful particular that had brought the lords and ladies together.
Distractedly, Gemma
brushed her fingertips over the edge of the sideboard. “Isn’t that the way of our world?” she asked softly. “They expect you to make a match even when sadness is sucking at your senses and stealing your thoughts.”
He started, and at those honest words to escape her lips, she retreated a step. Lord Westfield, for even with his earlier offering, she could see him as no one but the marquess, continued to study her in a contemplative manner so that she shifted on her feet under that scrutiny. “It is expected I wed.”
It was expected they all would wed. Granted, a nobleman who would be in possession of one of the oldest, most distinguished titles would be held to even more stringent expectations than a mere viscount’s daughter.
Beatrice’s brother, this man she’d long admired, propped his hip on the edge of the broad, mahogany piece and sipped from his glass of brandy. “If I marry, I would marry a woman I respect and admire. A woman who is loyal and trustworthy.”
At having her own words, those ones she now saw as truly empty of all that mattered—love and passion…heat burned her neck. She cringed. What must Richard have thought when she made her confession to him earlier that week?
Lord Westfield took another swallow of his drink and then set the glass down with a soft thunk. “I admire and respect you, Gemma.”
Gemma’s world came to a jarring, screeching halt. For what did he truly know about her? Just as she’d known so very little about him. “Me?” she blurted. Oh, he was a devoted brother and a kind man. Time had proven that. But did he enjoy kippers or roast? Did he prefer hazard to faro? Or did he avoid those games of chance all together? The little pieces that made a person who they were, she couldn’t even venture a guess, where the marquess was concerned.
The ghost of a smile played on his lips. “You are surprised.”
Gemma smoothed her palms over the fabric of her skirts and picked around her thoughts for a suitable reply. After all, this moment was one that for three years she would have traded her left smallest finger for. Now, she gave thanks that no rash offering had been made or she’d be a finger short. Incapable of a suitable reply, she gave him none. He shot a hand out and brushed it along her cheek.
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