“Barbara, please,” he said under his breath as their cloaks and overcoats were taken by one of the uniformed girls who worked there.
“You’re here early today,” she continued. “You must have some business to attend to?”
“You know I haven’t. I came to speak to you,” he said, growing frustrated by her distant tone.
“Very well, Sir, if you don’t mind talking and walking at the same time. As I, on the other hand, do have things to attend to this morning.”
She turned on her heel and went off down a corridor. Jeffrey was obliged to trail after her, following her about like a nervous puppy. He might have once praised her for her sprightliness and lightness of foot, but at the moment she seemed to be using it against him, moving quickly so that he had to hurry along behind her like a fool.
“Well, last night was a disaster,” he began, thinking he might as well dispense with the formalities.
“Was it?” she asked with an air of indifference. She had led him into a laundry room off the kitchen, and she was gathering up a great bundle of washed sheets. “It went about as well as could be expected, given the circumstances. I trust you understand why I could not cancel the dinner altogether, though I do apologize for the inconvenience it must have been to you.”
“Inconvenience?” he hissed. They were not alone; two women were working in the kitchen, apparently hurrying to have breakfast ready before the children awoke. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Your mother seemed to enjoy herself at least. You ought to build her an aviary, you know, she was quite jealous of ours.”
“She doesn’t give a damn about any birds,” Jeffrey said under his breath.
“Captain Pemberton, I can make allowances for you based on your time away from society while you are at sea, but I must insist that you guard your tongue under this roof,” she said, decidedly not lowering her voice for the sake of the conspicuous eavesdroppers nearby.
Well there’s a change then. You didn’t seem to mind my unguarded tongue under this roof in the past.
He swallowed the bitter remark. She had a right to be angry at him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching her shuffling through the sheets.
“Deciding which of the linens are still serviceable and which to replace.”
“Replace them all,” he said, pulling a sheet from her hands. “You’ve got the money.”
“Unlike some people, we don’t like to be careless in our actions here,” she spat, pulling the sheet back out of his hands.
“Careless with…what on earth are you on about? My Lady, if you wish to fight, I will grant you the opportunity, but I must insist that it is done in private,” he said.
Finally, she raised her eyes to him. Her eyes were cold, and her face betrayed no emotion. “I really don’t think—”
“Please.” He put as much emotion into the simple word as he could, meeting her hard gaze stubbornly.
She raised her chin. “Very well.”
Chapter 27
Barbara couldn’t look at him without remembering what she had let him do. She couldn’t see his hands without remembering where they’d been. She couldn’t look at his mouth without remembering how it had tasted. Her shame and wounded pride made her shoulders tremble, but she still ached for him to touch her again.
Walking with him toward the drawing room again, she tried to steel herself. She knew what was coming. He was going to play the gentleman and let her down easy, and she would have to stand there and take it, playing the part of the fool who showed her hand too soon.
When they went into the room, she avoided the spot where she had wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, foolishly, brazenly.
How stupid I was, throwing myself at a man who had no interest in me.
He closed the door behind him.
“Is that wise?” she asked, looking at the door. “People will talk.” Better to think she was wary of gossip rather than realize that what she was really afraid of was the weakness of her own resolve. Even then, despite her anger at him, her fingers tingled with the desire to reach for him.
“I haven’t known you to be particularly mindful of what others say,” he said. The edge was gone from his voice, now he sounded weary. His shoulders were slightly slumped and he hovered near the door looking unsure of himself.
“If you have come here to lecture me about my impropriety, Sir, there is no need. I assure you that I’ve been castigating myself quite soundly ever since we last parted,” she held on to the back of a chair.
“I haven’t come to lecture you, Barbara,” he said, exasperatedly running his hand through his hair. “I must say I quite liked you better when you were misty-eyed at the door where I left you that day. This defensive squawking is most unbecoming of a lady.”
“Squa—Defensive??” Barbara stammered, her pitch rising. “I’m not being defensive! What cause have I to be defensive? You…you’re the one who let me…let me make a fool of myself knowing you didn’t care a whit about me! You took advantage…you tricked me!”
“I see you’ve managed to convince yourself of my complete ruthlessness in my absence. Tell me, is your conscience clear?” he said, taking a step closer to her. She took an equal step backwards. She was angry, her hands shaking, but even then she knew that it was a fine line between anger and desire, and she was liable to cross it unknowingly.
“Do you deny it? Why have you come back here, anyway? Did you get bored and now you’re hoping for a repeat performance? Well I—”
“That’s not, actually, why I came here, My Lady,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Though you really need to learn not to tempt long-deprived gentlemen with such offers. Surely even such a sweet innocent like yourself is aware of the effect that long months at sea away from the company of women does to a man.” He took another step closer, but this time she had no recourse to step away. Her back was against a wall. His voice had pitched lower, and a wolfish look had come across his face. “Yes, I daresay you knew all about that little fact of navy life when you brought me to your hidden grove. I didn’t take advantage of anything, little minx. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Barbara’s face grew hot and she trembled. “Oh, I could slap you,” she hissed.
“I wish you would, darling,” he said, coming ever nearer. “I’m done with your blowing hot and cold. One minute you love me, the next minute you can’t even bring yourself to look at me. Let’s have it out once and for all, eh? Show me how you really feel.”
Barbara froze. He was near enough to touch now, towering over her. She didn’t know how she really felt. Her pulse was racing, with anger, yes, but also at the mere animal presence of him.
“You look at me and see a broken man, too weak and desperate for affection to fight back against being your plaything. Your practice man.” He leaned forward, placing his palms on the wall behind her on either side of her head. Barbara stiffened, her heart racing as her breath caught in her throat. “Well I may be desperate, Barbara. But I’m not weak, and I won’t let you toy with me without consequence.”
“Good heavens, you are stupid,” she breathed.
His jaw twitched and anger flashed in his eyes.
Barbara rolled her shoulders back, raising her chin to meet his gaze. “So, punish me then. If I’m such a heartless tease, show me these consequences you speak of. Ruin me, here in this room. On the couch, if you like. Or the table. Whatever you prefer, I’d be satisfied either way. Then you’ll be forced to marry me. I’ll tell my father. Why, I’ll even tell your mother. You’ll have no way out.”
“Barbara,” he growled, taking her by the jaw. “Don’t tempt me.”
She laughed breathlessly. “Can’t you see that’s what I want? I love you. I want to be your wife.”
“You’re lying.”
Barbara rose onto her toes, kissing him tenderly on the lips. He didn’t move, but she could feel the tension in every muscle of his body. “Try me,” she whis
pered.
* * *
Jeffrey breathed in the scent of her perfume as she kissed him. He felt as though his inner being had been set ablaze. Hope warred with doubt in his mind, all while his body screamed for a release of the awful pressure that had been building in him ever since their first kiss.
Her invitation was more tempting than he cared to admit. He could call her bluff. It would be easy. A simple lift of her skirts and the completion of what they’d started those days ago and she would be his whether she truly loved him or not.
Images flashed through his mind in rapid succession. Barbara smiling in a wedding gown. Barbara’s warm body snug against him in his bed. Barbara cradling a chubby, smiling babe. Barbara welcoming him home.
“I can’t bear another disappointment,” he whispered tremulously. All of his bravado and the frenetic energy of his anger was gone. He was exhausted and wished only to bury his face in her neck and lean against the strength that seemed to radiate from her.
“Oh Jeffrey,” she said, kissing him again on the lips, then the cheek, then tilting his head down with her hands to kiss his forehead. “Dear, sweet Jeffrey, who did this to you, hm? Who made you think that you were unlovable?”
The warm, hopeful images of marriage with her were replaced with another set of images. Memories now, of Lady Lydia’s look of horror when she had seen his face, of his mother looking anywhere but at him while he writhed in the bed after the fire, of a hundred polite aversions of feminine eyes as he moved through society.
“Whoever it was,” she continued, “they were wrong. Perfectly wrong. Oh, please let me love you. I’ll be good to you. I’ll be whoever you want me to be, just let me be your wife. I could never want anyone else now.”
He rested his forehead against hers, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her warm body against him.
“I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are,” he murmured.
“So, you do love me a little?” she asked, her small fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
Jeffrey, in his life, had dashed into burning buildings. He had crossed swords with men intent on killing him, had heard the whistle of cannonballs inches from his head. He had clutched onto the bow of a ship as it pitched perilously in storms that could only be described as biblical. And yet, the danger had never truly frightened him. Loss of life had never felt like any great threat.
Now, for the first time, he was afraid. To put his heart into the hands of this lady, this maddening, challenging, tempting, beautiful, generous, loving lady, felt like the greatest risk of his life.
And yet, there was no other option but to chance it.
“Yes, Barbara,” he said, cradling her face. “Yes, I love you. More than a little. I’ll make you my wife, if you promise to love me.”
She didn’t respond except to kiss him again. Her lips were salty with tears that had fallen down her cheeks and he kissed them ravenously. He pulled her against him, as tight as he dared. He gripped her as if to a lifeline. It still felt like folly to hope, and yet there she was, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and meeting the urgency of his kiss.
My wife. My wife. My wife.
The words had never been so heavy with meaning.
For years he had shut up his heart, refusing to even consider that such a life could be for him. He’d never known that by shutting up his heart like that he had let it fester in an ever-worsening longing. Now that the door had been opened, it came rushing out of him with such force that he wondered how he had ever lived without this life-giving hope.
When he broke the kiss, she gasped quietly. He could feel her breasts against him, rising with each shallow breath. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wet, and her lips plump and reddened with the ferocity of his kiss. He ached for her. Now.
My wife. Mine.
“You must speak to my father,” she said, clutching his shoulders.
He nodded. “Yes. I will.”
“Now, please,” a breathless smile was working its way slowly onto her lips.
“Right, of course,” he said, but he found that he couldn’t seem to take his hands off of her. He pulled down on her fichu, pressing his lips to the warm hollow of her neck and down to her collarbone. She sighed, letting her head fall back.
“Now, Jeffrey. Get out of here before we make a mistake.”
He straightened up, every fiber of his being screaming at him to lift her up onto the table and claim what was his.
“Go,” she breathed. The desire in her eyes made him wild, but he obeyed her, stepping backwards toward the door.
“I’m going.” He put his hand on the doorknob.
“Good,” she laughed.
“I love you,” he said again, testing the words that tasted so foreign and yet so right.
She laughed again, running across the room to throw her arms around him once more and kiss him. “I love you.”
He grinned against her lips, his heart soaring. Never had he felt a more pleasant weight hanging from his neck.
“I can’t leave unless you let me go,” he laughed.
“Hurry,” she said, dropping back onto her heels and clasping her hands behind her back as if to restrain herself.
And hurry he did, all the way to her father.
Chapter 28
Barbara was engaged and the world was in tumult. At least that’s how it felt. All at once, everything changed. The gossip in the town was no longer about her depressing lack of prospects, but about the impending marriage. Barbara fought not to listen to any of it, especially since much of it was centered around her betrothed and his mysterious scars.
Engagement did bring with it certain privileges that easily outweighed the negative aspects, though. Now, Jeffrey could freely visit her at home, and her father would discreetly retire to another room, leaving her and Jeffrey to themselves.
One bright afternoon, Jeffrey arrived shortly after lunch, his hat in his hands. Even now, there was always something shy about him as he hovered in the doorway to the parlor. He walked into the room carefully, as though he were afraid that if he moved too quickly that the spell would be broken. She knew that he was still suspicious of her, still somewhat disbelieving of her love for him.
With time, she would make him believe her fully.
“Come sit down, darling, I was just thinking about you,” she said sweetly.
His lip quirked and he did as she said, settling onto the settee next to her, close enough that their knees touched. He leaned forward, placing his fingertips on her cheek as he kissed her. This, at least, he was not shy about. He was always kissing her, light brushes against the back of her hand or her cheek while in public, tenderer kisses on the lips when alone. She never grew tired of it, always leaning into his embraces, inviting more and more.
“What were you thinking about?” he asked.
“I was thinking about my brother and sisters, and what they will think of you. They’ll be here within the next day, you know.”
“How could I forget?” he asked. He was being nonchalant about the family dinner that was planned, but she could see that he was nervous about it.
“I’m sure they will adore you, Jeffrey. I’m not worried about that. I was just thinking…” she looked down at her hands, growing somber.
“What?” he asked quietly. “What’s bothering you, then? If you aren’t worried about what your family will think of me?”
“It’s silly. I know it is. I just can’t stop thinking…how I wish my mother were here.” She sniffed. She tried not to, but it was futile to try to hide her feelings around Jeffrey. He’d have been able to figure them out even if she hadn’t had tears in her eyes.
“She was alive for both of my sisters’ weddings. I know it’s petulant of me, but I just feel like it isn’t fair. My father does his best to be both mother and father to me, but it isn’t the same.”
Jeffrey slid his hand into hers, squeezing it lightly. “Tell me about her.”
Barbara looked u
p at him and he wiped a tear off her cheek. She gave him a watery smile. “She would have like you. I know she would have. She was a romantic. You know, she is the reason why my whole family has married for love. She came from a poor family, but she captured my father’s heart and became a Duchess. My father, he came from, shall we say, aristocratic stock. He would be an entirely different type of gentleman now were it not for her.”
“Your father is a good gentleman.” Jeffrey said gently.
She nodded.
“He told me that, out of all his children, you are the most like her,” Jeffrey continued.
A Seductive Lady For The Scarred Earl (Steamy Regency Romance) Page 19