“But it’s his uncle’s birthday!”
“Ravenhurst assured me that his uncle would understand the sacrifices one makes to acquire a decent horse,” he said, in tones of utmost satisfaction. “And my stables are legendary.”
Of course they would be, Jilly admitted sourly. He was a damned duke. But she still couldn’t help being just the tiniest bit touched that he had sacrificed a horse—when good horseflesh was so very dear—simply to secure her company.
She heard her voice tremble awkwardly through the inquiry. “You gave up a horse—a good horse—just so I would accompany you to the theatre tonight?”
For a moment he looked startled, as if she had caught him off-guard. He blinked, and his hands settled at his sides, his eyes going distant for just a fraction of a second. “I did,” he said, almost hesitantly. “Of course I did.” But his brows had drawn together, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
It wasn’t quite regret, but it was something approximating stupefaction, and he stared at her in utter bewilderment, as if she were somehow responsible for it.
Uncomfortable, she cleared her throat. “I’m sure Robert will understand that you have changed your mind,” she said, hoping to ease the tension. “No one would expect you to honor such an agreement.”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he said slowly, still staring at her with that perplexed expression. “And I will honor it. I was just…considering.”
“Considering what?” She swallowed hard, ill at ease with the intensity of his gaze.
For a moment he said nothing. He dragged a hand through his disheveled hair and broke his gaze from hers at last as a muscle ticked in his cheek. “Lord Ravenhurst was bought too cheaply,” he said, his voice a full octave lower than it had been. “I would have given him every horse in my stables.”
∞∞∞
Christ, James thought as he readjusted his cravat for perhaps the tenth time, staring into the cheval glass placed in the corner of his bedchamber. He was due to stop by the Ravenhursts’ townhouse on his way to retrieve Jilly for their trip to the theatre, but somehow he had been struck with a fit of nerves to rival a girl before her first ball.
It had not occurred to him, while he had been in the midst of securing a proper chaperone, that Jilly ought to have been the one desperate for his company, rather than he for hers. It had not occurred to him at all—at least, not until she had posed that single, devastating question, her hand pressed over her heart, something fragile and very nearly hopeful swimming in her clear green eyes.
You gave up a horse—a good horse—just so I would accompany you to the theatre tonight?
Yes. He had. Without regret or any sort of second thoughts at all, because he had valued the pleasure of her company beyond price. He could have waited two weeks. But he hadn’t wanted to. He would have sacrificed the whole of his stables to secure her, and he would have counted himself the richer for it.
Because he liked her. Christ. He wasn’t supposed to like her. He hadn’t wanted to like her. It was damned inconvenient. But he did like her, and that was a serious problem.
He couldn’t even truly say what it was, in particular, that he liked. Of course, she was beautiful. No, that was too tame, too trite to encapsulate her. When she blushed, she was radiant. And she blushed so charmingly—not the delicate, demure flush he would have expected from this year’s crop of golden-haired, peaches-and-cream complexioned debutantes, but a wild, vivid, furious sort of blush that started at her throat and swept up her face until it blended into her hairline. He had found it more affecting than it had any right to be, that glorious flush that she had demanded he assist her in obscuring from the rest of Lady Northrupp’s guests.
Then she had laughed, and he had found himself unwillingly enthralled yet again. He had liked her laugh before, but it had been a pale shadow of the honest one, which was rich and warm and flowed over him like honey. It had surprised the both of them, he thought—she had seemed shocked by it, as if she did not recognize it, and he wondered how long it had been since she had laughed like that.
About three years, he expected. And he would doubtless take it from her again, when he was finished with her.
It was a sobering thought, and it hit him rather like a punch to the gut. It might very well kill him to be responsible for smothering that laughter into submission once again. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. She deserved happiness.
But Westwood. The thought slipped in, needling him, shoving aside the brief attack of conscience. Gloriana had also deserved happiness, and Westwood had stolen it from her like the selfish, feckless bastard he was. It had been Westwood’s mistake to refuse to atone for his sins, his mistake to leave his beautiful sister alone and vulnerable to men like James.
It wasn’t right or fair that Jilly would suffer for her brother’s crimes. But life seldom was fair, and she knew that perhaps better than most. If she made the monumental mistake of falling in love with James, then she would have earned her heartbreak for not being a better judge of character.
This lesson she would never forget.
Unfortunately, neither would he.
Chapter Twelve
Jilly did not expect that Nora would prove to be the strictest of chaperones, but there was no way that Aunt Marcheline would know that. Everyone approved of Nora; she was known to be a perfectly proper young matron of good reputation, who had married a fine, upstanding husband, also of good reputation.
Only Jilly knew that Robert not only permitted but encouraged his wife’s vices—the three of them had, on more than one occasion, whiled away the hours playing cards, drinking whiskey to excess, and occasionally indulging in one or two of Robert’s cigars. Despite his honorable reputation, in private Robert could be said to be a bit of a reformer, and found it abominable that what was prized in a man was considered reprehensible in a woman.
And so it was not a surprise to find, when she was handed into James’ carriage, Nora looking exasperated, and Robert looking speculative.
“What do you think, Jilly, Hypatia or Dionysus?” he inquired.
Caught off-guard, Jilly sank into her seat beside Nora, facing forward in the carriage. “Er—Hypatia, I should think,” she said. “Better a sensible woman than a dissipated Olympian.” She set her reticule in her lap and crossed her hands over it, cognizant of the blank stares she had received following her pronouncement. “What, precisely, are we discussing?”
“Racehorses,” Nora said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Ravenhurst,” James put in, “is presently deciding which horse he will elect to relieve me of.”
“Oh,” Jilly said, and then because she knew not what else to say to that, “I see.” Robert had subsided into thoughtful consideration, his brow furrowed and his hand tucked beneath his chin, and so she asked. “Is it truly a matter of so much deliberation? I must admit I know little of horse racing.”
Nora gave an anguished groan, and James dropped his head back against the seat.
“Deliberation is critical,” Robert said. “Hypatia is out of Matchem’s line, and Dionysus out of Eclipse’s.”
Jilly blinked, turning to Nora, whose face had gone carefully blank. James, too, was doing level best to appear unaffected. Presumably both had been inundated with more speculation on Robert’s potential new acquisition than either had been prepared to deal with. “I see,” Jilly said, even though she did not. Horse racing had never been among her interests.
“You see, Jilly,” Robert began, “breeding is everything in a racehorse.”
Nora rested her forehead against the side of the carriage, subtly banging her head against it. James covered his mouth with his hand, but his shoulders shook in amusement and his eyes were fixed straight upon the roof of the carriage. And for the next several minutes, Robert pontificated on the virtues of each line, while Jilly could only murmur polite noises of acknowledgment.
By the time the carriage reached the theatre, Jilly knew more about racehorses
than she had ever wanted, and Robert showed no signs of slowing down. As James assisted her down from the carriage, she looked him in the eye and murmured, “Help.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse. There was a wicked glint in his eyes that suggested that he was only too pleased by the chaos he had wrought. But as Nora and Robert both alighted onto the pavement beside them, James lifted his head and, without even politely awaiting the end of Robert’s sentence, said, “Ravenhurst, I will give you both horses if you will kindly shut up.”
Robert shut up so fast that it was very nearly comical.
Well. It hadn’t been quite what Jilly had had in mind, but it had been effective. But she swallowed down her amusement and placed her hand neatly in the crook of the arm that James had offered her. The pavement was crowded with theatre-goers, many of whom openly gawked at them as they sailed into the building. For once Jilly did not resent the speculation that surrounded them. Perhaps she did not wish to marry, but it was quite nice, actually, to be viewed as more than a spinster. She had accepted that there would always be those who would pity her for having failed to secure a husband, but she had chafed under the assumption that the fault had been hers for failing to snag one instead of it having been her choice. At least now they would know that it hadn’t been a lack of attention but a lack of interest on her part.
An attendant greeted them at the door and swept them away from the crowds heading to the floor seats up into the section reserved for those that held the coveted private boxes. Jilly had, of course, been a frequent visitor to the theatre. While her brother had not kept the private box that their parents had purchased, she had numerous acquaintances with their own boxes, and so she was no stranger to them. But she had never been in a private box that had ever come close to matching James’ for opulence. They passed through the private door edged with gilt and then through heavy damask curtains, ostensibly to block the light from the corridor should the door be opened during the performance. The box itself was smaller than the others she had been in, seating perhaps a maximum of eight, but it was lushly carpeted and set with four large, comfortable chairs right at the front. Sconces on the walls contained lamps that had not yet been lit. A small table sat between the two center chairs, upon which had been set a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice, surrounded by four fluted glasses.
“I forgot to ask,” Jilly said as James guided her to a seat, “what are we seeing?”
“Romeo and Juliet,” James replied. “A bit overplayed, perhaps, but it ought to be entertaining all the same. Careful, there.” He swept a set of opera glasses from her chair and passed them over to her as she sat. She accepted them with a laugh, smoothing the skirts of her sage green velvet gown.
“What would I need these for?” she asked. “We’re so close to the stage already.” The box was just to the left of the stage, much closer than she had ever been before.
James plucked the champagne from its bucket, gesturing to Nora and Robert to sit as he began to pour. “Oh, hardly anyone comes to the theatre to watch the production,” he said. “They come to see and be seen. You’ll have a hard time peering into the other boxes without the glasses.”
“I would never be so rude,” she said, with a little offended sniff, tipping her nose up at a disdainful angle.
James grinned. “Perhaps not, but everyone else would. I can count half a dozen opera glasses trained on us even now.”
Jilly felt a flush climbing into her cheeks, and it only seemed to make James’ grin grow wider. She reached for a glass of champagne, very nearly toppling it to the floor in her embarrassment.
James reached for a glass of his own, and said near her ear, “It’s why I haven’t lit the lamps. No need to make it easy for them. At least we’ll have a bit of privacy.”
Her eyes flitted to Nora and Robert, seated just a few feet away, incredulous.
He shrugged. “Well, as much privacy as can reasonably be expected,” he said. “But then again, I don’t believe Lady Ravenhurst is precisely the most diligent of chaperons.”
Of course she wasn’t. Nora wanted nothing better than for Jilly to throw caution to the wind, grasp at the possibility of a new love with both hands, and tumble headlong into the same bliss that Nora enjoyed with her own husband. And if the only way that it might be accomplished was for Nora to be less than attentive to her responsibilities as a chaperone, well, she was willing to make that sacrifice.
“Robert is diligent,” she muttered, as a last-ditch effort to throw him off.
James took the seat beside her and considered that. “You might be correct,” he said. “But I can manage him, I think.”
“Oh?” She took a sip of her champagne, let the crisp bubbles slide down her throat. “How?”
“Horses,” he said, and he slanted her a wicked smile, full of teeth and promise. “My stables really are beyond compare.”
∞∞∞
Despite the talent of the actors and the masterful production that had ensued, Jilly could not say that anything had captured her attention so much as the man seated beside her. She felt the threat of his presence like a knife at her back, despite the fact that he had maintained an entirely appropriate distance, that he did no more than sit silently beside her, by all appearances watching the performance and enjoying his glass of champagne.
Neither Nora nor Robert had seemed to notice anything amiss at all. They were both engrossed in the play, though Nora seemed to be glancing around the theatre every so often with her opera glasses, pausing to wave at acquaintances she glimpsed among the crowd.
By the time the intermission between the first and second act arrived, Jilly was quite certain that James had something planned. She didn’t know how she knew, but she felt that she had learned him well enough in their brief acquaintance that he certainly hadn’t wished only for her company at the theatre. He wanted something more, and, as the curtain dropped, signifying the end of the first act, she had the feeling that she was about to find out what it was.
It wasn’t anticipation that fluttered in her chest, surely.
Nora climbed to her feet with a giddy giggle, having consumed more than her fair share of the chilled champagne. She snagged Robert’s hand in hers, pulling him toward the door. “Come,” she said. “It’s the interlude; time to go visiting!”
Robert, conscious of Jilly and James, hung back, resisting his wife’s tugging on his arm.
“Yes,” Jilly said, in what she hoped was a cheerful voice, as she rose to join them. “That sounds lovely, I—”
James waylaid her with a hand on her shoulder, stopping her when she would have caught up with them. “You go ahead,” he said, his voice low and velvet soft. It did not invite argument, and whatever protest Jilly might have made died in the face of the intent scrawled across his features.
Robert hesitated. “We’re chaperoning,” he said. “We can’t leave you alone—”
Nora fluttered her free hand dismissively. “It’s a theatre, Robert,” she said. “What mischief could happen? Really.”
By Robert’s expression, Jilly assumed rather a lot—certainly more than Nora had considered.
James’ hand tightened on her shoulder, but when he spoke, she knew that his words weren’t for her. “Lady’s Promise,” he said.
Robert whipped round at once, allowing Nora to pull him through the curtains toward the door. “See you, Jilly,” he called. And then as if to himself, he muttered, “It’s only fifteen minutes. What could happen in fifteen minutes?”
Jilly heard the door open and close, and the furor of the patrons milling around on the theatre floor only feet below them faded to white noise. James’ hand on her shoulder burned even through the sleeve of her gown. And it continued to burn as he slid it down her arm, down to her wrist, where he wrapped his fingers.
“Come,” he said. “We can’t stay here. We’re too visible.”
She heard her breath whistle through her lips, at once relieved and disappointed. He pushed aside
the curtain, holding it up to allow her to pass through and letting it drop behind them. In the three feet of space between the door and the curtain, it was too dark—only a sliver of light from the corridor slipped through beneath the door, and he was standing too close. She thought about extracting her wrist from his grip, but suspected that he might not relinquish it easily. Instead she reached out with her other hand to grasp the doorknob. It turned, but the door did not open. She tugged harder, bemused.
“It’s stuck,” she said. “I can’t—”
A laugh, warm and rich, tumbled over her. “It’s not stuck.”
Too close. He was much too close. She felt his breath above her ear, felt the press of his chest against her back.
“It must be stuck,” she heard herself say, in a flustered little voice. “It won’t open.” She gave the handle a tug to demonstrate.
“Jilly,” he said, a hint of amused condescension in his voice. “It’s not stuck. I’m holding it.”
“But why?” In the muted light, she looked up and saw the outline of his hand pressed against the door high above her head. “Robert and Nora—”
“Robert and Nora,” he said, “are kindly providing us with a bit of much-needed privacy.” His hand slipped down the door. His fingers pried hers away from the handle, and she heard the sharp snick of the lock turning.
Her breath caught in her throat. “We—we don’t need privacy,” she said, alarmed by the high pitch of her voice, alarmed by the gooseflesh that had risen at the back of her neck, where she could feel the heat of his body behind her.
“I beg to differ.” His voice was pitched low, the sort of soothing tone that she imagined might be used with a skittish animal.
Her breath whistled through her lips. Her palms turned clammy in her gloves, and her fingers curled reflexively, as if her gloves might slip straight off her arms. She tried to tell herself that it was fear that had caused it, fear that had put the tension in her shoulders, fear that made her breath catch and shudder. But as his hands crept over her shoulders, she knew it for a lie.
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