скачать книгу бесплатно
He was offended and furious, but at least she’d hidden her instinctive horror at the idea of him taking a lovely and obliging female to wife. This was exactly the sort of scene she’d warned herself against at sixteen, but could it be she hadn’t buried the romantic idiot she’d been then deeply enough? If she was about to watch some innocent succumb to his quick wits, spectacular looks and powerful masculine aura, then grown-up Jessica Pendle had better steel herself until she was as far from her immature self as Herefordshire was from Hispaniola.
‘I’m already all that your duchess will not be,’ she stated flatly, ‘so why bother?’
‘And I shudder to think how dangerous you could be, Princess, if you ever let yourself off the role of martyr for long enough to find out,’ he replied enigmatically.
‘True,’ Lady Pendle interrupted with a sage nod that made Jessica flash her mother a furious look instead of him.
‘At times like this, I should be able to rely on my mother for support,’ she told her with as much dignity as she could manage.
‘You will always have that, my love,’ Lady Pendle replied, ‘but it’s high time you tried out your own wings.’
‘Even if they’re broken?’ she was shocked into protesting a little too revealingly.
‘Nonsense, you always did refine too much on that damaged ankle of yours,’ Jack told her impatiently.
‘And you have rarely been more wrong, your Grace,’ she informed him sourly.
‘Not as wrong as you are if you let a few featherheaded fools make you see yourself as less than you are. You’re as idiotic as they are if you have,’ he said bluntly.
‘Am I indeed?’ she asked regally.
After enduring years of hot rooms, laboured conversation and pitying looks, with the occasional glimpse of his Grace the Duke of Dettingham in flight from a pack of eager young ladies to enliven her evenings, she was very familiar with her limitations. She refused to accept his opinion of her status from a man who only had to hint he wanted to marry to be chased by every eligible female in the British Isles.
‘Yes,’ he said, as if in no doubt about his omnipotence and her stupidity.
‘At least I don’t think it’s my prerogative to dictate the lives of others.’
‘Such heat, Miss Pendle—could it be that my faults are more important to you than you’re prepared to admit?’ he asked slyly.
‘No, and you’ve got so many it would take me a lifetime to list them all,’ she informed him, fixing a bland smile to her lips to disguise her ire from spectators.
‘And how well you would get on with my grandmother, if only she was able to attend this little affair Aunt Melissa is organising so diligently on my behalf,’ he said.
Recalling how much she disliked the dictatorial and often downright rude Dowager Duchess of Dettingham, Jessica would have laughed at the thought of them agreeing upon any topic under the sun, if his words didn’t echo her mother’s earlier ones and make her feel like crying instead.
‘Then there’s someone else in this world who refuses to take you at face value,’ she defended herself haughtily.
‘And such a handsome face it is as well, my boy,’ Lady Pendle intervened with a repressive look for her daughter that spoke of what she might say when they were alone. ‘Tell your Aunt Melissa that of course we shall come and, if I can drag Pendle away from his acres and our dear Rowena, he will lend you his support as well.’
‘Thank you, my lady, I am truly grateful,’ he said and Jessica felt an unladylike urge to kick him on his nearest perfect and lordly ankle, just to watch him limp away for once, instead of feeling so ungraceful in her own departure, which her mother signalled at last by rising to her feet and accepting Jack’s arm when he declared it his opportunity to escape as well.
‘I shall look forward to welcoming you to Ashburton once again then, Princess,’ he murmured by way of farewell as he handed them into their town carriage with the effortless ease that somehow made Jessica even more furious.
‘You won’t notice I exist among so many beautiful and accomplished young ladies,’ she replied ungraciously.
‘Oh, I always notice you, Princess,’ he said as if he should be congratulated.
Then he stood back with an insufferably superior smile on his handsome face as the footman slammed the door. Waving a careless farewell, Jack sauntered off into the night without so much as a walking cane to protect himself with, probably whistling carelessly as if to actually invite any waiting footpad to make the attempt to rob him as he went, Jessica decided crossly.
‘If you always kept your word as diligently as you did just now, your father and I would soon be forced to disown you,’ her mother told her acidly.
‘What do you mean? I always live up to my promises,’ Jessica protested, stung by the genuine anger in her mother’s voice.
‘You swore you would be civil to Jack not half an hour ago and you have just treated him to a display of childish temper I can only categorise as shrill and disagreeable.’
‘I wonder why I feel this compulsion to go to bed without supper?’ Jessica asked as lightly as she could. Part of her knew her mother was right; she had let the odd feeling that Jack marrying might rock her own world to its foundations overtake good manners. ‘I will try to keep a curb on my tongue from now on,’ she promised and hoped she could hold to it for the two weeks of Jack’s house party.
Jack Seaborne was probably too much of a gentleman to hold her ill temper against her and she didn’t matter enough for him to bother holding a grudge. He wasn’t the sort of man who nursed a slight anyway and after this visit they would not meet other than by chance or at the odd dutiful occasion. She had seven brothers and sisters and he had five first cousins—four if you excluded Rich—and a legion of more distant connections, so there would be christenings and engagement balls in common with the Duke and Duchess of Dettingham, but Miss Pendle, the maiden aunt, could fade into the background until the great left the good to their celebrations.
Of course she pitied whichever deluded girl let herself be blinded by the allure of the handsome Duke of Dettingham to the true Jack Seaborne underneath. He had a tyrannical will and an unbending determination to run the lives of those around him for their own good. No doubt he would make the poor child a very uncomfortable husband, but watching him court his bride would not be an ordeal, more another duty to get through before she could retire to the country and breed pigs, or maybe finance canals and steam engines and make a name for herself as an eccentric lady of means.
‘What more could a mother ask than your promise to try to be civil for a whole two weeks?’ Lady Pendle mused ironically and Jessica shifted uncomfortably on the well-upholstered cushions as she reviewed her behaviour over the last hour or so. ‘And you are not to play the old maid at Ashburton when the family will expect you to enjoy yourself as usual. I know the place is lovely at any time of year, but I have always found it especially so during high summer,’ her mother offered, as if the natural and contrived beauty of the setting ought to console Jessica for renouncing the right to be rude to her host whenever the fancy took her.
‘I always enjoy visiting Aunt Melissa and the children,’ Jessica said.
‘Indeed, it will be almost like old times,’ Lady Pendle went on happily.
‘Almost,’ Jessica murmured, recalling those days when she had adored Jack so devotedly she had wanted to follow him about like a yipping puppy.
Then she had never doubted they would be friends for ever and maybe even more and had put him in place of the hero when she’d dreamt of fairytale marriages and happy ever afters, before she’d raced off into the chaos of a summer storm one day on her father’s favourite hunter and lamed them both for ever. Best not to recall past follies, she told herself and concluded she and Jack would have been the worst-matched pair in the turbulent history of the Seabornes. A summer visit to Ashburton would make a pleasant interlude before she found her true purpose in life, but it would prove no more significant than tonight’s ball or any other social occasion she had attended and then forgotten of late.
Chapter Two
When she saw Jack strolling in the Park the next day, Jessica suddenly realised why she felt so uneasy about this projected house party of his. She caught sight of him long before he spotted the Pendle barouche and idly wondered at her ability to pick the Duke of Dettingham out from the crowd. He looked so alone, despite the chattering crowds and cheerful hails of his cronies. She marvelled at how many eager, beckoning looks the society beauties sent him in the hope of catching his notoriously discerning eye, despite the scurrilous stories they went on whispering about him behind their fans and their débutante sisters simply sat and simpered in the prescribed fashion.
It occurred to her that he looked solitary, although he could hardly be more at ease with himself, because she expected Richard to be nearby whenever she encountered Jack even now. The cousins had been inseparable as boys and so often together as young men she had come to think of them as brothers in arms. Jess suddenly realised why Jack intended to marry and gave a shocked gasp that she had to turn into a sneeze to disguise. He hoped his scapegrace heir would come home once he realised Jack was wed and there was little risk of him inheriting the family strawberry leaves. A worse reason for marriage evaded her and she wanted to scream denial over the chatter of the assembled throng.
‘Idiot,’ she muttered under her breath, as her gaze dwelt broodingly on the manly form ambling towards them as if her dark thoughts had drawn him to them as inevitably as north drew a compass needle.
‘Dettingham,’ her father greeted him genially.
‘Your Grace,’ her mother said as she held out a hand in public greeting to the latest butt of scandal to confound the tabbies.
‘Jack,’ Jessica managed flatly and in calling him by his given name overstepped the mark once again in her attempt not to bluntly ask him what on earth he thought he was doing by thinking up such a cold-blooded method of flushing out his errant cousin.
‘Really, Jessica, I know I asked you to be civil to him, but that’s going much too far in public,’ Lady Pendle scolded distractedly while she discreetly aimed an admonishing kick at her husband’s ankle to remind him not to grin at the pair of them as if he could imagine nothing better than his daughter and the Duke of Dettingham being overfamiliar with each other.
‘And did you promise to obey your mama in such a testing quest, Princess?’ Jack asked with that almost-open smile that always threatened to do strange things to her insides if she let it.
‘If I did, then I’m fated to make a liar of myself almost as quickly as you have, your Grace,’ she told him with a reproachful look for the determined use of that hated nickname once again.
He bowed with such mocking elegance she had to bite back a chuckle. The last thing she wanted at the moment was a truce between them, considering she had a very large bone to pick with him the moment they were alone.
‘I apologise for my lapse, Miss Pendle, but your best regal look always has a weakening effect on my already ragged manners,’ he told her a little too meekly.
‘If I went about making that sort of excuse for my follies, I would be banned from every drawing room in Mayfair,’ she informed him sternly.
‘Then I must try it whenever possible from now on, since I can imagine no fate more perfect than being forbidden the sticklers’ company, preferably for ever.’
Jessica’s father laughed out loud and drew the interested attention of all those straining to hear every word that fell from Jack’s lips. ‘Might put that one into effect myself, my boy,’ Lord Pendle confided, seeming oblivious of all the sharp looks and eager speculation around him on the subject of their conversation.
‘You won’t if you wish to share any of the rooms in your London home with your wife during the next year or so,’ she heard her mother murmur for what she thought was her husband’s ears only.
From Jack’s carefully blank expression he had caught that muttered threat as well and Jessica marvelled at the cat-like sharpness of his senses even as she reminded herself to keep a still tongue between her teeth in his company.
‘Should you like to take a drive with me, Pr—Miss Pendle?’ he asked with such an air of bland innocence that Jessica gave him a sharp look. ‘Well, you can’t say I’m not trying,’ he told her with a cheerful shrug and a smile that had her rising to her feet in response before she’d even thought how he used that look to charm the birds out of the trees when she wasn’t around to waste it on.
‘In what, pray?’ she asked as she plumped back down again against the comfortable squabs of the family barouche.
‘My imaginary curricle?’ he said with raised eyebrows and a boyish grin she truly did find irresistible this time.
‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ she said and looked down at him with laughter in her eyes and a smile tugging at her lips.
‘Is it, Princess?’ he asked with an oddly twisted smile and a look in his eyes as if he’d just witnessed something so unexpected it had almost robbed him of words.
‘I thought we had dealt with that misname,’ she managed to scold, even as she fought an urge to languish at him like all the other susceptible misses.
‘Sorry,’ he said as if shrugging off something irrelevant and getting back to the task in hand, ‘it just slipped out; I obviously need more practice preventing myself from saying it. So will you come for a drive and allow me to put some in before we’re immured at Ashburton together for two whole weeks, Miss Pendle? I truly have the means to take you for one over yonder and am not yet suffering delusions,’ he said, waving a hand at the gleaming curricle halted under the trees.
The whole rig was attracting a great deal of gentlemanly envy for the spirit and quality of the perfectly matched team the tiger and his groom were fussing over. Jessica wondered who had attracted Jack’s notice so successfully that he’d stepped down from such a splendid equipage in the first place, but managed not to dwell on a mental picture of the magnificent sloe-eyed siren rumour had it was his very secret lover as well a grand lady of the ton. His amorous adventures were clearly no business of hers, but his ridiculous scheme to flush Richard out of hiding felt so acutely wrong that she shivered despite the building heat of a sultry June afternoon and wished she was a special enough person in his life to stand even a chance of persuading him not to go through with it.
Jack snapped his fingers imperiously and the curricle appeared at his side as if the milling crowd did not exist. She speculated crossly on the nature of power and the powerful and found herself sitting beside Jack on the narrow bench seat without ever agreeing to drive with him in the first place so far as she could recall.
‘Thank you, Brandt,’ she said once she had almost shaken off the nerve-tingling effect of sitting by his master long enough to remember the name of Jack’s head groom.
‘It’s always a pleasure to help a true lady into one of our carriages, Miss Pendle,’ the middle-aged man said, as if he didn’t think much of the females who usually graced the ducal curricle, and Jess bit back a chuckle at hearing his grace the Duke of Dettingham being scolded about the company he kept by his groom.
‘Indeed it is,’ Jack muttered blandly, then informed Brandt he could walk home as a reward for his impudence.
‘Aye, your Grace,’ the man said equably and took off at a brisk pace as if he relished the task.
They set off and Jessica tried not to look surprised and a little bit scandalised when Jack left the Park in order to set down his tiger not far from his house in Grosvenor Square, although she couldn’t help but be amused at the swagger in the diminutive tiger’s step as he doffed his cap to her with elaborate courtesy and cocked Jack a knowing glance before strolling off towards the Dettingham House mews.
‘Where on earth did you find him?’ Jess asked as she waited for the greys to admit Jack was indeed their master and fully in control before he gave them the office to move off.
‘The stews, but he’s going to be the best jockey I ever had if only he’ll learn to listen to those who know more about the art than he thinks he does.’
‘So you punished his intransigence by making him your tiger? Your servants must tremble in their boots when you lose your temper with one of them, your Grace,’ she teased, but secretly thought his leniency admirable, especially in contrast to the appalling way some powerful householders treated their servants.
‘I don’t have to lose my temper, Miss Pendle; all it takes is one of my ducal frowns and they all run about doing my bidding as if I were a king in his palace.’
‘How things must have changed at Ashburton,’ she said with a mock sigh. ‘I shall look forward to witnessing it.’
‘You’ll do so in vain,’ he said with a rueful smile that made her recall how likeable she might find him if she dared let herself. ‘They’re all convinced they know how to run the place far better than I do.’
‘They’re probably right,’ Jessica pointed out helpfully. ‘I doubt you had lessons on how to order a china cupboard or keep a linen cupboard supplied inflicted on you as a boy.’
‘Something for which I am truly thankful,’ he said and turned his team out into the traffic.
‘Where are we going?’ Jess asked, clutching her best bonnet, then tying the ribbons a little tighter as he set the restless team to as fast a pace as was safe in the London traffic.
‘Somewhere they can have a half-decent run and we can breathe in clean air for once,’
he told her rather distractedly as he skirted a wagon and restrained his high-spirited team as they took offence at a lady’s parasol in a virulent shade of green that would have made Jess do the same if she had to stare at it for long.
‘Won’t there be gossip?’ she protested half-heartedly.
‘Isn’t there always gossip?’ he said cynically.
‘About you, yes,’ she agreed, but not very often about lame and respectable Miss Pendle. A rebel voice within whispered it was about time she gave them a little fodder for their ever-more-ridiculous tales, so she might as well sit back and enjoy it.
‘I doubt even the tabbies will believe Lord and Lady Pendle allowed me to abduct their ewe lamb in front of their eyes, so you can relax, Princess. I promise to get you home in one piece with your name relatively unsullied before anyone even notices you’re gone.’
‘Since this is my last foray into society, I suppose it doesn’t matter what they say about me any more,’ Jess replied half to herself.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I should have thought it perfectly plain.’
‘Not to me.’
‘I am on the shelf, your Grace—not that I was ever truly off it—and I have no intention of taking part in any more social Seasons as I don’t particularly like London at this time of year. It always seems absurd to me that we all up sticks and move to town, when the countryside is at its most lovely and busy with new life, so we may spend that precious time of year being overheated and bored in a city that can’t help but be malodorous in the wrong weather—which seems to be most varieties of an English spring and summer so far as I can tell.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but you’re far too young to be at your last prayers. Not that you ever made the slightest push at being a successful débutante when you were younger and I can’t help but wonder why.’
‘Isn’t that perfectly obvious as well?’ she asked exasperatedly.
‘Again, not to me, which means that either I’m being particularly stupid, or you’re wrong. How to walk the fine line between arguing with a lady when she says black is white and I know it to be otherwise, I wonder?’ he mused as if his interpretation of events must be right, just because it always was, presumably.
‘You could try silence.’
‘Is that how you do it, Jessica? Use that quiet, sceptical manner of yours to frighten off all the sprigs of nobility who don’t comply with your high standards?’
So now he thought her a snob, incapable of finding any man fit to be her ideal pattern-card of a husband?
‘What a very high opinion of me you do have,’ she tried to joke.
‘It can’t be any lower than the one you appear to have of yourself,’ he said impatiently and finally gave his team more rein as the traffic thinned at last.
‘I am a realist,’ she stated bluntly.
‘If that were the case, you would be Lady Something or the Countess of Somewhere by now,’ he scolded as if her single status actually mattered to him.
‘And Lord Something or the Earl of Somewhere would simply overlook the fact they’d saddled themselves with a lame wife, I suppose?’ she asked caustically.
‘Yes, the only person who refuses to do just that is you, Jessica Pendle, and I’m weary of the whole tableau of the brave beauty, meekly accepting that her role in life is to make others feel pleased they are more fortunate than she is. It’s almost an insult to those of us who value you as you are, rather than as you think you should be.’
‘I’m lame, that’s how I know myself to be,’ she sparked back and tears she told herself were of temper threatened to undo her under his sceptical gaze.
