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In her brother’s defence Maura conceded that Theo had a point in thinking Jemma ought to pay more attention to getting herself a husband and children and less to squandering her time and money on charities for ruffians. Since Jemma had had her heart broken by her childhood sweetheart she’d shown no interest at all in a romantic involvement or a family of her own. ‘Perhaps my brother believed it all to be for your own good.’ Maura knew her loyalties were divided, so she decided she might as well side with her closest kin. ‘I expect he hoped to help you,’ she ventured diffidently, then shrank beneath Jemma’s violent green gaze.
‘Help me?’ Jemma ejected the phrase in a strangled gasp. ‘He wants to help himself, and well you know it. He’s so desperate to get his hands on what is mine that he is careless of making me appear the most ridiculous creature in the whole of London.’
A crimson stain spread from Maura’s neck to the roots of her mousy brown hair. It was well known in the family, and probably in wider circles, too, that upon marriage Jemma would forfeit her inheritance to the next male heir. Theo was the beneficiary and would take two properties and whatever else Jemma had left from John Bailey’s original bequest.
Niggling doubts over her brother’s motive had pricked at Maura’s consciousness as soon as she’d learned more about the sorry affair that afternoon. But she’d chased them away. Theo would never stoop to act in so mercenary a fashion. He had simply grown impatient and impulsive because Jemma refused to encourage any gentleman to court her.
‘I should not have run away.’ Jemma marched across the room to swiftly snatch at the door handle. She held on to it while attempting to steady her breathing and boost her courage. ‘I should go back downstairs now and tell Mr Speer that I had no hand in this. What will he say, do you think?’ Trepidation trembled her tone. ‘I cannot believe that Theo didn’t know of his recent engagement,’ she cried. ‘If by some chance he did miss seeing it gazetted, Mr Speer could have remedied his ignorance in a letter. He didn’t need to come in person to tell Theo what a fool he is. Oh, why is he here?’
‘I remember he was very much taken with you. Perhaps he has come to offer for you after all.’ Maura’s tone veered between disbelief and optimism.
‘Of course he has not!’ Jemma disabused her pop-eyed cousin in a croak. ‘He is going to marry Deborah Cleveland.’ Her cousin’s blunt suggestion had made Jemma’s heart leap to her throat. Maura had touched on a very raw nerve by forcing her to acknowledge an idea that had already wormed its way into her own mind.
A poignant yearning had gripped Jemma’s insides as soon as she’d heard the butler announce Theo’s visitor. What if he had come to agree to her guardian’s outrageous proposal? It was a thought that had refused to be ejected until the moment she’d caught a glimpse of him as she’d fled to the stairs.
Jemma cast her mind back to the terrifying sight of Marcus in the hallway. He had thankfully been too far away for her to properly read his expression, but every prowling pace he’d taken over the stone flags had impressed on her that he too was very angry indeed. Her stomach churned with the nauseating certainty that Marcus might believe, as had Philip Duncan, that Theo had been acting with her encouragement when he’d written those letters inviting gentlemen to renew their proposals to her. She’d had that awful information just an hour or so earlier, from the man himself.
Following a frosty confrontation with Lucy Duncan in the fabric warehouse, Lucy had been ashamed and repentant at having spread gossip about Jemma. However, she was adamant she had not told lies and had offered to take Jemma immediately to her brother so Philip might vouch for her honesty. At the lodging house they’d found Philip about to climb into his gig. Ushering them in to his lodging house hallway so they might be private, he’d rather sheepishly admitted that he had shown Graham Quick a note he’d received from Jemma’s guardian. Jemma had demanded he go and get it so she could see the revolting evidence, but Philip had said he’d already thrown it on the fire. As Jemma had turned to leave he’d found the grace to mumble he was sorry for mentioning the matter to Graham Quick. Moments later he’d diluted his apology by adding that the message had clearly implied it came with her full agreement.
Following that awful revelation there had been nothing Maura could say that would deter Jemma from immediately confronting Theo about what he’d done. At the Wyndhams’ town house in Hanover Square they’d found Theo looking very smug. Without a hint of remorse he’d told his enraged ward that he’d not only sent a letter to Philip Duncan, but to every one of the fellows he could bring to mind who was still unwed and had offered for Jemma in the past. In all, four letters had been sent. He’d even had the cheek to try to turn the tables on her and put her in the wrong. In a martyred tone he’d added that she’d put him to some considerable trouble by not dealing herself with the matter of getting off the shelf.
Before Jemma could properly express her disgust and outrage Mr Speer’s arrival had been announced by Manwell. That information had stunned Jemma into silence. A moment later she’d bolted with just one horrifying thought in her mind: she had discovered the identity of another recipient of her guardian’s scandalous letters.
‘Mr Speer has simply come to tell Theo what he thinks of him…and me…’ Jemma finally told Maura on a heavy sigh. ‘One cannot blame him for that.’ A moment later her spirit had again rallied. ‘I wish he had just discarded the stupid, stupid letter and forgotten all about it as Philip Duncan did.’
* * *
‘Ah…do come in, Speer. Glad to receive your message and your prompt visit, sir.’ Theodore Wyndham’s voice held a high note of confidence as he continued to nonchalantly pose against the high mantelpiece with an arm slung along its marble shelf.
Theo now appeared so indolent that it would have been hard to imagine a more docile individual. Never would one have guessed that just moments ago this gentleman had been simmering with temper whilst listening to his ward violently berate him for interfering in her life.
Jemma had discovered, sooner than Theo would have liked, his scheme to get her married before she completely ran through the Bailey inheritance. She’d turned up like a whirlwind, moments before Marcus Speer was due, making Theo fret that she might erupt in hysterics just as the fellow arrived. He’d been worrying needlessly. When his butler had announced Mr Speer’s presence in the hallway it was as though an invisible hand had dashed a bucket of water over her. She’d drawn a shuddering breath, taken on a ghastly pallor, then quietly fled from Theo’s study via the connecting door to the library as though the hounds of hell snapped at her heels.
Now, as Theo watched his very welcome visitor close the door, then begin to bear down on him with a startling speed and purpose, he surged upright and fiddled at the knot in his cravat. He could tell, before a conversation had passed between them, that he’d misjudged this man’s reaction to his bold suggestion. Speer’s swift steps cracked against the boards like percussion pistol shots and his expression looked lethal. Marcus’s refusal to return a greeting, or say anything at all, added to the air of menace emanating from him, and Theo strove not to betray by look or manner his alarm and disappointment.
So far he’d received just one reply; it had come from this gentleman and had been delivered just hours ago. From its few lines he’d only been able to glean that Marcus demanded an audience that very afternoon. Theo had been happy to grant him his wish and had, whilst pacing to and fro excitedly awaiting his arrival, persuaded himself that the fellow was eager because he still harboured a tenderesse for Jemma despite the fact that, in five years, she’d turned from a saucy minx in to a tiresome bluestocking.
Along with the rest of the ton, he’d seen gazetted Marcus Speer’s engagement to Deborah Cleveland. Theo had dismissed it as an irrelevance. His letters had been ready, and he’d despatched every last one. Now, with Speer within striking distance of him, he belatedly paid heed to two vital facts: the fellow had a far superior height and breadth to his own and was renowned as a talented pugilist and, secondly, Deborah Cleveland was, undoubtedly, younger, sweeter, and richer than was his cousin Jemma.
* * *
‘How do I look?’ Jemma asked breathlessly as she pulled her coat this way and that to straighten it. Her hands next darted to her abundant locks to try to bring some order to the ruffled chestnut waves. ‘Am I presentable? Are my cheeks stained with tears?’ Jemma was of above average height for a young woman and of necessity dipped her head to gaze at her reflection in the glass on the dressing chest. Watery jade eyes were rapidly blinked to clear them and briskly she rubbed at her complexion with her fingertips to erase any sign that she’d been crying. Her appearance had suffered during the past hours due to her acute distress. But now, having conquered the worst of her shock, and brought her wrath under control—for the time being, she certainly had not finished with Theo!—she was ready to set another gentleman straight on the matter of her guardian’s shocking plot, and her lack of a part in it.
‘I don’t think you should do that!’ Maura whispered with a throb of foreboding. To her mind Jemma was still in a stupor over it all and not thinking straight. Having listened, drop-jawed, to Jemma’s determination to loiter somewhere outside in Hanover Square in order to ambush Mr Speer as he left the house, Maura could only foresee such an action bringing more trouble down on her cousin’s head. She could sympathise with Jemma’s need to immediately set the record straight, but such a highly irregular scene was bound to be spotted by a chinwag who later would gleefully pass on what they’d witnessed.
Graham Quick had no doubt already passed on in the gentlemen’s clubs what Philip Duncan had told him. Soon those fellows’ wives would know too that negotiations were underway to get Miss Jemma Bailey a husband. If it was reported that Jemma had accosted a gentleman known to have once offered for her, and one who had recently become engaged to another lady, her name would be mud. The Clevelands were an important and popular family at the heart of the ton. Jemma would be labelled a shameless hussy who was trying to steal Deborah’s fiancé. She would be cut dead by everyone, and her disgrace would haunt her for very many years.
‘If you think waiting quietly outside to state my case the greater risk to the Bailey name than making a scene within these walls I shall simply go back to Theo’s study and say what I must now. It will be a nasty argument with your brother, I promise you. If Theo is made to look a fool in front of his visitor, so be it. He deserves all that is coming to him.’
‘No! You must not do that! It would never do to act so disrespectfully.’ Maura gulped in panic. ‘Theo is your guardian…your family, after all.’
‘Indeed he is,’ Jemma agreed bitterly. ‘Yet he has shown me no respect or consideration in acting so sly and underhand.’
Now that Theo had started scheming to arrange a marriage of convenience for Jemma it would be wise to leave it to him alone to finish it, so Maura thought. People would consider it an appropriate duty for a guardian to try to arrange his ward’s future security by marrying her off, especially when the woman in question had her début a good few years behind her. Maura relayed that advice to Jemma, then let out a doleful sigh when it simply caused her cousin to frown and violently shake her head.
‘Oh, you’re too late,’ Maura cried joyfully, interrupting her cousin who had been ready to quit the room. Maura had been standing close to the window and, twitching the curtain aside, she peeked at the top of a dark glossy head and impressively broad shoulders as Marcus swiftly descended the stone steps and strode off.
‘He is gone already?’ Jemma cried in disappointment. She darted to the window and craned her neck to check for herself that her quarry was on the move.
Maura’s sigh of relief that the immediate threat was removed only fired Jemma’s determination to impress on Marcus the truth. Now that she felt more composed, she regretted having let shock and humiliation cow her. She ought to have stayed in Theo’s study instead of scampering away like a frightened little girl. She’d had more courage at seventeen, she inwardly scolded. Then she’d brazenly borne the brunt of her papa’s chastisement, and the disapproval of the ton. She’d deserved both, too, for she’d believed her heart, her loyalty, belonged to another man when she’d flirted outrageously with Marcus during that heady Season when she’d made her début. She had led him on, taken everything he had offered as her friend and suitor, and now, older and wiser, she felt thoroughly ashamed of her selfish behaviour.
This time she was innocent of any wrongdoing, yet she had crumpled and cravenly run away instead of immediately mounting her defence and protesting against the injury done her. She should have stayed and made her scheming guardian admit that he’d acted without her knowledge or consent. She should have made it clear that she had no intention of entering a marriage of convenience with any man, no matter how convenient it might be for Theo that she did so.
With Maura’s groan of dismay echoing in her ears Jemma impulsively darted to the door. Within a moment she was down the stairs and out in to the street, heedless of Manwell’s dropping jaw as she sailed past him in a whirl of chestnut curls and swirling blue skirts.
Once on the pavement she squinted against the sunlight. She pivoted on the spot, hurried many yards one way, all the time looking here and there, then retraced her steps and rushed in the opposite direction. She paused on the corner and looked about. Of Marcus there was no sign, and he would be easy to distinguish amongst the strollers out enjoying the spring sunshine. With his lofty height and devilishly dark good looks he was an outstanding specimen of a man.
* * *
Marcus watched from the opposite side of the street as Jemma searched for him. And he knew it was he she was after as she flew hither and thither. She was retracing her steps along the pavement towards the Wyndhams’ house and he wondered if she would mount the steps and go in again. His mouth twisted cynically as he wondered whether Theo Wyndham had, as a last resort, sent her out to try to lure him back. She passed the Wyndhams’ door and kept to a slow pace, her head lowered as though she was both disappointed and distracted by her own thoughts. His narrowed silver eyes kept her in their sights as he moved a little away from the parasol his mistress seemed intent on twirling over them both whilst they stood beside her barouche.
‘Will you come with me to the theatre tonight?’ Lady Pauline Vaux repeated. A delightful dimple appeared in one cheek as she tilted her head to give Marcus a persuasive smile.
‘I’m afraid I can’t. My uncle is now mortally ill. I await some bad news from his physician,’ Marcus told her.
He made to hand her back into her transport, but it seemed Lady Vaux was not yet ready to say farewell to her lover. She murmured her sympathy at knowing that the Earl of Gresham was on his deathbed. The fact that Marcus was soon to become an aristocrat, and a good deal richer, was neither here nor there to her. He’d made it plain at the start of the liaison that he’d never marry her, so there was no status to share, no future son to groom to be worthy of his earldom. As for the rest, Marcus was already rich and powerful enough to satisfy any young impoverished widow’s yen for a pampered life.
Earlier that afternoon Pauline had been visiting her friend, Cressida Forbes, who lived on the edge of Hanover Square. Having quit her friend’s company after a delightful episode taking tea and sharing gossip, she’d travelled just yards when she’d clapped eyes on Marcus striding along and instructed her driver to stop the barouche. Having beckoned him, but failed to persuade him to get up with her, she’d alighted to delay his departure and try to charm him in to escorting her to the theatre. But he’d seemed too stern and preoccupied to talk or tell her much about his reason for being in the vicinity. Once or twice Pauline had glanced about to see what had taken his interest for it seemed something was causing him to stare off in to the distance.
‘I shall come and see you soon,’ Marcus cut in to Pauline’s musing, making her dimple her thanks at him. Taking his mistress’s arm, he guided her firmly towards the barouche and helped her alight. He raised a hand in salute as the conveyance pulled off steadily into the traffic. Then his eyes swooped to the willowy female figure, some way off now. Crossing the road, he started after her.
Chapter Three
A strange sensation prickled at Jemma’s nape, making her absently scuff her fingers over it. She half-turned, sure she was being fanciful in imagining someone was following her. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a tall male figure, darkly dressed. Her heart vaulted to her throat, and she came to a spontaneous halt before twisting fully about. In petrified silence she stared at Marcus Speer as he continued his lazy powerful pursuit of her. Instinctively she wheeled about and hastened on. The next instant she was inwardly berating herself for having so obviously betrayed her fright at the sight of him. Beneath her aching ribs her heart continued thudding erratically, making her softly suck in air. Slowly she brought some order to the chaotic thoughts whirling in her head, and her pace became less frantic.
A short while ago she had wanted to find him, had flown from Theo’s house like a wild hoyden to look for him in the street. Now he was deliberately…temptingly…within reach. An awful suspicion occurred to her that he might have observed her fruitless efforts to ambush him in Hanover Square. He was close enough for her to have read his expression. It was mortifying to acknowledge that he’d every right to that slanting, sardonic smile. By touting her about to any fellow who’d take her as a wife, Theo had made her seem weak and risible. She’d not helped disperse that perception by cravenly turning tail not once but twice this afternoon in Marcus Speer’s presence.
He knew she wanted to speak to him so he was presenting himself to her on a plate, taunting her to swallow her pride and approach him. Indignation ignited fire in her veins, strengthening her composure. She put up her chin, took a deep breath and, confident her blush was fading, pivoted about. Purposely she marched towards him and halted just in front of him. She flicked up her face to boldly meet his gaze. Immediately her eyes darted aside. She hadn’t been prepared for the overwhelming effect being this close to him had on her. Silver eyes that looked forbidding yet achingly familiar had been ruthlessly watching her mouth making the first words she had uttered to him in almost five years emerge in a strangled gasp.
‘Why are you following me?’
‘Why were you looking for me?’
‘I was not!’ The spontaneous lie sent a fresh burst of betraying blood to stain her skin, and her eyes to swerve back to glance on his.
‘Were you not?’ he drily enquired.
‘You were just at my cousin’s house,’ she rushed on, hoping to cover her confusion.
‘So were you.’
‘Surely you arrived in a carriage? Why are you not in it instead of dogging my footsteps?’ She recalled attack was said to be the best form of defence and certainly it seemed to be boosting her confidence and courage.
‘As you were spying on me and saw me arrive, Miss Bailey, I suspect you know I arrived on foot in Hanover Square.’
‘I was not spying on you, sir. And I certainly was not awaiting your arrival,’ Jemma fumed in righteous anger.
‘What a happy coincidence then that we both were within your guardian’s house when I told him, amongst other things, that I won’t marry you,’ Marcus drawled. ‘I imagine he passed that message on, and that’s why you were outside searching for me to try to change my mind.’ An insolent grey gaze slipped over her lush figure. ‘I’m intrigued to know how you intended to persuade me to do that.’ His voice was sultry with amusement, his eyes darkening dangerously behind long, concealing lashes. ‘If you use the right approach, Miss Bailey, I might hear you out.’
A fiery blush raged from Jemma’s throat to her hairline. She’d winced on hearing his scornful rejection; now she visibly flinched for a second time. How dare he mock her so! Any thoughts she’d had of offering her apologies for Theo’s despicable behaviour were expelled from her mind. This hateful brute now owed her an apology for speaking to her, looking at her as though she were some dockside wench!
‘I think I must put you straight on several things, sir,’ she finally blurted in a suffocated voice. Her fingers formed fists and were held rigidly quivering at her sides. ‘Firstly, indeed it was a coincidence that we were at the Wyndhams together, but a happy one…never! Secondly, I’ve not received any report from my cousin of the outcome of your visit. I do not require one, for it is neither here nor there what you said to him. Theo has had the disgraceful impertinence to attempt to meddle in my life, but I will not allow him to do so. I shall decide if and when I marry.’ Jemma drew a deep breath and threw back her head to slam her eyes on his impaling steely gaze. ‘I was at his home just now to impress on him that fact and for no other reason that concerns you. Secondly,’ she uttered on a shuddering breath.
‘Thirdly…’ Marcus corrected softly.
‘What…?’
‘I’ve heard your second point,’ he reminded her with studied solemnity. ‘You weren’t aware of the outcome of my visit…’
‘Umm…oh…yes…thirdly…’ Jemma stuttered. ‘Thirdly…’ she resumed in a muted tone, the wind temporarily sucked out of her sails. A darting glance at his cynical expression soon had her temper again simmering. ‘Thirdly,’ she snapped icily, ‘there is nothing of which I care to persuade you except perhaps this: I find your arrogant assumption that I wanted to extricate a marriage proposal from you most unpleasant. I believed I had already made it clear some years ago that I had rejected you as a husband. Nothing has happened since to change my mind. Good day, sir.’ Jemma had managed just one triumphant pace away from him when a firm grip on her wrist arrested her, spinning her neatly around.
‘Are you sure nothing has changed your mind?’ he taunted softly. ‘Wyndham seemed quite taken with the notion of having a Countess in the family. He implied the idea appealed to you, too, now you’re slightly less immature.’
‘Let me assure you it does not,’ Jemma hissed, whitening with wrath at his insulting implication that she was ambitious for a title and childlike to boot. ‘And let me assure you of something else. My guardian is also quite taken with the idea of laying his hands on what is mine,’ she informed him acidly. ‘It makes no difference to him if I marry a noble or a nobody, just as long as he has the marriage lines as proof that he can legally claim my property.’ With a wrench she had her wrist from his grip. A phantom touch of firm fingers tingled warmly on her skin, making her rub in irritation at the spot. ‘I believe, sir, that in your arrogance you assume you are the only gentleman who received a letter from my guardian.’ She could tell by the hardening of his features that he had not heard rumours in clubs about the others, nor had Theo put him wise to it. A harsh little laugh bubbled in her throat. ‘You may or may not recall that you were just one of many gentlemen who offered for me five years ago. Every one of those fellows who lacks a wife has been invited by my doting cousin to renew his proposal.’ Jemma elevated her shapely little chin, looked up boldly into eyes that were glittering dangerously. ‘I fear I must go on to dent your ego, Mr Speer…’ she sighed with mock regret ‘…but say it I must: there is nothing special about you.’
‘Except perhaps that I am no longer unattached, and well you and Wyndham know it,’ Marcus returned quietly.
His answer was calm, and undeniably correct, yet oddly it disturbed Jemma more than a scathing outburst from him might have done.
* * *
Marcus could feel his temper rising, as was a part of his anatomy over which, it seemed, he had no control when in this little vixen’s vicinity. She could infuriate a saint with her acid tongue, and he was tempted to haul the infuriating chit against him, but whether to kiss her or throttle her he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been so close to her in five years, but he remembered well enough how she could stir his blood with just a saucy smile or a deliberately subtle scuffing of her skin on his. Once she’d captivated him to such an extent he’d risked ridicule when she’d rejected him. Inwardly he’d pined for her for a year; outwardly he’d seemed to become polite society’s most predatory rake.
But he could admit to himself what he’d been keen to keep from others. At the time a girl barely out of the schoolroom had brought him to his knees—quite literally—he’d proposed in traditionally humble pose. Then she’d gone home to her swain to find a broken heart awaited her in Essex. When he’d heard about it he’d briefly felt a sense of malicious satisfaction that she’d tasted her own medicine. But much as he might have wanted to continue using the balm of vengeance, it had lost its efficaciousness, leaving him simply feeling bereft. He’d hoped her father might bring her back to London during the following Season. But she’d not appeared, and he’d wondered whether he might find the humility to travel to Essex and propose for a second time.
During those twelve dark months when his moods were unpredictable and his business dealings neglected, his uncle Solomon had watched quietly from the sidelines, keeping his own counsel on the matter of Miss Jemma Bailey. But Solomon had had no hesitation in taking him to task over bad business deals and impatiently had guided his nephew’s investments back on course. Thus it had been left to Marcus alone to decide whether to swallow his pride and follow his heart or to salve his wounds in customary male fashion. His pride had won. He’d stayed in town and submerged his sorrows by carousing nightly with licentious friends and promiscuous women. After two years had passed he’d been sure he’d forgotten all about Jemma Bailey. At Christmas time, he’d travelled through Essex to see his mother and new stepfather in Norfolk and not once had it occurred to him during that trip to take a minor detour from his route and go past Thaxham House, John Bailey’s small estate. His healthy ego had helped him survive his first disastrous encounter with falling in love. He’d been determined not to appear a maudlin fool in front of his family and friends. Thankfully he had not. And now he was over her.
* * *
Jemma fidgeted as the tense silence between them lengthened. She’d been very rude and regretted it. Yet she wasn’t sure why she felt guilty when his implied insults had equalled her spoken ones. A moment ago she’d been ready to sweep away from him, feeling victorious. Now something about his attitude held her quiet and still. Instinctively she knew what was in his mind. He was brooding on what had happened between them five years ago.
She glanced about. Passers-by were starting to take an interest in them. Sidelong glances and sibilant whispers alerted her senses to potential trouble. The last thing she wanted was to stir more gossip.
‘Shall we walk and talk, Miss Bailey?’ Marcus had also become conscious that they were under observation. With studied gallantry he offered Jemma his arm. ‘It might be wise if we do not appear to be involved in a tiff in the middle of the street.’
Jemma hesitated but a moment later nodded. She knew he was heading home, and so was she. Her small town house on Pereville Parade was not fashionably situated, whereas his mansion on Beaufort Place was in a prime spot. But they had to walk in the same general direction before their paths diverged. It would be silly for one of them to stay a step or two in front or behind to avoid the other’s company. She knew too that it was sensible advice to maintain an appearance of civil acquaintance rather than one of being at loggerheads. Her small fingers hovered over the crook of his arm as a poignant feeling fluttered in her chest. Once she’d adored having the feel of his clothed muscle beneath her hand when they’d danced or promenaded. Yet all the while she’d felt so terribly guilty that she’d found him attractive for she’d believed Robert to be patiently awaiting her return to Essex so they might elope.
‘What did you say to Theo?’ Jemma forced her eyes up to his and her mind away from painful memories. She looked at him, really looked at him, and the ruggedly hewn, handsome features close to her made icy fire streak through her veins. He looked only slightly older than he had at twenty-six. There were a few silver threads in the thick blackish hair springing back at his temples and the grooves bracketing his thin yet sensual lips seemed a mite deeper than when last she’d studied his face. Her eyes diverted to the long firm fingers close to her own and unwanted images of being intimately touched by them made blood fizz beneath her skin. She’d been wanton—at such a tender age, too! It was little wonder that a moment ago he’d looked at her, spoken to her with such lustful amusement. He hadn’t forgotten her lack of restraint either.
She hadn’t been wholly to blame! The excuse ran back and forth in her mind, calming her embarrassment. She’d been a naïve young débutante under the spell of an older, more experienced man. He’d known exactly how to tease a response from her on those nights she’d allowed him to take more liberties than any young innocent ought. Had her papa known what he’d done to her beneath intoxicating moonlight on midsummer evenings he’d have called for his pistols. She recalled the whispered cautions from envious young friends when Marcus had invited her to step outside for a little air at the Cranleighs’ ball: He’s a rake…a terrible flirt…tell him no…he’ll break your heart. In the event he had, but she’d had no one to blame but herself and circumstances had forced her to lick her wounds in private.
At seventeen she could have been married to the dashing heir to an earldom. Instead she had yielded to her conscience and gone dutifully back to Essex and to Robert Burnham, whereupon she’d had her loyalty tossed back in her face. But by then it was too late to contact Marcus and humbly say she’d changed her mind. She’d known him only a matter of a few months but during that time she’d learned enough about his character to understand he’d refuse to be her second-choice husband.
Within a week of returning home she was thankful she’d not written to him, abasing herself with pleas and promises and the laying bare of her soul. She’d had a letter from her cousin Maura describing the latest tattle doing the rounds. It had concerned Marcus and a new opera dancer who had been the toast of Drury Lane. It seemed to Jemma that for many months after that first awful communication every letter she received from her cousin contained a fresh tale of Marcus Speer’s debauchery.
Finally Jemma had accepted that he hadn’t fallen properly in love with her, as she had with him. He had never told her he loved her, and now she knew why that was—for him it had been just an infatuation and he’d settled too quickly on her to fill the role of his wife. She’d thanked her lucky stars she had not married a man who would doubtless betray her with a string of mistresses before they’d reached their first wedding anniversary.
A dispiriting truth had then settled on Jemma: Marcus would never come, in true romantic style, to Thaxham House and rescue her from her sorrow and loneliness. He would, at some time, be an Earl, but he wasn’t the noble hero of her wistful dreams.
As though Marcus could guess at her memories his mouth tilted into half a smile and a smouldering grey gaze was slanted at her softly skewed mouth.
‘I thought it was neither here nor there to you what I said to your guardian.’ His smile deepened as she looked away with a regretful frown. She’d been so lost in her private thoughts that she’d forgotten she’d announced herself uninterested in the outcome of the heated meeting he’d had with Theo. ‘I said nothing to your cousin that could be repeated to a demure young lady.’
‘In sending those letters Theo acted outrageously and without my knowledge or consent.’ Jemma’s voice was hoarse and forceful, her cheeks burning. His mocking levity made it clear he considered her far from demure. If he was hinting at her wild behaviour at seventeen, he’d a right to his scorn. But she wouldn’t have him think her a brazen hussy now because she had designs on trying to steal him from his fiancée. ‘Do you believe me?’ Jemma gazed earnestly at him.
‘Why should I?’ Marcus enquired casually. ‘From past experience I would say you hardly inspire me to put trust in you.’
It was out! The first heavy hint from him that he had not forgotten or forgiven how she’d led him on like a common tease. Annoyingly she felt spontaneous tears start to her eyes. She swung her face aside so he might not see them.
Marcus slanted a look down on the top of a bonnet from which tumbled an artless array of thick chestnut curls. He felt the embers of desire within him become hotter. She looked little different to how she had as a teenage débutante. Perhaps her figure was fuller and her face slimmer, honed to classical perfection. But her little gestures, the tone of her voice, the success she’d had in rousing him, enticing him—those bittersweet things seemed the same. She was beautiful, spirited…and he realised with some irritation that he still wanted her.
Marcus dragged his eyes from Jemma’s alluring presence as a familiar sight at the edge of his vision drew his attention. Beneath his breath he cursed. From the moment he’d read Wyndham’s astonishing letter this afternoon, thoughts of his mortally ill uncle had been pushed to the back of his mind. Now he could see a carriage bearing the Gresham crest slowly patrolling the street as though the coachmen were searching for someone. He knew they were looking for him. Dr Robertson had sent for him earlier than he’d expected and he’d been away from home when the message had arrived. He’d told Perkins, his butler, he’d be visiting Wyndham and would be no more than one hour. The coachmen had doubtless been despatched to Hanover Square to find him.
A feeling of deep remorse washed over him, yet still, to his shame, he felt reluctant to quit Jemma’s side. Abruptly he removed her arm from his. ‘I think we must continue this conversation another time, Miss Bailey.’ He executed a curt bow. ‘Unfortunately I have pressing matters to attend to.’ With that terse farewell he forced himself to take two crisp backward paces so a space was immediately between them. A moment later he’d stepped past and was striding towards the carriage, raising a hand to hail it as he went.
‘Indeed, there is no need to talk further about any of this, sir.’ Jemma felt mortified to be so abruptly abandoned. But he was moving with such speed and purpose she could tell that the sharp words she’d sent after him had gone unheeded. A knot of sorrow tightened in her stomach. She had a feeling that if they’d continued walking and talking just a little longer perhaps they might have gone their separate ways more contentedly than they’d come together. As it was, nothing about the situation had improved. Pulling her bonnet brim low to shield her hot, watery eyes, she plunged her hands into her coat pockets and moved swiftly on.
Chapter Four
Marcus paused on the threshold to his uncle’s bedchamber to dart an astonished enquiring glance at the physician. A glimmering hope that his uncle had made a miraculous recovery was dashed as Dr Robertson slowly shook his head. The prognosis was the same despite the fact the Earl of Gresham was once more conscious and propped up on a sumptuous array of satin bolsters and pillows.
On one side of the bed, ensconced in an armchair, was an elegant, elderly lady. Marcus had expected Mrs Paulson would still be here. She had been sitting quietly embroidering in the very same position when he had quit the sickroom earlier that day. He gave her a nod and a wonky smile, hoping that it adequately conveyed that her constant presence pleased him.
Victoria Paulson had been his uncle’s mistress for three decades and was a similar age to Solomon. At times Marcus had wondered whether, if the couple had come together sooner in life, when Victoria was young enough to bear children, she might have given Solomon a son. They would then have married to legitimise the union and the child, and the course of his own life might have taken a very different turn.
Having pressed Solomon’s hand and returned Marcus a hushed greeting, Victoria rose from her chair and left the gentlemen alone.
Solomon’s exhausted smile for his nephew was curtailed as a cough rattled out of him. On hearing his master gasping, a servant sprang forwards, thrusting out a beaker of milk. Solomon flapped feebly at the fellow. ‘If you’ve got nothing stronger to offer me, then go away,’ he wheezed and tugged a burgundy velvet coverlet against a chest that was pumping erratically. ‘Might as well let me have a brandy,’ he threw peevishly at Dr Robertson. ‘Ain’t as if it’s going to kill me.’
Dr Robertson relented, gesturing to the footman to carry out his patient’s request. At that Solomon found enough energy to weakly grin and brush together his dry palms.
Marcus swiftly approached the dais at the centre of his uncle’s bedchamber upon which was set a huge four-poster bed. He stopped with one hand splayed against a square mahogany post, feeling as awkward and apprehensive as he’d been at eight years old when introduced to his noble guardian for the first time. Instinctively he knew that this was to be their final meeting in this life.
Solomon beckoned him closer with a fragile-looking finger but, when Marcus immediately extended his hand, it was gripped with surprising strength.
‘You look much improved, sir,’ Marcus began. ‘Perhaps cognac is not wise as you are a little better.’
The old boy exhaled a breathless chuckle and set free his nephew’s fingers. ‘Looks ain’t everything, y’know,’ Solomon imparted in a droll whisper. ‘I’m still dying. I’m still able to appreciate a good brandy, too.’ Marcus’s hand had dropped to rest on the velvet coverlet and he gave it a fond pat. ‘Don’t look so miserable, m’boy. I’m ready. I’ve had a good innings. I saw off three score years ‘n ten eight years ago. That’s six years more’n Patricia achieved.’ An increased glitter appeared in his sunken black eyes as he recalled his spinster sister. Patricia had pre-deceased him just last summer despite being in fine fettle up until two weeks before her maid had discovered her dead in bed. ‘And it’s a deal more years than your father saw.’
