by Claudia Dain
Edenham let out a heavy sigh and dropped his head back down. The ant was back. Sturdy, relentless ant. It was nearly inspiring.
“You still want to marry her?” Cranleigh asked.
“I do,” Edenham said softly.
“I don’t mean to pry, but why?”
Edenham lifted his head and looked into Cranleigh’s light blue eyes, the eyes of a man who’d just married a woman he’d been hopelessly in love with for more than two long years.
“Damned if I know.”
Cranleigh nodded and dropped his gaze, presumably looking at the ant. “I understand completely.”
Seventeen
Jane didn’t know where to go. Joel was with Lady Paignton in the back garden, doing something she was sure her mother would disapprove of. Jed was talking to Edenham’s sister in the yellow salon and from the look in his eyes, she did not want to interrupt them. Her cousin Iveston was talking to Penelope’s father, Penelope standing at his side.
That looked very personal. Her cousin Cranleigh was in the music room with Edenham and she wasn’t going back in there. Obviously, she didn’t care in the least where Louisa was. She was afraid to look for Sophia, afraid of what she’d say and of what Jane would find herself saying to her; she was determined not to look the fool, and she was starting to suspect that was very difficult to avoid when talking with Sophia.
Jane sighed and looked around the blue reception room again, half afraid, half hoping that Edenham would come out of the music room and do something scandalous, like kiss her again. But he wouldn’t. She’d had to ask him to the first time, and the last time. Certainly the last time. She didn’t go about kissing men just because they wanted to kiss her. She had to want to kiss them, too. And she didn’t.
Hardly ever. Why, she hadn’t even kissed Ezekiel Biddle, which was part of the problem with Ezekiel Biddle. Certainly if a man was going to . . . reach for cake, he should do some preliminary work at the start. A girl didn’t enjoy being grabbed. Or fondled. Or brushed against with nothing having been done to set the mood in advance.
Laziness, pure laziness. What else?
The very least a man could do was to put some honest effort into it.
The guests around her, while not staring at her too overtly, were starting to grumble a bit loudly about the delay regarding breakfast. When one was invited to a duke’s residence to dine, one did expect to actually dine. As the kiss, the fight, and the cleanup were long over, she didn’t feel one bit responsible for the delay and so could look the grumblers directly in the eye, smiling in placid innocence.
“Jane!”
Jane jerked and turned, Aunt Molly staring her down with her gunmetal blue eyes. Jane felt instantly less innocent.
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?” Molly said in a rigid undertone, her lips smiling and nearly immobile while she talked behind her teeth.
“Doing?”
“Where is Edenham? You haven’t lost him, have you?”
She had no response to that. When had she become responsible for the Duke of Edenham? Hugh. Her stomach flipped just a bit around one edge, just one.
“Jane,” Molly gritted out, still smiling at the guests surrounding them, the room, the house, the world in general, “you are not seated anywhere near Edenham at table.
I can’t allow breakfast to be served until you’ve . . . made a firmer impression upon him. Now, go find him and do it!”
A firmer impression? He’d kissed her, been bludgeoned for it, declared his wish to marry her in front of one and all, and gave every appearance of being taken with her charms, as defined by her beauty. Still. Jane huffed. Could any London girl do better? She thought not.
“I think I’ve impressed him more than sufficiently,” she said stiffly, adopting Molly’s technique of smiling frozenly whilst talking behind her teeth. It was actually not that difficult. “He did ask to marry me, if you hadn’t heard.”
Molly nodded to a cluster of older gentlemen on her right, smiling enthusiastically. “And was beaten for it. Has he asked you since?”
Jane’s smile drooped a bit. Molly shot her a warning glance, and Jane’s false smile returned to its former false brightness.
“I don’t want to marry him!”
“Whyever not, you silly girl?” Molly said. “I married a duke. It’s been nothing but a pleasure. Smile and nod at the Marquis of Penrith, quickly now, or you’ll end up on White’s book. That man has a wager going on every on dit in Town. If he wagers you won’t marry Edenham, the odds are, you won’t.”
Jane followed Molly’s gaze; it settled upon a very handsome man of dark blond hair and nearly feline features. He was watching her avidly. She nodded. He nodded.
“I am not going to marry Edenham,” Jane gritted out behind her smile.
“Whyever not? He’s a fine-looking man, rich as Midas, has an impressive estate, and he’s a duke,” Molly said as they moved through the crowd.
“He’s English,” Jane said tightly.
Molly huffed. “I’m English.”
“You’re American. You married an Englishman,” Jane said.
“And have I suffered? I have not. Hyde adores me, as well he should,” Molly said. “You know your mother hoped you would find someone interesting whilst you visited me.
You do realize that your mother knows the London Season nearly as well as I do; I write her everything about it and have for years. You can’t think the timing of your visit has to do with the tides, can you?”
Jane stopped and stared down at Molly; Molly was quite petite, her own mother was taller by at least two inches, though they did resemble each other strongly. Perhaps that is what made it difficult to make light of Molly’s words. In so many ways, subtle or not, it was very much like talking to her mother.
“She can’t have expected me to marry someone from here!” Jane said, her false smile forgotten.
They were very near the door to the stair hall. Jane had been trying, and succeeding, in leading Molly away from the doorway to the music room. She didn’t think she wanted to attempt managing both Edenham and Molly at the same time, especially on an empty stomach.
“I shan’t talk about what she expects,” Molly said, looking at Jane almost critically. Critically? What had she done?
“I’ll only say that she wants you to enjoy experiences and people outside of what you would normally find in New York or Boston or Philadelphia.”
“Which I am,” Jane said.
“And which you should continue to do,” Molly said,
“without blind prejudice hobbling your every step.”
“It’s hardly blind,” Jane said.
“Isn’t it?” Molly said, her blue eyes glinting like steel.
“You haven’t judged Hyde and his sons as Englishmen first and family second, or even third? You haven’t looked at Edenham, a perfectly lovely man by anyone’s reckoning, and judged him first an English duke and then I don’t know what? But not as a man, Jane. You haven’t judged him, considered him, as a man.”
Of course she was correct, and Jane hadn’t seen anything wrong with that, until Molly put it in those terms with that disapproving look in her eyes. Put that way, it did sound, if not precisely petty, then at least shortsighted. Perhaps even unfair. After all, her biggest fear had been that these English aristocrats would judge her, having not truly met her, as an ill-mannered, inferior American.
To be perfectly fair to Edenham, if only for the barest moment, he hadn’t judged her that way at all. He had taken her at face value, very nearly literally. Still, it was better than what she had done to him.
Jane nodded slowly. “I’m still not going to marry him.”
Molly smiled, a true smile this time, and said, “Just enjoy him, Jane. He probably doesn’t want to marry you anymore, anyway. What man would, after all that? Now, go get him and make good use of him while you can. You aren’t going to be in London forever, and the Season is al
most over.”
And with that final insult? Advice? Encouragement?
Molly continued to make her way through the crowd, apologizing for the delay regarding breakfast, blaming the cook, the baker, the butler, the housekeeper, and anyone else she could think of. The problem, if Jane could call it that, and she thought she would, was that Molly made her way directly into the music room.
Jane knew what to expect next. She really was getting to be an old hand at these London town house games. She felt almost sophisticated.
“For a sophisticated man, Edenham, you are muddying things up quite badly,” Molly said, having marched into the music room and straight over to Edenham. “And you, Cranleigh,” she said, whirling on her son. Both men leapt to their feet upon seeing her enter the room and now stood as abashed as two young boys who’d been found tormenting the stable kittens. “I expected far better of you. You simply must allow Edenham to get on with it! You can visit with him later, perhaps at his own wedding to your cousin?”
Edenham blinked and dipped his head down. Molly was fully a foot shorter than he and he did not want this conversation overheard, any more than it already was, that is.
“You approve my suit?” he asked.
“Your suit? Is that what you’re calling it?” Molly said sharply, looking him over in apparent disgust. “A muddle, that’s what it is. I arrange for you to meet the most beautiful, interesting, wholesome girl and you put your foot in it from the first word. Do you know how many letters I had to write to persuade my sister to agree to this trip for Jane?
Can you have any concept of how poor Sally, once convinced that this visit to England would do Jane good, had to tirelessly persuade her husband to allow it?”
“Not cajole?” Cranleigh said.
Molly fixed him with a quelling look. Cranleigh instantly looked quelled. “You know better than anyone that the women of my family do not cajole, Cranleigh. If you are attempting to be humorous, this is not the moment for it.”
“You did all this for me?” Edenham asked. “Or for her?”
“For her, obviously,” Molly said. “But I have no objection to you at all, Edenham. You saw her and you recognized what a treasure she is. Well done, as far as it goes.
You will make her a stellar husband. If you can convince her to accept you. I never saw such a tangle in my life. Why, Hyde managed it better in five minutes, and with a rebellion brewing, and he across an ocean, and my father not at all pleased with him, than you have done in two hours. Of course,” Molly said musingly, “he did have the advantage of a sparkling uniform, perfectly tailored down to the last buttonhole.”
Molly cast a critical eye over Edenham, from his head to his feet. Edenham shifted his weight and lifted his chin against the constraints of his cravat. There was nothing wrong with his tailoring, he was certain of it, but there was nothing that could quite compare to a military uniform, though in Jane’s case, she might just choose to shoot at it . . . him.
She wasn’t far from that now, actually.
He did have every advantage, and he wasn’t using his advantages nearly as well as he ought. He was an experienced man, experienced in the ways of the world, and particularly in the ways of women. He’d been married three times, hadn’t he? And that was just the tip of the feather.
“Knowing I have your endorsement,” Edenham said, bowing slightly, “I shall proceed with more vigor. Thank you, Molly.”
Edenham walked out of the door Molly had entered by, the entire room watching his exit.
“If he proceeds with any more vigor, you shall need to replace a few items of furniture,” Cranleigh said.
“All to a good cause, Cranleigh,” Molly said, smiling.
“All to a good cause.”
“There you are,” Jane said as Edenham approached her, a most determined, and one might even say cheerful, look in his eyes. “You show remarkable vigor, I must say.”
“Thank you?” he said, his brows lifting comically.
“It didn’t take Molly long to bludgeon you into seeking me out. You are having a time of it today, aren’t you, Hugh.”
He didn’t look shocked by the intimacy. She gave him credit for that. “First I use you outrageously, then my brothers beat you nearly senseless, and then the hostess forces you to reenter the fray. Perhaps you should have stayed home today. It would certainly have been more restful.”
“But not more entertaining,” he said. “And I wasn’t nearly senseless.”
“Fine,” she said, smiling. “You kept your senses.”
“And if that is how you use men outrageously, I am entirely at your disposal. Use me again. Please,” he said.
Something had changed. He had changed, that was certain, but she didn’t know why. Molly, certainly. She was pushing them together, that much was obvious. Molly wanted her to marry Edenham? Perhaps. Almost certainly.
But what did Jane want? She hadn’t ever got her chance at what she wanted. Too much interference in her life, too many brothers and a slightly overbearing father, that was her trouble. She hadn’t thought her adventure would look quite like this, and she looked Edenham up and down as she thought it, but why not? He wanted her. Everyone wanted her to want him. She did like him; in fact, she liked him more with every conversation they had. Why not?
Edenham could be her London Adventure.
But she was not going to marry him.
She would . . . Ezekiel Biddle him.
That sounded like it might be fun. And with everyone in the room endeavoring to help her be alone with Edenham, her brothers would find themselves taken care of, at least for a time. She’d never had so much help in her life, and she’d likely never find herself in this position again.
She was going to do it. She was going to . . . let Edenham have a bit of cake.
“Why, Hugh,” she said with a grin, “I would be quite willing to use you again.”
Edenham’s eyes widened, looking quite green, and then he smiled a most wicked and knowing smile. Another edge of her stomach flopped over.
Mercy.
Eighteen
Antoinette, Lady Lanreath, knew exactly where Lord George Blakesley, the third son of the Duke of Hyde, was as she’d been watching him almost since she’d arrived. He had not been watching her, which was so very like him.
Antoinette, married to a friend of her father’s, a man even older than her father, had always been a dutiful child who lived a dutiful life. She had married Lanreath, tolerated Lanreath, and buried Lanreath. She had not borne a child by Lanreath, or anyone else, just to be perfectly clear, and so her marriage had resulted in nothing. Nothing beyond making her a well-to-do widow who could do whatever she pleased.
As being dutiful was surely a part of her nature by now, if only by sheer repetition, she did not have any idea what pleased her.
But she did know that Lord George Blakesley did something to her. What she did to him, if anything, she had no idea.
She’d met George after her marriage, during her first Season in Town. It was at the theater, she’d been mildly bored by the play, and then she’d been introduced to George. The play had ceased to enter her thoughts from that moment on. Her own husband had nearly ceased to enter her thoughts from that moment on, not that he’d been aware of it, of course. He being her husband. Or George.
Both of them, certainly. She was then and continued to be now most, most careful about revealing anything that could possibly embarrass either herself or her family. That Bernadette had been formed in a completely different mold was perfectly obvious.
As careful as she’d always been, George Blakesley might not even be aware that she remembered him from that first night to now. George was either completely unmoved by her or he was also a very careful sort.
Today she was going to find out which.
He was in the yellow salon, standing by the hearth, the golden yellow walls of the room doing marvelous things to his dark blond hair. Like all the Bla
kesley men, he was blond and blue-eyed. His shade of blond, quite unlike his elder brother Iveston, whose marriage they honored today, was dark honey in color. George’s eyes were the blue of winter, a white-washed, pale gray blue that had sent a shiver into her loins upon her first introduction and which continued to reverberate even now. His lips were full, his lids slightly hooded, and his nose hawkish. He looked utterly arrogant. Lanreath had looked like a spoilt mushroom, and had occasionally behaved like one as well.
The yellow salon was not deserted, but neither was it a crush, which did suit her purposes. She did not want anyone to overhear what she was to say to George, yet neither did she want it to appear as if she had urgently sought him out.
Dutiful and proper to the last, even when attempting to see if a man was available for an almost entirely proper something or other. Seduction? She didn’t know if she had it in her. She had just recently decided that she might, if the proper man made himself available, want to remarry.
She was tired of spending her time alone, living out her life on the public stage she had found herself upon. Had she always been so careful, so cautious?
Probably. She was the eldest and had tried very hard to make things easier on her three younger sisters: Bernadette, Camille, and Delphine. She thought she’d made an adequate job of it. Bernadette hadn’t been at all then what she was now, and for that change she blamed, although perhaps blame was too strong a word and judged Bernie too harshly . . . careful. She was being careful again. Antoinette shook her head mildly, yes, mildly, and finished her thought. Paignton was to blame. Blame, there, she’d said it, even if only to herself. What had he done to Bernie? Aside from introducing her to lechery and recklessness, that is.
He’d done something to her, something dark and destructive, and Antoinette had given considerable thought to her own welfare in the light of Bernadette’s transformation.
Would she, if she dallied, become like Bernie?
