That was why he’d been so drawn to Annabel. Blonde and blue-eyed, she’d resembled Jemmah, even boasting a similar temperament.
His spirit, his intuition, whatever part of him that acknowledged Jemmah had been branded upon his soul, had tried to tell him that very thing.
Only he’d been stupidly deaf and blind to the promptings—hadn’t recognized them, hadn’t even known what he craved until she’d drowsily smiled up at him, the full radiance of her smile tilting his world topsy-turvy.
Then as if the narrow crack in the doorway he’d been peering through with one eye suddenly sprang wide open, he could see everything, down to each perfect, minute detail.
And yes, by God, he savored the implausibility, relished the paradox, laughed out loud at the glorious coincidence that drove him to slip into the very room she slept within.
“You’re looking especially chipper today, Dandridge,” drawled a familiar bored voice. “Did you enjoy the ball after all?”
Pennington, blast his bunions.
Jules met Pennington’s and Sutcliffe’s amused gazes.
“I’m surprised to see either of you about. Thought you were off to the gaming hells after leaving Lady Lockhart’s last night.”
“We did.” Sutcliffe cocked his head, regarding Jules for a lengthy moment. “Pennington, did my eyes deceive me or was Dandridge smiling? You know that queer thing where his mouth twitches upward occasionally?”
He veered Pennington a falsely-confused glance. “The phenomenon occurs so rarely, I cannot be sure.”
“No, Sutcliffe, I saw it too. Thought I might be still feeling the effects of our late night.” Pennington made a pretense of examining Jules’s face with his quizzing glass.
“You’re both utter twiddlepoops.”
Jules stepped around them and continued on his way. He wasn’t ready to explain his happiness, nor was he prepared to endure their sarcasm and mockery. Not when it came to his feelings regarding Jemmah.
“Twiddlepoops? Twiddlepoops?” Sutcliffe repeated, affronted. “Damn. Dandridge, are you getting soft? Dandies, fops, and moon-eyed bucks are twiddlepoops.” He thumped his chest. “Pennington and I are knaves, scoundrels, jackanapes, blackguards, rakehells, reprobates. But never anything as tepid and asinine as a twiddlepoop.”
“I should say not,” Pennington agreed with a sharp jerk of his head. “I’m truly offended.”
Sutcliffe fell in step beside Jules, his expression contemplative.
Pennington came alongside Jules as well, and eyes narrowed, rubbed his chin. “Does this have anything to do with the chit you kissed at Lady Lockhart’s last night?”
Jules stalled mid-stride.
“You saw?”
How, in bloody hell?
“Old chap, the draperies were wide open.” Pennington slapped Jules on the shoulder. “Not to worry. Sutcliffe and I were having a smoke. No one else ventured to the house’s rear. Only we witnessed the pathetic peck you gave the pretty thing before she tore from the room. You really need to work on that, old boy. I was almost embarrassed for you.”
Ah, so they’d only seen the last kiss.
“Who is she?” This from Sutcliffe, wearing a sly grin.
“None of your business.”
Jules resumed his walk and lengthened his stride.
He couldn’t compromise Jemmah.
“Devil it,” Pennington said as he replaced his quizzing glass. “He’s protecting her. Must be serious then. I didn’t recognize the gel. Did you?”
He leaned around Jules to poke Sutcliffe’s shoulder.
Sutcliffe shook his dark head. “No. But she did look familiar. We could ask Lady Lockhart, I suppose.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. She’s someone I knew a long time ago. Someone I shall do anything to protect from gossip and speculation.”
Hands on his hips, Jules glared back and forth, prepared to wipe the smirks off their faces.
Instead, both regarded him with calm, keen interest, but not a hint of ridicule.
Pennington grinned, his one green eye and one blue eye twinkling with suppressed mirth. “Are we to wish you happy?”
Jules sighed and shook his head. “Not yet. But I intend to change that as soon as possible. And you,” he jabbed a finger at each of them in turn, “are to keep my confidence in this matter. I’ll have your words, gentlemen.”
“Of course,” they murmured in unison, a trifle too quickly and subdued for Jules’s comfort.
Sutcliffe nodded at an acquaintance, and after he’d passed, extended his hand. “We leave you here, but please accept my heartiest best wishes that you are successful. Just be careful, my friend. Such behavior is totally out of character for you, and that’s why I’m inclined to believe you actually love Miss Dament.”
Thundering hippopotamus’s hooves.
How the hell had they learned Jemmah’s name?
“Damn it, Sutcliffe. We agreed not to reveal we knew who she was.” Pennington scowled darkly. “You never could keep a secret.”
“True, but look at him.” Pennington gestured toward Jules. “I cannot bring myself to taunt someone so obviously smitten. Can you? ’Twould be cruel, and we do profess to being his closest chums.”
“I’m standing right here, and can hear every word.” They wouldn’t talk. That Jules knew beyond a doubt. “You’re sure no one else saw her with me?”
“You can rest easy on that account, Dandridge,” Pennington said.
“Well, keep your ears open, just in case. I must be off. I’ll be late for tea at Lady Lockhart’s.” With a wave, Jules continued on his way, ignoring their chorus of guffaws.
Damn them.
They knew he didn’t attend tea.
Not until Jemmah turned up in his life again.
He truly wasn’t given to rash, impulsive behavior.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Which was one of the reasons he knew, beyond whimsy or doubt, Jemmah must be his.
Oh, his mother and uncles would pitch conniption fits equal to the Regent’s, but in the end, they’d concede.
What choice had they?
He was the Duke of Dandridge.
He controlled the purse strings.
His word was law, and it was far past time they acknowledged his position rather than treating him like a feckless, incompetent booby in need of their constant guidance.
His gratified chuckle earned him a curious glance from a pair of plump matrons dressed in the finest stare of fashion.
How wonderfully free and unencumbered he felt.
But how to persuade Jemmah that he was serious in his intentions after years of scant contact with her?
Such impulsiveness on Jules’s part would’ve send a buzz through the ton’s elite parlors if he were a rakehell or knave, but his reputation as a grave, severe sort made the notion preposterous to all but Theo, Sutcliffe, and Pennington, and he anticipated a full-blown cacophony when word leaked out.
And it would.
All it took was two or three visits to the same address, and the upper ten thousand would eagerly check their post daily for a wedding invitation.
How could he expect Jemmah to take him earnestly when what he proposed flew in the face of common sense and contradicted his typical behavior?
True, she’d kissed him like a long-starved woman, but he suspected she had been deprived of affection for years.
Had she responded because she desperately craved acceptance and love, or because she felt something for Jules?
Male pride demanded the latter, but prudence suggested the former.
Mightn’t Jemmah’s reaction be attributed to both?
Yes.
That seemed most logical.
He stepped to the side, permitting a nurse and her three rambunctious charges to pass.
Jules would use every advantage to win Jemmah and her mother over. He began making a mental list of tactics he intended to use.
A few minutes later, he rounded the corner onto Mayfai
r, just as Theo’s carriage rumbled to a stop before her mansion. He quickened his pace, his pulse keeping time with his hurried stride.
Jemmah alit, wearing a simple blue coat, a trifle too short, and a plain straw bonnet. She reached inside the conveyance, and after withdrawing a battered valise, faced the grand house.
Did her shoulders slump the slightest? The regal column of her neck bend as if she bore a weighty burden?
“Miss Dament.”
His regard never left her as his legs ate up the distance between them.
Never had he beheld anything half as lovely as when she turned, and upon spying him, joy blossomed across her face. All these years of being a sensible, logical sort, and now he felt as giddy as a lad in short pants or a foxed-to-his-gills tippler at being gifted a wondrous smile.
“Your Grace.”
She dipped into a smooth curtsy as he bowed, but not before he saw her red-rimmed eyes, framed by spiky lashes.
And the telltale salty trail across her cheeks once more.
An ink-stained fingertip poked from the gloved hand clutching the valise. Perhaps the drawings she’d promised were tucked within the dilapidated piece of luggage that was older than she, if it was a day.
She’d known deprivation, and a dull ache settled in his gut at the awareness.
Much had happened to his Jemmah in the years since they’d parted ways, most of it not good.
As the carriage rattled away, he took her valise and her elbow, but rather than escorting her up the front steps, Jules directed her ’round back, toward the mews.
Confusion knitting her brow, she cast a glance behind her.
“Where are we going?”
“Where I can have a word with you in private.”
Once hidden from the street, he placed his forefinger beneath her chin and raised her face.
“What has happened, dear one?”
The light faded from her lovely eyes, and the tears pooled there slowly leaked from the corners.
Such anguish of spirit reflected in her soul that he gathered her in his arms.
To hell with decorum and propriety.
She needed comfort.
Simple as that.
Sagging into his chest, she wept softly, brokenheartedly.
Her scent, that light clean smell of soap and lavender and perhaps the tiniest hint of rose water wafted upward as her shoulders shook with her grief.
“My dear, Jemmah. Please tell me. What has caused you such distress?”
Her hat’s tattered edge scraped his chin as she struggled to compose herself.
“Mama has turned me out, and I’ve nowhere to go but to impose upon Aunt Theo’s hospitality.”
“Why would she do such a thing?”
He veered a swift glance around.
Good.
No one ventured near or detected their presence behind the neatly-trimmed seven-foot shrubs bordering Theo’s house.
In a few concise, shuddery sentences, Jemmah explained what happened after he left the ball last night.
“So, because I refused to cede the opportunity to Adelinda, as I have almost everything of import my entire life, my mother put me from our house. I was only permitted to take what I could fit in one bag.”
Jules stroked her slender spine, desperate to comfort her. “Well, I can think of two ladies who will be euphoric at this turn of events. Three, if you count Sabrina. She was over the moon with excitement when I told her you’d generously offered to teach her drawing.”
He wasn’t exactly distressed either.
Her change in circumstances played quite nicely into his intent to woo her.
Jemmah sniffled and dashed her fingers across her face. “May I impose upon you to borrow your handkerchief?”
Great galloping giraffes.
The poor darling didn’t even own a scrap of cloth with which to dab her impossibly expressive eyes.
Jules passed her the starched and neatly-folded monogrammed square and waited while she dried her face, then blew her nose. Once she regained her self-control, he collected her bag and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.
Gazing down at her, he smiled tenderly. “I’d be a liar if I pretended I’m not thrilled I shall be able to call upon you here now.”
An adorable flush swept her face, accompanied by a winsome upward tilt of her mouth.
“Yes, there is that to look forward to. If Aunt Theo agrees to me staying with her.”
“She will, of course. And do you look forward to me paying my addresses?”
He hadn’t meant to go that far just yet, but the opportunity had presented itself, and he had impulsively told her he meant to court her.
Rather than using the front entrance, he steered her to the open French windows outside the ballroom.
Servants drifted in and out of the room, clearing up the remaining vestiges of last night’s celebration.
Theo’s poodle, Caesar, trotted through the empty ballroom, ebony nose and tail in the air, his nails clicking on the parquet floor.
Instead of answering straightaway, Jemmah tilted her head and regarded him through those thick, tear-damp lashes, her speculative gaze penetrating, yet reflective.
“The dowager has offered me an opportunity someone in my position isn’t likely to have replicated.”
“So have I, my precious Jem.”
Drawing her to the side of the house, Jules pulled her near. A damp breeze fluttered the cherry blossoms, sending a pink petal shower onto the sandstone pavers they stood upon.
“Why now, when you’ve scarcely paid me any notice for years?” She fiddled with her reticule strap. “I know I acted… Well, I was awfully glad to see you last night, and I did enjoy the dance. And after too. Very much, in fact. But that was… is a fairytale. I’m not a simpleton. Women like me don’t have the Duke of Dandridge paying them court when there are far lovelier, more suitable, and wealthier prospects.”
“Then don’t think of me as the duke, but as your friend of many, many years. One who has never held another as dear, and one who with all of his heart, wants to be more.” He trailed his finger along her jaw. “Much more, if you’ll let me.”
Jules settled his lips onto hers, tasting once again the sweetness of her mouth. He poured all of his yearning, his love into the kiss, communicating what he so desperately needed to tell her.
Without prompting, Jemmah opened her mouth, and using the skills he’d taught her last night, proceeded to send any vestige of logical thought he retained, spiraling out of control.
Holding her face between his palms, he angled her head to kiss her deeper still, savoring her velvety tongue sparring with his.
A muffled woof, followed by snuffling near his ankles reined in his passion.
What was Jules thinking, kissing her in broad daylight?
Evidently, even a pragmatic somber fellow such as himself, once besotted, didn’t think at all clearly.
What a splendid realization.
Still, he’d already been seen kissing her once, and even if his intentions were honorable, he’d not bring censure upon Jemmah.
Theo stepped halfway out the door and pulled her bold-colored Norwich shawl more snugly around her shoulders.
“My footman said he heard voices out here. Whatever are the two of you doing?”
“I’m trying to persuade Miss Dament to permit me to court her.”
Jules didn’t care who knew, and he needed Theo as an ally.
“And I haven’t agreed, as yet.” The warmth radiating from Jemmah’s eyes encouraged him.
She would agree. She must.
A smile wreathed Theo’s face, so exuberant, her ruby earbobs trembled.
“Well, if that isn’t the most splendid news I’ve heard in a great while.” With a swift glimpse about the courtyard, she beckoned them. “Come inside and tell me all.”
Her focus alit on the portmanteau near Jemmah’s foot, and her questioning gaze vacillated between Jules and Jemmah.
“Are you eloping?”
Jemmah gave a small, water-logged laugh and shook her head. “Nothing so romantic, I’m afraid, Aunt Theo.” She summoned a brave smile. “I’m in need of a place to stay. Indefinitely.”
“Ah.” Theo looped her arm through Jemmah’s leaving Jules to collect the beaten-about-the-edges valise. “You are welcome for as long as you want, my dear. I’m quite thrilled, actually.”
“I’m ever so grateful, Auntie.” Jemmah hugged her aunt’s arm.
Theo tossed a saucy glance over her shoulder.
“Now, tell me, what’s this business about Dandridge courting you?”
Three glorious weeks later.
Jemmah angled first one way, and then the other before the floor length oval looking glass.
The black-edged cerulean-blue walking ensemble was quite the loveliest thing she’d ever seen. But then again, that was what she thought with each new gown dear Aunt Theo or the Dowager Lady Lockhart bestowed upon her.
And each time, she’d insisted they’d gifted her quite enough and forbade them to purchase her a single thing more.
They’d laughed and pooh-poohed her.
One would think it should be easy to become accustomed to the gorgeous gowns, fallalls, fripperies… scented soaps and lotions… enough sleep for the first time in years. But it wasn’t easy, and Jemmah still couldn’t as yet reconcile herself to this new way of life.
Each time she approached the dowager about beginning her companionship duties, the dame dismissed her concerns, insisting there was time enough to worry about that later. She wouldn’t even permit Jemmah to attend her on their evenings out, claiming Aunt Theo more than capable of the task.
Aunt Theo would then take Lady Lockhart’s arm, leaving Jules to offer Jemmah his elbow. She suspected the two of match-making. How could she fault the dears when she desired the same thing?
After supper tonight, they were off to the theater again.
Oh, that first time had been so magical.
In a hastily-altered, borrowed gown of Aunt Theo’s, Jemmah had entered on Jules’s arm, for once appearing in public confident and proud.
Tucked in Auntie’s gallery box, Jemmah had tried to watch the ballet performance, but his hand holding hers, his lips mere inches away as he whispered in her ear, the timbre of his melodic baritone causing delicious little tremors...
Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 1-3: A Regency Romance Page 7
