Jed shrugged and stumped back down the narrow stairway for the last box. Either way you looked at it, this Gussy person definitely had a screw loose. The way she’d cooed nonsense at him, shimmied her hips and caressed his hand had been at best an unconventional approach to their initial consultation. Not as blatant as Vanessa Van Pelt’s behavior, but certainly an overly amorous way to treat the new gardener.
“Rich society chicks,” Jed said, scooping up a box so light it had to contain his kitchen supplies. “Whaddya gonna do?”
Get used to it, he answered himself. There’d be no avoiding working with them. Apparently he’d have to get used to fending them off, too.
Jed was not the kind of man who would happily reap his own physical satisfaction by allowing himself to be used by amorous heiresses with idle minds and restless hands. No way. No matter how soft and pink as dew-kissed roses were their lips.
And now that that was settled, he could quit thinking about the dishonorable Miss Augustina Fairchild, right? Right.
Glad he’d had the barber give him a zip cut in preparation for a hot summer of outdoor work, Jed swiped his sleeve across his forehead as he passed the old wooden carriage doors that opened to a converted garage containing a vintage Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce and a more practical midnight blue coupe. Since the oozy butler up at the main house had already informed Jed that the Throckmortons no longer employed a chauffeur, Jed was hoping that he wouldn’t be expected to ferry the cars between here and there. If he was going to make a success of his new business, he couldn’t afford the time to be at the beck and call of the Throckmortons.
Living on the estate could be a problem, he realized. Mrs. Throckmorton wasn’t the type to demand service; she was the type who expected it. And Gussy was the type who…Well, he was no longer absolutely sure of what type Gussy was. She had suitors lined up at the door and her manner was flirtatious, but there’d also been that moment when she’d first squinted through the glare and said hello, looking for all the world like a timid little mouse expecting a rebuff.
Jeez. He really had to get her off his mind.
The door to the second-floor apartment was shrouded with lush climbing ivy; Jed left it open behind him so fresh air would circulate throughout his new living quarters, which were about as different from the sleek, spacious, impersonal condo he still owned in Hartford as a guy could get. Even though someone had recently dusted and polished, the four furnished rooms had retained a faint, closed-up, unused mustiness. The space was on the small side, with unexpected nooks, patterned Victorian wallpaper faded to pastels and low, slanted ceilings that opened into ivy-hung dormers, one in each room. The branches of the towering pines and firs that sheltered the brick carriage house brushed at its windows and roofs each time the wind gusted, a pleasant sound in counterpoint to the distant swish of the surf.
After depositing the last box in the tiny kitchen, Jed got a long-necked beer from the fridge and returned to the mullioned window in the living room’s dormer. He stared at the main house, thinking that to keep all that boxwood clipped would be practically a part-time job all on its own. He cranked the window open to the refreshing salt air, then forgot his beer on the sill when he went to wash up. His knee joint had begun to loosen up; he hardly limped at all.
He had his shirt off, the water running and his face lathered when a feminine voice called from the upper landing. “Hello? Mr. Kelley? Are you home?”
Jed splashed cold water on his face and grabbed a towel from a stack he’d just unpacked. Swabbing runnels of soapy water off his bare chest, he walked into the living room and found the amorous heiress herself standing uneasily at the open door, her feet still out on the landing but her head and shoulders poked past the jamb. She flinched and pulled back when she saw him.
“Jed,” he said. “Call me Jed.”
She stared at his chest, her shiny eyes as round and brown as old copper pennies.
The corners of Jed’s mouth twitched; he draped the towel around his neck. “It’s Augustina, am I right?”
She managed a nod. “Uh-huh.”
“Come on in, Augustina,” he invited, but she didn’t budge an inch. In fact, she looked ready to bolt. Not the seductress he’d met up at the house, he thought. Same body, though, shown off to slender advantage by the clinging halter top of her pale-pink flowered dress. Her bare shoulders looked as smooth and tasty as sweet butter-cream frosting.
“I prefer Gussy,” she blurted.
“Unusual name.”
She licked her lips. “My parents named each of their daughters after the month of their birth. Since I’m not the Tina type, and Augie is even worse than Gussy…” She shrugged, her gaze glued to his biceps, and asked with a sweet little breathy moan, “Is that a tattoo?”
“Yes, that would be a tattoo.” Jed was grinning openly now. The tattoo was an ugly thing, a ferocious black bear. “One of those drunk-on-school-spirit-and-a-kegger decisions I’ve since lived to regret.”
She was staring at the tattoo as if she’d never seen one before. Maybe she hadn’t. Her dozens of boyfriends probably weren’t the type, unless Harvard had changed a hell of a lot since Jed’s team used to bodycheck theirs right off the ice. “I played college hockey at the University of Maine,” he elaborated. “The Black Bears, you know.”
Progress: she blinked.
Jed could handle her reaction. Having played professional hockey for six years, he’d met his share of impressionable, shiny-eyed sports groupies. And the harderedged, bleached-blond camp followers, too, the type of women his more callous teammates had used and discarded at their convenience. Then there was the third type, the pretty, sweet and to all appearances sincere girls who took a guy’s engagement ring when he was up and threw it in his face when he was down, the girls whose seemingly genuine love masked the reality of their mercenary, statusgrubbing souls.
Of course, an heiress like Gussy didn’t have to play in that league. She wasn’t going to be impressed by money or fancy cars—good thing, since he’d just traded in his Porsche. The acclaim and privilege of his star-athlete status, while irrevocably defunct, probably wouldn’t have been worth peanuts in her crowd, either.
She was still staring.
Jed supposed it was possible that Gussy’s awed reaction was in response to his gaucherie at appearing bare-chested before the lady of the manor, junior version. But somehow he doubted it.
Nope. It had to be his sheer masculine pulchritude she was reacting to with such a faltering fascination.
Which was kind of funny, now that he thought of it, coming from a supposed flirt like the amorous heiress here.
A big dog bounded into the room, breaking up their tableau. It sniffed the air, barked once at Jed, wagged its tail at his answering smile and lunged without warning, planting its paws on his chest and enthusiastically swiping its tongue across his face.
“Percy, down,” commanded Gussy.
Laughing, Jed put his hands around the beast’s upper body and tried to push it away. The dog’s cold nose nuzzled his neck as it slurped behind his ear.
Gussy grabbed Percy’s collar and hauled him off Jed. “I’m so sorry. Percy is sometimes too exuberant to obey my commands.”
Jed looked at the stolid golden retriever, sitting on its haunches, pink tongue lolling, feathered tail sweeping the floor in friendly arcs. “At least he likes me.”
Gussy bent at the waist and murmured something to the dog as she smoothed its fur beneath the collar. Her long brown hair slipped across her cheek and the filtered sunshine from the window burnished it to a rich, molten, golden-brown flow of honey that was only a shade or two darker than Percy’s fur. She straightened, flipping her hair back from the headband, and he saw that her eyes, too, were the same as the dog’s: a glistening velvety brown lashed in dark gold, wide with eagerness and a slight anxiety.
In the dog’s case the eager anxiety came from wanting to be released to attack Jed’s face with its tongue. As for Gussy…he didn’t know.
Maybe the same. Or so a man could hope.
No, jeez, no, not that, he thought, thoroughly frustrated with himself. He wasn’t supposed to be ready for another relationship. Not even a bucolic D. H. Lawrence-inspired romp, with Gussy as Lady Chatterley and himself as the gamekeeper.
Especially not that.
“Percy likes everyone,” Gussy said. “He’s very friendly.”
And so was she, Jed reminded himself, thinking of her accumulation of lovesick admirers. “Then he won’t be attacking me unawares among the azaleas?”
Her smile was shy. “Not viciously, anyway. Though I can’t promise good behavior.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind muddy paw prints on my work clothes.”
Gussy’s glance touched on his chest, then bounced away. “Is the apartment all right? It can get hot up here in the summertime.” She was staring at the moving boxes, trying hard not to look at him. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have fixed it up a little. Stocked the refrigerator, arranged flowers, that sort of thing.”
“It’s fine.” He considered what she’d said, then added, “You didn’t know I was coming?” And if not, then whom had she thought she was talking to so coquettishly, back there in the solarium?
“Umm…there was a small miscommunication between me and my grandmother about hiring a new gardener, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
She blushed. “I—I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. Before, I mean. Holding your ha—” She stopped her halting speech by biting her lip. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re hired. Officially.”
“No trial period?”
She shook her head, forming a silent no with her lips.
He could have kissed her then, but he held himself in check. If Gussy’s initial behavior toward him had been overly amorous, then who knew what his kissing her would qualify him for—except possibly unemployment. Which he couldn’t afford, if not in terms of money, then in what it would cost his reputation. He wasn’t interested in being the permanent stud-muffin gardener to the Vanessa Van Pelts of the world.
“Well, that’s good,” he said. Percy snuffled around the boxes, his toenails clicking on the oak plank floor.
“So…I hope you’ll like it here.” Gussy edged toward the door.
Jed found that he wanted her to stay. “Can I get you a drink?” He snatched his beer bottle off the windowsill. “I don’t suppose you drink beer?”
She looked down at her clasped hands. “Water?”
“Okay, water,” he said. “Wait here.” He turned toward the kitchen, the dog at his heels, then spun back and grabbed a garment bag and his answering machine off a worn, green-velvet love seat. “Make yourself comfortable.”
When he came back with the glass of water, Gussy was still standing, though she’d moved to the window and was looking past the interwoven evergreen branches to the large brick house on the rise. She took the water with a murmured “Thanks,” and drank it down without pause, dutifully, then handed the empty glass back to him. He waited. Her big eyes swiveled toward him at last and her lips slowly parted, but all she said was, “Percy?”
As the dog trotted into the room, licking his chops, Jed told himself he wasn’t disappointed. He had to remember that his so-called masculine pulchritude wouldn’t go as far now that he was no longer a big-deal pro athlete, and that was probably a good thing.
Besides, to Gussy he was just a gardener. She was obviously embarrassed about whatever had been going on in the solarium; she could scarcely bear to look him in the eye. Which meant that it wasn’t likely she’d ever see him for the man he was inside.
Not unlike his fickle former fiancée.
“We’ve bothered you long enough,” Gussy said, snapping her fingers at Percy as she walked to the doorway. Once there, she put one hand on the jamb and paused, her back to Jed. Her straight, golden-brown hair fell smoothly to just above her shoulder blades, leaving much of her lovely back bare, literally so luscious in its butter-cream perfection that his mouth watered.
He saw her rib cage expand as she took a deep breath. “Since it’s your first day at Throckmorton Cottage…” she hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder “…why don’t you come up to the house for dinner this evening?” Percy also looked back, his tail weaving from side to side.
Jed cleared his throat, hesitating.
“Grandmother will be there, of course. I’m sure she’d be delighted to have you.”
Oh, I’m sure.
“We can discuss your work in the garden.”
Yup. The garden.
“Our latest French chef quit in a snit, but the housekeeper who’s filling in is an adequate cook. You won’t go hungry, and there’s apple tart for dessert.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Jed said, smiling, though he was still waiting for Gussy to mention her own delight in having him. If one could call it that. “I’ll be there. I’ll even put on a shirt.”
She smiled hugely, said a breathless goodbye and fairly galloped down the stairs, the dog bounding joyously at her heels.
After a minute, Jed wandered back to the bathroom, his hands knotted on the towel around his neck. Dinner at the big house, with the formidable Mrs. Throckmorton quizzing him on his theories about hybrids and making notes on his table manners, sounded like fun.
So why was his face in the mirror grinning like a hyena? Jed shook his head and reached for the soap. No soap. He looked in the sink, then at the haphazardly scattered towels he’d thought he’d left in a neat stack on the commode. Maybe he’d knocked them over without realizing it, but still, where was the soap?
He shook out the towels, found nothing, and even traced his route into the living room and back again. No soap.
Odd. He thought of Gussy, alone for a moment while he was in the kitchen, and operating under the influence of a masculine pulchritude that maybe wasn’t as diminished as he’d assumed, then concluded, no, of course not What could Gussy possibly want with his soap?
Dismissing the matter as yet another unsolved mystery, he rummaged around in a box until he found another of the skimpy hotel soaps he’d collected from one too many road games and then went back to washing up, watching his ridiculous grinning face in the mirror.
He really was going to have to stop thinking about Gussy as anything other than his boss.
Starting tomorrow.
3
Dinner with the Throckmortons
TO CORRECT the mistaken impression she’d given Jed in the solarium—she had to, didn’t she, since he certainly couldn’t go on thinking of her as a flirt…?—Gussy had dressed for dinner like a nun on holiday, in a cream organza blouse with a multilayered collar of fluted ruffles, a plain shin-length navy blue skirt, patterned ivory stockings and slip-on flats with neat blue grosgrain bows. She’d made herself wear the round wire-rimmed glasses and had parted her hair in the middle. If she didn’t look quite like a nun, then she looked like the most virtuous of novitiates.
Jed looked like a male animal, even in his tailored suit and muted silk tie. Forcing her gaze away from him before the hunger in her eyes betrayed her, Gussy responded in a monotone to something Andrews had said about the regatta next Saturday. Andrews, of course, looked like Andrews: flat blond hair, pale blue eyes, aquiline nose and mushy chin, wearing a Harvard club tie and a navy blazer with some sort of Mayflower crest on the pocket.
Grandmother Throckmorton had invited Andrews to dinner, independent of Gussy inviting Jed. An initially unpleasant surprise, but perhaps all for the best.
After Gussy had discovered that Jed was a gardener and not one of her network of reluctant admirers—a realization that still made her cringe—she’d wasted no time in discarding the impulsive idea about using marriage to free herself from the Throckmorton restraints. Not that he’d ask, but marrying Jed would cause more upheaval than even a solo declaration of independence, so that meant her best remaining prospect was Andrews. And marrying Andrews was strictly a last re
sort. Although she’d gain some measure of respect and freedom as Mrs. Andrews Lowell, their benefit would be limited. Gussy would still be stuck in Sheepshead Bay, expected to conform to the rules of respectable young matronhood. She wasn’t ready for that. Especially not after meeting Jed.
His becoming forbidden fruit had only made her want him more—and she wasn’t about to analyze the psychological ramifications of that.
Once Grandmother had concluded her recycled garden-club lecture on Rosa rugosas, to which Jed had nodded compliantly but withheld most comment, Andrews began questioning Jed about his hockey career. It seemed that Andrews had actually played hockey himself and was trying to assert that the Harvard club team was nearly as good as their NCAA team, to which Jed withheld both comments and nods. Every now and then his gaze would flick briefly over Gussy; each time she felt the jolt of his sizzling, electric blue eyes.
“I played field hockey at Miss Fibbing-White’s,” she announced at a lull in the conversation. “Ugh. Big, healthy, horsey girls in plaid skirts and knee socks. Phoebe Beecham was very nasty with the stick. My shins were black-and-blue for an entire semester.”
Ignoring her contribution as frivolous, Andrews asked Jed with some suspicion, “For which team did you play? I don’t recall your name.”
Like Andrews was an expert, Gussy thought.
“The Black Wings, then the Whalers. Six years altogether, until I was blindsided by Howitzer O’Hallihan during a road game and wrecked my knee and my eye.”
Gussy winced in sympathy. “Is that how you got the scar?”
“What scar?” Andrews said.
Jed didn’t respond immediately, which made Gussy vacillate. “I’m sorry. Was that rude of me to ask?” At the head of the table, Grandmother shook her head slightly, so Gussy supposed it was.
Truth be known, she found Jed’s scar extremely attractive. He looked like a pirate, or maybe a desperado. Sort of dashing, and possibly dangerous, the kind of man who made his enemies’ blood run cold and a lady’s run hot.
The Amorous Heiress Page 4
