The Amorous Heiress

by Carrie Alexander

  “Anyway…” She cleared her throat, plucking at the dress nervously. “What were we talking about?”

  Jed stroked her leg, his pinkie extending beneath the netting of her skirt. “The way I see it, some people find their place easily and some have to work at it.” Her skin was soft, giving off a surprising warmth beneath the fine silk of her stockings. “In the first half of my life, I had the first. Then when I came to a turning point, I made a conscious decision about how I wanted to go on, and I worked to see it through.” Her skirt rustled as his fingers curved around to the smooth muscle of her inner thigh. “Maybe your problem is that you thought you had it easy, but now you’re realizing that if you want a better life you’re going to have to work for it.”

  As if she’d only now realized what he was doing, Gussy jerked upright, clamping her legs together so his hand was trapped between her thighs, though not quite under her – skirt. He would have been satisfied to leave it there, but she gasped and scrabbled at the layers of her skirt, pushing his hand away. He chuckled easily and withdrew to his place, looking relaxed and unconcerned even though his bloodstream was laced with a desperate heat.

  “I think I’d better go in,” Gussy said, her voice shaky. She hesitated, then suddenly leaned over and gave him a quick, tiny kiss on the cheek; despite his honed reflexes, he didn’t turn fast enough to take full-mouthed advantage of the overture.

  She slipped from the truck, waving him off when he would have gone around to help. “Thanks for everything.” Her glance fell on his hand and she started blushing again. “I mean, thanks for the ride. And the food, and the jacket. Thanks for the talk. I’ll think about what you said.” She slammed the door, looking stricken by her jabbering, then opened it again and stuck her head inside and handed him the jacket. “Good night,” she added solemnly, and closed the door with a solid click of its latch.

  Jed watched her hobble away, taking baby steps up the granite stairs and under the portico. Unexpectedly, Thwaite opened the door and ushered her inside. The last thing Jed saw as he drove away was the sour yet smug expression on the butler’s bony face. Jed wondered if Thwaite was on twenty-four-hour guard duty or if he’d simply been spying from the window the entire time.

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER, Gussy was the youngest member—by thirty years—at a garden-club luncheon meeting held at Throckmorton Cottage. Although several young married women belonged to the group, they’d begged off one by one, too busy with family outings, suntanning and sailing to spend the afternoon discussing whether to bank the lemonade-stand profits or to purchase flats of annuals to fill in some of the fading borders at the town park. It was a battle royal, with the staid members all for the security of a healthy savings account and the more daring ones promoting the beautification of Sheepshead Bay. While Gussy rather meekly aligned herself with the renegades, as the recording secretary she was too absorbed in taking down every word of the contretemps to actually speak up.

  Marian suggested they table the discussion for the time being and adjourned the meeting. With his usual imperturbability, Thwaite arrived to announce that luncheon was served. The garden clubbers moved from the library to the oceanside terrace, where three large, round tables had been set up, pretty in pastels, with crystal and silver that sparkled in the sunshine. Everyone oohed and aahed.

  Conversation moved lazily from the cunning rose centerpieces that Gussy had devised, to the perfect flakiness of the chicken en croute (Marian promised to convey their compliments to the chef but declined the chance to introduce Godfrey in person). The ladies commented on the wonderful weather and the fine wine and their assorted gorgeous grandchildren. Gussy had to stifle a yawn.

  Using her empty water goblet as an excuse, she stepped away from her table as the arrival of the dessert cart deflected attention. She was about to duck inside the house when Thwaite whipped out a pitcher from the bottom shelf of the cart and refilled her goblet, standing squarely between her and the French doors. “Thanks so much, Thwaite,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “My duty, Miss Augustina,” he replied, his voice as dry as his parchment skin. He exchanged an oblique nod with her grandmother.

  Sipping and strolling, Gussy casually circled the terrace until Thwaite was occupied with dishing out lemon meringue pie. No one else was looking. She slipped around the corner, down the steps, and was soon taking a deep breath of relief, safely enveloped by the lush, leafy haven of the rose garden.

  She tipped out the water glass over a mossy granite urn planted with bright blue lobelia and a miniature Cinderella white rosebush, then sat on the built-in bench beneath the arbor of climbing roses, suitably out of sight should anyone come looking for her.

  Idly she pinged one fingernail against the goblet, wondering what she was doing, hiding from the harmless ladies of the garden club. How absolutely wimpish. How totally Gussy Gutless.

  Here it was, already two weeks since she’d made her resolution to take charge of her life, yet so little had changed. Unless she counted Jed, she was stuck in the same wearisome place, doing the same monotonous things, feeling the same suffocated way.

  But how could she not count Jed? If he hadn’t come along, she might have decided that marrying Andrews was her only choice. If Jed hadn’t challenged her, she might never have wondered what else there was for her besides marriage. If he hadn’t kissed her, she might have continued to believe that earthshaking passion could be a fantasy but certainly not a reality.

  If not for Jed, she might never have fallen in love.

  “Imagine that,” Gussy said, tilting her head back and staring up at the heavily laden lattice arch. Even though she’d wanted her life to change, even though outwardly it hadn’t seemed to, inside she was swirling with brand-new emotions. Inside she was practically born anew.

  Jed counted. He counted for a whole lot.

  The rosebushes rustled. Thinking the wind was picking up, Gussy turned her face to the arched opening, but no cooling breeze arrived. She shrugged, closing her eyes. She’d steal a few more moments of peace and quiet before returning to duty with the garden club.

  The bushes were still rustling, almost crackling. Gussy frowned. If Thwaite was dogging her…

  “Pssst.”

  Not Thwaite. Gussy set the goblet on the bench and leaned forward, peering around the opening into the nearest foliage.

  “Gussy. Over here.”

  Jed was half-hidden behind the ivy-covered gazebo, casting wary glances toward the chattering sounds wafting from the terrace.

  She waved him over. “Jed, what are you doing? You’re our gardener. You don’t need to skulk around in the rosebushes.”

  “I don’t want your grandmother to catch sight of me. She’ll steamroll me into giving an impromptu lecture to twenty ladies who believe that Jellicoe is a god and every word he uttered a pearl.”

  Gussy understood his reluctance. “But then why are you here?”

  “I needed to see you. I’ve been thinking about you—all the time.”

  Her spirits took wing; for decorum’s sake, she tried to tether them. “Well, that’s very nice, I suppose, but I do have to get back.”

  “Back to that? You’re kidding.” His forehead crinkled. “I didn’t think you were the dutiful type, but maybe I was wrong.”

  “You’re not!” she blurted, decorum forgotten in her desperation to convince him she was ready and willing. “I’m not!” On impulse, she more or less threw herself at him. “I only need a good reason to escape.”

  He caught her, but held her awkwardly at arm’s length. “I wasn’t suggesting a scandalous assignation under your grandmother’s nose—”

  Laughing, Gussy flicked back her hair. “Why not?”

  Jed’s hands skimmed down her arms to find her hips. She moved them sinuously, trying to step closer. “Why?” he asked, although in truth he no longer wanted to hold off the amorous heiress.

  She put her hands on either side of his jaw and tilted his head down to hers. “‘Ours is not to
reason why,’” she quoted with a purr, her lips parting to show the gleaming white of her teeth, the pink tip of her tongue. “‘Ours is but to do or—’”

  “I have to agree there,” he murmured. “If we don’t do it, I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.”

  “Well, then, Jed…” She placed her mouth on his. “Do it we must.”

  The words vibrated on her lips and tongue and he licked them off, opening his mouth to the escalating heat. Instantly he wanted to drink her in, wanted to drown in the flooding pleasure of kissing her, wallow in her sweet, sexy taste until he was sated. He wanted to be greedy.

  Her lips moved, his tongue probed and their kiss deepened, going far beyond flirtation. Gussy must have realized that, clinging to him as she was, soft and curved and womanly, the contact igniting every nerve ending of his body. He battled his instinct to claim her.

  Despite such rampaging urges, he knew he had to find the precise way to please her beyond all others. He wanted her moving under him, shivering with desires too powerful to deny. He wanted his name to be the only one that came to her lips, his face the only one she saw. He wanted to be the one man in her heart, in her mind, in her blood.

  Safely sheltered by the arbor, he sank slowly onto the white wooden bench. Gussy sagged against him. “Hold on to me,” she panted, brushing her fingers over his sheared hair, across his ears, down to his nape. Her long, honeybrown hair flowed around his upturned face when she bent to kiss the prickly crown of his head.

  “I will.” He rolled his face against her breasts, luxuriating in the yielding contours of her flesh. He covered each breast with a palm, cupping and squeezing. A response quaked deep inside of her and rose to the surface, trembling across her skin. He popped open several of the tiny buttons of her lace blouse and slid his hand back in place—inside the loosened blouse. “I’ll hold you, Gussy, sweetheart,” he promised, his voice thick with reckless need as his fingers tightened on her. “I’ll hold you.”

  “Don’t—oh!” When he rubbed his thumb against her nipple, she gasped and grabbed at the crisscrossed laths of the arbor. Pink petals drifted down on them. “Don’t let go.”

  He wrapped one arm around her hips, taking her between his legs, her thighs pressed to the straining ache of his arousal. She whimpered at her imprudence, but nonetheless moved against him, her breasts tantalizing his lips. He took the fullness of one breast into his open mouth and laved its pink crest through the flimsy lace of her bra. Gussy arched toward him.

  “My lord! Ethel, do you see…? No, no—don’t look!”

  Mouth pouting, eyes sultry, Gussy turned and looked into the horrified faces of two garden-club members who’d strolled into the rose garden, unaware. She stiffened, stumbled back a half step and stopped, suddenly acutely conscious that her blouse was falling off her shoulders and Jed’s face was still buried at her breasts. He started to rise and she quickly pushed him back down, shoving him aside so forcefully his leg bumped the goblet she’d left on the bench. It shattered on the stones.

  “Oh, please, oh, please…” Gussy turned her back on the ladies as she hastily pulled herself together. “Don’t let them see you,” she pleaded with Jed, not looking at him herself, either, as she buttoned and tucked haphazardly. She licked her tingling lips and turned to make craven apologies, one arm extended behind her back as she pressed on Jed’s shoulder to keep him out of sight.

  “My lord, Ethel, that’s Marian’s granddaughter!”

  “April?” Ethel said, squinting myopically at the amorous young people hidden in the shadows of the rose arbor.

  “Not April. Augustina, the quiet one. Why, I never!”

  I never, either, Gussy thought with a dreadful sinking feeling. And once her grandmother heard about this, she’d probably never I never again.

  8

  Never Say I Never Again

  THE FIRST SIGN that something terrible was afoot came when Marian Throckmorton broke the sacred order of breakfast Gussy arrived at the terrace table on time, fully expecting the reprimands she’d avoided yesterday by retiring to her bedroom before the gossip could cycle back to her grandmother. But Grandmother Throckmorton was not in her usual place. Nor was Thwaite.

  Gussy sat anyway, having nowhere else to go and knowing that Grandmother would catch up with her sooner or later. Ever since Jed had held her hand at the regatta, she’d known the guillotine would eventually fall. Unless the grapevine had experienced a major breakdown, she was doomed, so she might as well get it over with.

  Godfrey came out of the house, clumping in his black leather biker boots. He’d assumed the job of cook for the duration of his stay at Throckmorton Cottage, and was wearing the double-breasted white chef’s coat that Thwaite had insisted was proper. Godfrey, however, wore it with a studded leather vest and candy-striped surfer’s shorts, effectively popping Thwaite’s bubble of pomposity. Gussy silently cheered the unconventional butler’s subversion.

  He plunked a rack of toast onto the table. “Breakfast is served, mum,” he growled in a mangled parody of Thwaite.

  “But where’s Grandmother?” Gussy asked. “And Thwaite?”

  “Miz Throckmorton’s in with the old geezer. The other old geezer’s hovering outside the door.” Godfrey scoffed. “Trying to eavesdrop, most like.”

  If Grandmother was in with Great-grandfather, the situation was worse than Gussy had feared. They were consulting! On her punishment!

  There was an egg in an eggcup on her plate; she picked up a knife and took off its top with a ruthless skill born of desperation. Unless she found a way to speak up loud enough for them to hear, she was done for. More importantly, Jed was done for.

  She could not let that happen.

  Still automatically carrying on with breakfast, she took a slice of the brittle toast, scowling so ferociously that even Godfrey, king of scowls, noticed. “Egg okay?” he asked.

  Gussy snapped the toast in half and stabbed a pointed end into the soft-boiled egg. “Fine, Godfrey. How long has Grandmother been up there?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Long enough to have missed her first cup of coffee,” Gussy calculated. One cup late and she’d be merely reprimanded. Two cups late and she’d be married off to Andrews Lowell before word could spread beyond the garden club. Jed was probably a goner in either case.

  Godfrey clumped back to the kitchen without insisting she try the oatmeal. Gussy smiled bleakly. Maybe she’d ask him to buttle for her and Andrews.

  Marian emerged from the house. “Augustina,” she pronounced in drill-sergeant mode, with only a tight nod of greeting. She marched to her place, Thwaite on her heels. He held out the chair and had poured a cup of coffee by the time she picked up her napkin.

  Gussy snapped to attention. “Good morning, Grandmother.”

  “That’s debatable.” Marian’s eyes flicked at Thwaite and he disappeared inside, silent and obsequious. Marian turned her steely gaze on Gussy. “Augustina, I’m shocked at you. What’s more, I’m ashamed.”

  Gussy briefly looked away, summoning courage. “What did I do that was so wrong?” she asked, more plaintive than defiant. April had gotten into scrapes like this all the time and come through without a scratch. Unless you counted her divorce.

  “I chose to ignore as insignificant the talk of you holding hands with the gardener during the regatta. All young people must test their boundaries by commingling with outsiders. I’m certain you’ve realized it was inappropriate. And dear Andrews explained that you’d balked at his…overtures, shall we say, during the dance, so I can also disregard Thwaite’s report of you hitching a ride home in Mr. Kelley’s pickup truck.”

  Marian slowly stirred cream into her coffee. “However, I cannot account for your behavior at the garden-club luncheon. Allowing Ethel and Louise Fiske to catch you in a compromising position with one of your more ardent suitors was simply beyond the pale. They have the entire membership speculating on who it was.”

  Gussy stared, openmouthed. They didn’t know? No
one knew?

  “I will not abide such open speculation on your scandalous conduct, Augustina,” Marian continued. “You’d do well to remember that a proper lady’s name appears in public on three occasions—birth, marriage, death.”

  “Times have changed, Grandmother.” Was she so sure of Gussy’s obedience that she couldn’t imagine that Jed had been the mystery man? Gussy frowned deep in thought. That was good, but it was also bad.

  “Indeed they have. But not so drastically that I can condone your amorous behavior. Truly, Gussy, I don’t understand what’s happened to you. You were once a delightful child, so good, quiet and obedient. I might have expected such an unseemly stunt—” Marian shuddered with distaste “—from April, but never you. You must think of your reputation, and how it reflects not only on your family but also on your future.”

  “I’m over the age of consent.” Even if it was only because her grandmother couldn’t believe that Gussy might commingle so thoroughly with Jed, she was elated that he was in the clear. She would have to do her best to see that he stayed that way. “And you did tell me to go out and find myself a husband.”

  Marian threw down her napkin. “Yes, Gussy. But not so—so intimately!”

  “It’s the custom, Grandmother,” Gussy said gently. “Why, these days some women even live with their boyfriends before marriage.”

  “I’m aware of that, thank you.” Marian’s lips made a thin, uncompromising line. “Never would a Throckmorton stoop so low. I’m warning you, Augustina.”

  “I was only saying, Grandmother.”

  “Nevertheless.” Marian selected a slice of toast. “Your great-grandfather and I have discussed the situation.”

  Gussy’s hands made fists in her lap. Here it came. The word from on high. The commandment. The law that could not be broken. She’d never be capable of disobeying a direct order from that fire-breathing dictator, Elias Quincy Throckmorton.

  “He would like to speak with you.”