Gussy’s shoulders drooped.
“You’re to report to him immediately.”
Her blood ran cold.
“And you’re to do exactly as he says. Do not even think otherwise, Augustina.”
Gussy nodded her reluctant assent. Had it ever been any different?
ELIAS QUINCY THROCKMORTON was an uncompromising man. He’d been born in the early part of the century, and though he’d lived through enormous changes as the years and the world progressed, he hadn’t moved with them. He prided himself on that fact, and that though old age had taken its toll on his body, his uncompromising character had only strengthened and hardened until it was as obdurate as Plymouth Rock.
Approaching the solid-mahogany bedroom door, Gussy imagined that Great-grandfather had always had the courage of his convictions, right from the cradle. And his ultimate conviction was that his word would remain the absolute law of Throckmorton Cottage and its inhabitants even upon his death.
Gussy feared that she would have to be the first to do what not even Grandmother or April had managed. Unless she wanted to be married to the man of Great-grandfather’s choice, she would have to tell him no.
She doubted that she could do it. Yet she had to. She absolutely had to.
Rozalinda came out the door before Gussy got up the nerve to knock. “Is he waiting for me?” she whispered to the nurse.
For once, Rozalinda’s natural cheer was subdued. “You watch yourself, Gussy. Elias be in a very bad mood.”
“I was afraid he would be.” Gussy felt shaky, but at least her teeth weren’t chattering.
“Now, none of that. You go in there and let him have his say. Words are not’ing, they roll off you if you let them, girl.”
“But I can’t help taking them to heart.”
“No, no.” Rozalinda gave Gussy’s shoulders a healthy squeeze. “Keep your heart open only to what matters. Try not to let this old man intimidate you.”
This old man was going to play knickknack with her life. “Thanks, Rozalinda. I’ll do my best.” Gussy firmed her resolve. “Is Nurse Schwarthoff already inside?”
“She is gettin’ the breakfast tray. If you’re quick, you can be in and out before she come back.” Rozalinda offered one last encouraging smile before hurrying away.
Stalling, her hand on the doorknob, Gussy watched the roly-poly Jamaican nurse depart. One of Elias Throckmorton’s peculiarities was that he insisted on British butlers, Finnish housekeepers, French cooks, Japanese gardeners, Italian chauffeurs, Austrian ski instructors, Swiss accountants…which had tended to turn the busiest years of Throckmorton Cottage into a microcosm of the United Nations. The only problem being that many of them kept quitting, reducing even E. Q. Throckmorton to accepting whatever nationality his money could buy. Now, Rozalinda was his favorite, if such a curmudgeon could be said to have favorites.
Gussy wondered if Jed would consider changing his name to Yashimoto if the need arose, then had to laugh at herself. This abiding fear of hers was making her brain spin in positively silly directions, and how ridiculous was that?
For all his blustering demands, Great-grandfather was a sickly old man, almost always bedridden. He couldn’t put words in her mouth, he couldn’t force her down the aisle, he couldn’t really make her do anything she didn’t want to do.
Only her own pusillanimous lack of willpower could accomplish that.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Gussy was once again inspecting Jed’s apartment without his presence. But I have a good excuse this time, she told herself, opening kitchen cupboards and finding that Jed’s supplies were inadequate for her needs. Chuckling at the Popsicle-stick cuckoo clock, she started a list.
Gussy was stimulated by the daring of her intentions.
She’d stood quiet as a mouse at the foot of Great-grandfather’s draped Louis XV four-poster as he read her the riot act on the proper way for an unmarried female Throckmorton to behave. His voice had boomed inside her head like a cannon and he’d stomped his cane on the carpet and once even shook his fist at her. She’d trembled in her shoes as always, but at least she’d stood her ground, even when the ultimatum was issued. Her tongue-tied silence was naturally taken for obedience, and indeed it may have been. She’d been too intimidated at the time to notice the loophole in his edict. Finally she’d skulked out of the darkened, swaddled bedroom when Great-grandfather bellowed to Schwarthoff for his breakfast tray, dismissing Gussy with the frown of his tangled white eyebrows.
Now, having decided once again to take her life in her own hands, but in a way that would also technically follow her grandparents’ orders, Gussy intended to strike immediately. If she waited even one day, her bold plan could collapse. Andrews might show up to ask for her hand in marriage, and it was distinctly possible she wouldn’t dare turn him down.
Gussy returned to Throckmorton Cottage through the service entrance, being careful to avoid Grandmother, who was likely at her desk in the library arranging things with her dear Andrews. That didn’t give Gussy much leeway to arrange her own future.
She conferred with Godfrey, then dispatched him to the carriage house with a carton of groceries, kitchen utensils and a heavy skillet, with Percy tugging at his leash. Watching out for Thwaite, she dared a quick trip up to her bedroom to snatch her sexiest dress out of the closet, then slipped from the house unseen. If all went as planned, she’d return inviolable.
Godfrey stayed long enough to get her started, then left looking doubtful about her abilities to cook the pasta and vegetables without overcooking them. She waved him off, professing confidence in the skills she’d picked up from watching their various French chefs. She actually wanted Godfrey out of the way; she had no idea when Jed would return home from his consultation about a big job with the Pequot Heritage Committee. For company, she kept Percy. He calmed her.
She promised herself that Grandmother Throckmorton, having already exhibited a lack of awareness where Jed was concerned, would never think to look for Gussy here at the carriage house. How anyone—even a seventy-year-old woman—could look at Jed and not understand that he was too vital to be bound by Victorian Era class restrictions was beyond her comprehension. But perhaps she was lucky that Grandmother’s imagination was so narrow; it had given Gussy her narrow window of opportunity.
Now if only Jed was as compliant…
Gussy was hoping that the way he’d kissed her in the arbor meant that he would be. In fact, she was counting on it—this whole deal was an all-or-nothing sort of gamble.
All was Jed. Nothing was poor Andrews. No, she thought, nothing was Gussy the Pusillanimouse, left with what she deserved.
Percy finished his inspection of the apartment and flopped onto an Oriental rug that was too shabby even for the big house. Gussy double-checked the progress of dinner, then went to wash and change her clothes. There was no soap, so she rummaged in the bathroom cabinets until she found a cache of tiny hotel soaps. She supposed everyone had unusual personal habits; if this was the worst of Jed’s she could happily accommodate it.
In the living room, Gussy sorted through his CDs—the Weird Al Yankovic had to have come from his sister—and selected the only classical recording he owned. Then she changed her mind and tried an Irish group, the Corrs. Better. Their rollicking violins and traditional jigs lightened the mood. The music might even make her forget that tonight her entire future was at stake.
She returned to the kitchen to finish slicing the zucchini and yellow squash. She chopped basil. “Runaway” came on, a catchy but poignant song about a girl who’d run away from everything for the man she loved. The lyrics made Gussy forget her recipe card and begin questioning herself. If Jed complied, could she say goodbye to the comfortable life-style to which she was accustomed? Could she leave her home and family behind?
The thought gave her an edge-of-the-precipice feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if she would find it easier to run away now that she knew what she was running toward.
“Yes, o
f course,” she murmured, thinking of Jed. He was strong. His urging was the impetus she needed to break out of her pattern of inertia.
Which had been the crux of her first marriage plan. She’d intended to rely on the bonds of matrimony to give her the courage to declare her independence. Once she had her own house and her own husband, surely her own identity would follow.
“Don’t you think, Percy?” she asked, wondering if she’d missed a crucial step in her calculations of the current plan or if the worry nibbling at her confidence was only due to nerves. The dog’s ears went up at the sound of an engine below.
Gussy’s spine tingled. Certainly just nerves.
Jed was home.
“WELL, WHAT’S THIS?” Jed said when he came through the door. “A pleasant surprise.”
“I’m glad it’s that and not an unwelcome one,” Gussy quickly replied, her hands clasped behind her back. She looked nervous, excited, wary, desirable—all at once. “I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in.”
Percy nudged his head against Jed’s palm. “Not if that’s dinner I smell.” He sniffed, identifying olive oil and garlic. Percy was friendly and Gussy was lovely, her eyes huge and her lips soft and vulnerable. Standing barefooted in a long, slinky, sage green dress with a deep V neckline, she was more than a pleasant surprise.
“Does this mean that Ethel and Louise haven’t reported in yet to your grandmother?” he asked. Gussy had been so flustered over the incident he’d figured that he wouldn’t see her again for weeks. Her reaction had made him decide once and for all that she could not possibly be quite as practiced an amorous heiress as he’d first believed.
“Oh, they blabbed, all right. And fast.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Everyone’s talking about Gussy Fairchild’s wild romantic encounter in the rose garden. But you’ll be glad to know that they didn’t get a clear look at you. I’m in terribly hot water with my grandparents, but at least your job is safe.”
Jed leaned against the counter and surveyed the various small heaps of vegetables and herbs. “I wasn’t particularly concerned about the job, Gussy, but is that really why you didn’t want my identity revealed?” His voice deepened a notch. “I thought that you were worried about being caught consorting with the gardener. Seeing as how the Throckmortons are stuck in the nineteenth century…”
Her lashes fluttered as she stared into a steaming pot of pasta. “Not at all, Jed. Or at least, not entirely. I can’t help what Great-grandfather and Grandmother think. As for me…” She glanced up, her cheeks rosy and damp, her glasses fogged. “I—I…admire you greatly.”
He chuckled. The quaintness of the phrase brought to mind the older sister in Sense and Sensibility, a movie he’d recently rented because he’d never read Jane Austen and all the copies of the action/adventure blockbusters were gone, anyhow. Come to think of it, Gussy’s personality could be likened to both of the sisters in the movie; she was sense one minute, susceptible, high-strung, quivering sensibility the next.
“I admire you greatly, too,” he said carefully.
She fiddled with pot holders. “That’s good, then. That’s settled.”
Jed levered himself away from the counter. “I wouldn’t go that far, Miss Augustina.” He ambled into the living room. “Nothing’s settled between us. Yet.” When he looked back into the kitchen, she was rubbing frantically at her glasses, her cheeks glowing bright pink. “Have I got time for a shower before dinner?” Percy tapped down the narrow hallway, his tail swishing against the walls.
“Go ahead.” Gussy shoved her glasses crookedly back in place. “I’m, uh, I’ve got everything under control.” She smiled bravely, making shooing motions toward the bathroom. “Take your shower.” She looked at him, then at his half-unbuttoned shirt, a more explicit picture clearly forming in her mind. “Oh, gosh,” she said in a small voice.
Jed was grinning when he turned away. Definitely not a calculating femme fatale, but still an heiress, and as for amorous…yes, she was amorous, and maybe, just maybe, exclusively. Feeling immensely relieved, he slapped the dog’s flank as they passed in the hall.
A man could do worse than come home to a friendly dog, a home-cooked meal and an amorous heiress.
THE SOAP WAS MISSING again, for the third time—all coinciding with Gussy’s visits, if he counted the day she’d dropped off the flowers. He checked the shower-stall soap dish. Also empty. This was very strange. Could Gussy have some kind of secret, kinky predilection for his used soaps?
“Ah, say, Gussy?” he called. “You seen the soap?”
The oven door creaked. “I just unwrapped a fresh one.”
Obviously a lie. “No, you didn’t, sweetheart,” he muttered as he took another of the slim hotel giveaways out of the cabinet. Someday soon he’d reach the bottom of the stash, now that he was no longer traveling with the team. He wondered if Gussy had a thing for big bar soap, too. He adjusted the water temperature, shaking his head. Very, very strange.
By the time he was clean and dressed, Gussy had finished the meal and set the table. She produced a pitcher of planter’s punch from the fridge, and they brought tall, frosty glasses of it into the living room. He took the love seat; she hesitated, sense warring with sensibility, and sat in the armchair. Percy squatted on his haunches beside the love seat and tried to lick Jed’s hands and his arms below the pushed-up sleeves of his striped jersey, making whimpering, yearning sounds in his throat when Jed said no.
“Percy, come here, baby,” Gussy coaxed, patting her thigh. The dog curled up at her feet, licking his chops contentedly. She looked apologetically at Jed. “He likes the taste of skin.”
Jed’s glance slid along the smooth curves of her arms, her throat, her cheeks. “I’ve noticed.”
Her ice cubes clinked; she had to put both hands on the glass to hold it steady. Silence stretched between them. “Did you have a good day?” she asked, very June Cleaver.
He told her more about the project he was planning to submit a bid on, the restoration of a small 1700s settler’s homestead and kitchen garden in Pequot, fifteen miles away. She was a good listener and so he elaborated, sketching his design ideas in the air. By the time he wound down, she jumped up and said they had to eat before the pasta turned to mush.
So what was this? Jed wondered as they sat at the round table in the ivy-hung dormer. A fiancé audition? A wife audition? Women did that to him all the time—cooked him meals, tidied his house, brought over baked goods and surprised him with gifts like tea towels or canister sets they found on sale that happened to “go with” his kitchen—probably because they sensed he was susceptible.
He had this image in his mind of the perfect life after hockey. It involved a big, sloppy house and several kids and a smart, sexy, funny woman who, yeah, okay, knew how to cook, but more importantly was warm and sweet and genuine as her baked-from-scratch-with-fresh-ingredients brownies. Probably a large part of this image had to do with his parents’ chaotic household, their strong relationship and their complete lack of pretension.
Julie Cole had filled the bill, at first. She was a nice, friendly, pretty girl who didn’t seem overly impressed with his status as a professional athlete and was openly appreciative but not hung up on his expensive condo and new Porsche. She was a good-time gal, all right, but she’d been young, maybe naive, just feeling her oats—or so he’d thought. Only when he was out of that life for good did he come to realize that Julie didn’t want him without it. He still wasn’t sure if she’d been that way all along and her sweet nature was just a ruse or if she’d simply become too accustomed to the good life to give it up for a more ordinary existence in the boondocks of Maine. Maybe the whole fiasco was partly his own fault.
On the other hand, he’d been leery of Gussy from the start. He’d started out intending to steer clear of her, and look where that had landed him. But he couldn’t say that he was sorry. So far, Gussy had turned more and more into the kind of woman he could fall hard and possibly painfully for, like a refe
ree on the bottom of a pileup—unlike Julie, who’d gone in the other direction until his feelings for her were dry and flat and bitter as dirt.
“Is a meal without meat okay with you?” Gussy asked, bringing platters to the table. “I’m a sort-of vegetarian.”
He took a large helping of the bow-tie-shaped pasta. “It’s fine, but what’s a sort-of vegetarian?”
“It means I sort of don’t eat meat even when it’s on a plate in front of me. Grandmother thinks that vegetarianism is a fad. Great-grandfather won’t even entertain the idea.”
“You ate that cheeseburger the other night.”
“Yes, I also sort of have no willpower when it comes to junk food.” She wrinkled her nose, passing a dish of grated parmigian and romano cheeses. “In case you haven’t already guessed, I can be rather wishy-washy regarding all kinds of things.”
Jed sprinkled the cheese over his pasta and took a breadstick. “So if you’re served meat even when you don’t want it, why don’t you move out to where you can set your own rules?”
She looked down, rolling her lower lip between her teeth doubtfully. “I do make plans to move, but they usually don’t go beyond my head. I don’t actually want to leave—I love Throckmorton Cottage.” She directed her gaze at the brick house framed by the mullioned window. “I love the gardens, I love the ocean and I love the woods…”
“Sounds like it’s not so much Throckmorton Cottage that you love as the grounds.”
“True.” She smiled wryly and told him about her favorite sunbathing spots on the seashore and her secret places in the forest. The longer she talked, the more her eyes sparkled like pennies in the sunshine. She revealed that all her frustrations and inhibitions melted away when she was outdoors, digging in the dirt or collecting pinecones, clipping roses, walking the beach.
Jed mentally added a few acres to his image of the big, sloppy house and the warm, sexy wife. “You should be living in the carriage house,” he suggested. “Not me.” Or with me.
The Amorous Heiress Page 11
