Dare To Love

by Trisha Fuentes

  “Yes, of course, certainly.”

  Gwendolyn hesitated, looked at her oddly, and then quickly left the woman’s side.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Gwendolyn was alone now, inside the Roman Room, admiring all the frescoes painted on the walls. Angels, cherubs and Poseidon, the Greek God of the sea, all-playing wistfully in an ocean full of ships.

  Beginning to pace the scope, Gwendolyn began to bite her fingernails. Thomas kissed her, and kissed her well. Kissed Katrina. Kissed Mrs. Carmichael. Kissed many women. The red-head in the blue gown, the brunette in yellow. Herself, a few, a dozen, hundreds, oh bother! Damn that sexual magnetism! The devil take it all! She wondered what Mrs. Carmichael got as her departing gift?

  Whipping her head around, Gwendolyn was startled by the sight of a man slowly approaching. With her mind being so preoccupied, she did not realize he had slipped in unannounced. He looked familiar… and he was. Viscount Adam Tapps of Moxley, a former beau. “Viscount Tapps, so nice to see you again,” she smiled, extending out her hand. “I am alone here.”

  The Viscount was still as handsome as ever. He bowed, kissing her glove directly. A little taller than herself, he had long, dark brown hair bordering his piercing brown stare. Yes, he was staring, a rather concentrated glare. “I will only be a moment…How are you, Lady Hollinger?”

  Gwendolyn inhaled; she had forgotten how intriguing he was. Why was she not interested in him before? Oh, that’s right. “I am doing well Viscount Tapps, how are you?”

  He encircled her, admiring her dress with his gape, “You look remarkable. Still searching for a husband, I do hope. I am quite available to take on the task.”

  Gwendolyn blushed and stepped away from him, so much trifling going on this evening; first Devin, then Thomas, now him. “Hard to believe you never married.”

  He grinned, and then turned away from her. “Not so hard I suppose, I am quite finicky.”

  Gwendolyn giggled, and Adam gazed down at her lips as she did. She closed them instantly. “Silly to hear you compare yourself to a feline.”

  He guffawed himself, realizing what it sounded like. He instantly remembered her humor and was smitten. “No comparison, simply an observation…I have a specific preference for a chosen mate.”

  Gwendolyn’s mouth opened slightly, his seduction was quite unique. She stood staring at him too now, until the door closing whipped both their heads around.

  “Am I intruding?”

  Viscount Tapps eyed Thomas walking towards them. His severe deliberation indicating that he was not the least bit pleased. “Your Grace—I…I was just getting better acquainted with your cousin here.”

  “She is not my cousin, and you bloody well know it—Adam.” Thomas and Adam go way back. They used to be school chums, until Adam Tapps cheated on a test and blamed Thomas for giving him the answers. Since that day, he had never trusted him and there were even countless times after that incident that would substantiate future mistrust. He knew that Gwendolyn was not his cousin; Adam grew up in the same social circles as the Hollinger’s and Drummond’s, but now resides in Hampshire. The only reason he was invited this evening was because of Devin; he was one of Devin’s benefactors.

  Oh, Gwendolyn could not believe it, Thomas had changed right before her very eyes, rapidly transforming into some predatory animal, his glower was constricted—nearly brown with opposition, his chest puffed up, his fists were even clenched at the base of his legs. He did resemble a black panther; she thought…a fierce possessive being. “He was just leaving, were you not Viscount?”

  “For the record, Thomas…I have known she was alive even before you did, I just chose not to disclose that information for purely selfish reasons,” Adam grinned, winking at Gwendolyn, “I wanted to relish in your shock as I introduced her to you as my wife.” Adam remained steady for a few more seconds then turned on his heel when he noticed Thomas’ face turning purple. He left without further ado. He knew Thomas was a better swordsman, the better aim and did not want to be forced into something he could never wake up from.

  “What does he mean by wife—what was he talking about?”

  “He was a former beau of mine—”

  “He was what?”

  Gwendolyn noted his stunned looked. Even though she knew it was not the time or place to divulge such delicacies, she felt she needed to explain. Thomas made her feel like she had been caught with a lover, but why? Oh God, it was no use, this war of emotions going on inside her heart. “Did you really think I would stay a widow forever, Thomas?”

  “You mean you and him?”

  Gwendolyn paused at the sight of him shaking his head and heading out the door. “There were even several beaus after him, all fighting for my hand.” His incredulous flight kept steaming away. Had she injured him that much with her statement? “Do not walk away from me!”

  Thomas painstakingly remained at his exit a few feet away; he was so upset with her. “This is easier to do than to look at you right now, Gwendolyn.”

  Gwendolyn narrowed her eyes, “Why you conceited hypocrite! You cannot stand there jealous when I have met your Mrs. Carmichael and have probably even conversed with God-knows-who-else-you have-bedded in addition to be constantly thrown together with your fiancée!”

  Thomas stood still; a foreboding expression embraced his face. So she met Mrs. Carmichael, good, then maybe envy will turn Gwendolyn around. But why was she so concentrated on the other women in his life? Or Katrina for that matter? He met her accusation as a revelation. “Why, are you covetous of them?”

  Gwendolyn guffawed and shook her head, “You do not understand this do you? We both waited ten long years to remarry. You obviously care for Katrina, otherwise you would have not asked for her hand. I obviously care for Charles; otherwise I would have not accepted his proposal.”

  Just once, he wished she would make up her mind. Disappointed once again, he remarked, “You slay me, Gwendolyn, you really do. Go— stay, kiss me—run away…you make me dizzy! You are just an excellent tease.”

  Gwendolyn stared at the door slamming for a moment and became enraged herself. She wanted to scream! She wanted to throw things, but there was nothing in the room to shatter. Huffing and puffing, she wandered to another part of the space and tried to focus on the frescoes of angels on the plastered dome ceiling above her. They were staring down at her with those haunting black eyes of theirs and she wanted to throw something at them too for being so bloody cheery.

  Wringing her hands at the sides of her dress, she began to shake them—they were tingling. Why did she feel the need to rattle him so? He called her a tease…was she always one? Which part should she have omitted? Should she have kept that part a secret about the Viscount? Should she have not mentioned that he was a former beau…or the part where several men tried for her hand? She thought he was dead; she had to go on with her life. He thought she was dead too, he had to do the same. She knew that a gorgeous man like Thomas would not lack for female attention, and, oh God, the thought of him lying down with another woman made her ill. Was that why he was angry too? Did it make him feel sick as well with the thought of another man touching her?

  Startled by the door opening back up again, Gwendolyn eyed an older gentlemen walking towards her. Oh no, not again. She just wanted to be alone. He came in closer…yet nearer. He looked familiar, but she could not quite pinpoint the name. It was on the tip of her tongue. Oh, what was his name? “I am alone here, sir.”

  “Yes, I know,” he ominously let go.

  Gwendolyn’s breath quickened realizing his intention.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Gwendolyn gulped and surveyed the man more closely. His age, mid fifties, she guessed, his hair striped with grey through a blondish brown. His eyes, blue, his face…yes, she does know who he was. “Baron Huxton?”

  “Yes, Lady Hollinger. I do apologize for frightening you; it is just… that when I saw you across the room, and then dancing in the ball room just now, I could
not believe my eyes. You look so much like…her.”

  Gwendolyn blinked back her anxiety and realized he was talking about her mother. She knew she resembled her, but no one here tonight was supposed to know that…to recognize her, she knew now that the secret might be out. “Who Baron Huxton?” Gwendolyn asked gently.

  “The Duchess of Suffolkshire, you are at least, related?”

  “Yes,” Gwendolyn confessed, pleading with him, “But you mustn’t tell anyone. Please Baron Huxton I beg of you.”

  “Then you are related?”

  “Yes, she was my mother.”

  The Baron bowed his head and paced away. “Yes,” he said softhearted. “Mary had a little girl…I met her once, Gwendolyn, correct?” He expressed, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “The Drummond’s were in association with the Hollinger’s, were they not?”

  “Yes,” she expressed with anxiety now.

  “There was a contract.”

  Gwendolyn closed her eyes, “Yes.”

  He looked down at the ground, “Yes, I do see the delicacy in this matter.”

  “Yes, Baron Huxton, so I do implore you to stern confidence.”

  “Yes, Lady Hollinger,” he replied, encircling her and then bowing to her nobility, “Your Grace, I will do it for Mary.” He then leaned up against a pillar in back of him. “Did your mother…did your mother ever mention me?”

  Gwendolyn’s heart dropped a little lower at this point. Mention him? She tried to search her memory. Baron Huxton was her mother’s married man? “Oh Baron, yes… she did talk about you once,” Gwendolyn conveyed, covering up her mouth with her gloved hand within seeing the Baron’s heart-breaking collapse. The man looked miserable all of a sudden, on the verge of tears. He bent over as if in pain.

  “Your Grace, when I saw you dancing in the ballroom my heart burst wide open,” he confessed, leaning back on the pillar. “I have always loved your mother. I wanted to marry her, but my father contracted me to another,” he revealed, suddenly doubling over in pain. “My wife died just recently,” he gushed, holding his abdomen, “And I have never shed a tear.”

  “Never shed a tear for your own wife?” Gwendolyn repeated in disbelief.

  “No,” he continued to weep, “Not one. The only grief I have ever felt was the day I heard of Mary’s passing—I loved her so.”

  He bent over and cried in his hands and Gwendolyn reached out for the man, placing her hand on his shoulder. His soul shattered into a million pieces. She never wanted to be in that position…and vowed to never be. “Baron Huxton, you’ll be glad to know that my mother did indeed love you in return.”

  The Baron’s surprised elated look brought tears to Gwendolyn’s own eyes. “She—she did?”

  Gwendolyn nodded her head in confirmation. Baron Huxton was so elated; he grabbed Gwendolyn into his arms and held her there.

  “What am I interrupting now?”

  Gwendolyn and the Baron immediately broke apart. Within seeing the host in the doorway, Baron Huxton repositioned his stance and coughed away his grief.

  “Nothing happened Thomas; this one does not concern you.”

  “Everything concerns me Gwendolyn when a lack of decorum is not met under my roof,” Thomas stated, his eyes full of annoyance and rage staring straight at Baron Huxton. Thomas doesn’t like the Baron either; he used to push his spoiled daughter, Joan into his sphere.

  Gwendolyn noted the intense expression on his face and immediately walked over to Thomas and placed her palm in the center of his chest. In a calm, gentle voice, she uttered, “We were talking about my mother,” Gwendolyn expressed gazing at the Baron now. “I was just telling the Baron where the memorial was…in Yorkshire, remember Baron Huxton? In the graveyard, at St. Paul Church?”

  Baron Huxton’s eyes lit up and nodded his head in appreciation. “Yes,” he agreed, “Yes, we were discussing just that,” he verbalized, stiffening back up and walking around the two.

  Thomas looked down at Gwendolyn still infuriated. He wanted to devour her, brutal passion still riding him hard.

  Gwendolyn closed her mouth once more and stepped away from him, creating a much-needed distance between their obsessions. His sudden burst of protectiveness was a bit overwhelming and Gwendolyn did not know how much more she could take without giving into her need to be intimate with him. She was on the verge of doing something she would definitely regret…something, oh so reckless.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Lady Hollinger, what was your cousin like when he was a child?”

  They were sitting down to formal dinner, another couple, besides Lord and Lady Hale were invited to the small affair. Gwendolyn looked up from her strawberry tart to address Lady Evelyn Moore. She was a striking young brunette with dreamy blue eyes whose family married her off to a titled husband for wealth. Her husband, Lord Curtis Moore, the Earl of Trenton, being seventy winters her elder.

  Gwendolyn smiled down at her dessert, so many memories dashed inside her head; she doesn’t quite know which one to focus on. How lucky, she thought, to have shared a past with someone whom everyone wanted to be familiar with. She thought about all the fun they used to have, like the time she and Thomas both had loose teeth and decided to yank each other’s out with strings, or the frightened memoirs reminiscent of when they went sailing in her father’s cruiser and the wind blew them offshore, fifty kilometers away from port. Thomas had to use his skills he learned from his brother about utilizing the wind speed to his lead and navigated them back to safety. She remembered how grateful she was and crushed the life out of Tommy when they got to shore. Funny, how you suppress the contented recollections and only memorize the unpleasant ones. Then, her fifteenth birthday, she does recall that now…

  ~~~~~

  I was sitting at the table with a group of girls my age. We were all giggling and pointing at the boys across the room. We were eating my birthday cake, when one of the girls, Joan, a girl who spent most of her time in the country with her mother, spurted out, “How do I get Jordan Hollinger to pay any attention to me?”

  “Oh Joan,” one girl complained, “The only girls he pays any attention to are the ones that are rumored to give into his seduction.”

  “And how, pray tell, do you know any of this?” Joan asked with one brown eyebrow high in the air.

  “Heard it whispered last month,” The girl nonchalantly assumed, “Unknown if there is any weight behind the gossip, but look at him, how any girl cannot succumb to his disposition!” She giggled profusely, causing all the other girls, including myself to take another look at Jordan’s outward show.

  Surrounded by ladies of every social class, Jordan kept the females interested with his dry wit and external charm. He was too vain, I concluded immediately, until he caught me staring at him as well and his temporary curiosity caused me to roll my eyes to catch Joan staring into another direction.

  “Who’s that boy over there?”

  “Who?” Another girl asked.

  “That one, over there, the boy with the dark hair, who is he?”

  I finally turned my head to see whom she was speaking about, I could not tell. The only boys I could see en route of her pointing finger with dark hair were Adam and Tommy.