Talbot shook his head. “Then it is love.”
Nathan’s heart sank a little deeper into his boots. “I don’t think I know what that word means anymore. I am interested in winning her hand for the same reasons you are.”
“I doubt that,” Talbot said, rising from the table. “I am penniless and she is not.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize—”
Admitting to such a thing ate up a large chunk of a man’s pride. Nathan would have been in a similar position if his father had cut off his allowance after he’d admitted responsibility for Miss Posey Hartfield’s pregnancy. For some unfathomable reason, a modest sum still arrived every quarter in his London bank account from his father’s man-of-affairs. That, added to his own investments, had kept him living a relatively comfortable lifestyle.
“Not many know. I have my pride and a long list of creditors who are willing to bet that my family’s fortune will one day turn. Marriage into a well-endowed family such as the Newburys would go a long way to restoring what my father has lost.” Talbot gave a deep sigh. “There is always the younger sister.”
Nathan was unable to believe what he was hearing. “I do not understand,” he said. “You’re not going to blackmail me for what you know?”
“Alas, no. Instead I rather think I should tip my hat to you. There isn’t a lovelier or more sedately proper lady in all of England. Your powers of seduction must be even more potent than I suspected. I, for one, was beginning to think it would take a miracle to thaw that frosty heart of hers.”
“Her heart is far from frosty, Talbot. Unfocused perhaps but never frosty. But even so, it still might take a miracle to win her.”
And then there was Jane, all willing and smiles.
No matter what he did, the tangled web he’d gotten himself into seemed to draw only tighter and tighter around him. He was beginning to wonder whether taking Iona to his bed wasn’t the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life.
* * * *
She was in love.
The realization made Iona want to cry. She couldn’t be in love…not with Nathan. Not with anyone. It would be difficult enough to convince her father that she would be happier unmarried.
She had plans for her life. A passion for art to be followed. Her dream of creating beautiful sculptures that would inspire and uplift. Falling in love was only going to make everything more difficult. Still, she didn’t know how to make her heart stop aching.
Her hand moved furiously across the page as she sketched with vine charcoal the image her fingers ached to touch again.
He’s going to hate you. The thought flitted through her mind along with the memory of the cold note she’d left for him. She’d written it in a state of panic.
“Better to have him hate me than to have him demanding my hand in marriage,” she told her empty bedchamber.
She’d done the right thing. She deserved the chance to discover her strengths. To become more than the obedient daughter. More than the silent wife.
She deserved to hold onto the power she felt growing inside herself every time Nathan unlocked a new piece of her.
Marriage would ruin everything.
She glanced down at her page. Nathan’s laughing eyes met hers. Every sketch she’d made over the last several days had been of him and only him.
What in the world was she going to do?
* * * *
“Oh, look at my sister, Amelia, she is woolgathering yet again,” Lillian complained rather too loudly not more than an hour later as she fluttered a length of blue silk ribbon in front of Iona’s nose. “If you do not pay attention, Mrs. Langdon will run out of the shades of lace and ribbons we need for the upcoming gala.”
All of Bath was looking forward to the Victory Gala. Worry over the war in France had weighed heavily over the country for far too many years. With Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo last month, a celebration of this magnitude was well overdue. That, along with a recent influx of French fineries, had Mrs. Langdon’s Milliner and Fabric Shop crowded with the local young ladies. The line for counter service reached nearly out the door. Ladies were snatching up bolts of French fabrics, strings of laces and ribbons with ravenous hunger.
None of this mattered in the least to Iona. She glanced at the steely Mexican blue ribbon Lillian was still waving. “That color will not do,” she said and pushed Lillian’s hand away. “None of these will do.”
She stepped away from the counter to let someone else have her place. Lillian didn’t appear to notice. Her sister was holding up a handful of pretty ribbons so they were bathed in sunlight. Amelia nodded several times as Lillian pointed to a particularly lovely yellow strip of satin embellished with small pink flowers.
Iona wandered toward the back of the store.
“First that strumpet of an actress, then these rumors of him trifling with the heart of some hapless young adventuress and just this morning the scandalous widow Sharpes has arrived in Bath. He sent for her,” a voice to Iona’s left said.
Iona turned and spotted next to a display of brightly dyed peacock feathers Miss Frances Cuthbert and the young Mrs. Mary Luxborough with their heads pressed together.
“The high-sticklers will be having fits once they learn of the shameful behavior the wicked lord has brought to our town,” Mrs. Luxborough said clearly enough, the frills on her lacy cap jiggling. “What might be overlooked in London certainly will not be tolerated here.”
Were they speaking of Nathan?
What a question. Of course they were speaking of Nathan. Who else could those gossipy ladies be referring to? But what they were saying couldn’t be right. Nathan wouldn’t have sent for the widow Sharpes.
Iona pretended to admire a pair of straw, high-fluted Angoulême bonnets trimmed with sunset red satin and crimson swansdown. She inched her way closer to the women.
“I wager his father will fly into a rage when he hears how his son has been seducing another young innocent. He will surely disown the bounder this time,” Miss Cuthbert said.
Iona’s stomach churned. Nathan rarely talked about his family and when he did he spoke only in vague terms. But she had seen firsthand the horrific way his father treated him when she happened to pass them on the street outside the Royal Crescent.
Oh, she deserved to be whipped for her arrogance. She’d been as blind as the foppish gentlemen falling all over themselves to win the perfect Duke’s daughter’s hand in matrimony. Poor Nathan, his roguish freedoms must have come at a terrible price. To lose her father’s trust and affection would be unthinkable, impossible—
“I would dearly like to know the identity of this adventuress of his,” Mrs. Luxborough said.
Iona’s knees turned to water. She grabbed onto the nearest display and held her breath, waiting for her world to come tearing apart. Waiting for Miss Cuthbert to spout Iona’s name with venom.
“Who told you about her?” Mrs. Luxborough pressed.
“Mr. Harlow did just this morning at the Pump Room,” Miss Cuthbert preened.
“He did? How scandalous!”
“Well, he was not precisely speaking to me. I overheard him telling my cousin, Mr. Jason Poole. Men can be such gossips. And Jason teases me for talking too much!”
“You are ever a tease, Frances. Tell me, who is this mysterious young lady?”
No longer pretending to admire the bonnets, Iona leaned in closer to make sure she too heard Miss Cuthbert’s whispered answer.
“Sadly he didn’t give her name,” Miss Cuthbert admitted, much to Iona’s relief. “But he did say all of Bath will be shocked when her identity is revealed.”
Not if but when?
“This is more thrilling than a gothic novel! And we thought there would be no excitement to be found this summer.”
Iona stumbled toward the door. Her father could be frighteningly formidable when crossed. Unbending when dealing with a family embarrassment.
She had acted selfishly last night. Why hadn’t she simply accepted her upcomi
ng marriage to her cousin? Why had she dragged Nathan into her troubles?
Daring to grasp more out of life and follow her passions was beginning to prove more dangerous than she ever realized.
And, even though Nathan had fought against her every step, she’d pulled him into this budding disaster with her. She opened the door prepared to rush out onto the busy Milsom Street when Miss Cuthbert sighed, “I cannot help but feel a little jealous of the poor mite.”
“Jealous?” Mrs. Luxborough breathed.
“Just imagine, being caught in the arms of the devilishly handsome Lord Nathan Wynter. La, the wicked way he smiles at a lady makes my knees go weak.”
Iona shuddered to think what her father might do to Nathan in a fit of temper once her name was attached to his and bandied about the tearooms in such a sordid manner.
Mrs. Luxborough tut-tutted. “Do not feel too envious of the gel, Frances. He will break her heart as surely as the sun rises in the morning. And he’ll leave her in ruin. She’ll be nothing but another victim much like that other unfortunate young innocent he destroyed all those years ago.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Come in, come in,” the Marquess of Portfry said. An uncharacteristic grin was set on his wide lips. He’d been trussed up like a king in a superfine high-collared coat with gold piping that hugged his round form.
Nathan stepped into his father’s study, wondering if he’d perhaps knocked his head on the way over and was dreaming. His father never smiled. At least not in his direction.
He couldn’t recall a single instance when his father had called him into his study for any reason other than to berate him.
“I heard what happened, boy,” his father said.
He’d heard? Nathan froze where he stood. The only thing he could think of happening to him recently was his taking Iona to his bed. “Y-you h-heard?” he stammered.
Perhaps his father was smiling because he was about to dispatch his disappointment of a second son once and for all. Put a bullet in his gullet and send him directly into the depths of hell.
Wasn’t that what Nathan had been told time and again? That if he dared touch another innocent, his own father would gladly kill him?
The old codger certainly looked oddly cheerful this morning. There was a bright, healthy color in his round cheeks. He was seated behind an ancient mahogany desk that had come with the furnished Royal Crescent townhouse. His elbows were propped on the desk’s smooth top and his fingers were steepled in front of his long nose.
“Don’t stand there gaping, boy. Come.” The Marquess gestured toward an empty leather chair set up in front of the desk. “Sit.”
“Really, sir?” His father had never invited him to have a seat in his study.
At his father’s nod, Nathan sank into the nearest chair.
“She came by to visit me this morning,” the Marquess said. “And she told me everything.”
Nathan swallowed hard. “Everything, sir?”
He couldn’t imagine what mischief Iona could be up to. Why in blazes would she visit his father? And tell him everything?
Perhaps she’d changed her mind about their need to marry. But why go to his father instead of directly to him?
“I think the match will be a blessing for both our families,” his father was saying. He couldn’t have looked more pleased. Nathan released the breath he’d been holding. Even if he didn’t understand Iona’s motives, he couldn’t find it in himself to feel upset over them. “Of course your marriage will show those society biddies that you’ve reformed your wicked ways. You have, haven’t you?”
Nathan nodded.
“Good. Good. Did you know her first husband was nearly as rich as Croesus? What a coup it will be for our family to take control of such vast holdings.”
Her first husband? Nathan suddenly felt ill. Iona hadn’t visited the Marquess. She hadn’t demanded that Nathan needed to marry her.
He should have known better. He should have remembered that in the midst of his very busy morning, there had been one other offer made.
“Jane,” he said.
“She naturally wanted to speak to me about your financial stability. I say, there’s a solid head on her shoulders. Not many women would make sure she wasn’t landing a fortune hunter.”
It was true. Mrs. Jane Sharpes had proposed they join forces. She’d said she needed a hand with managing her husband’s vast estate’s holdings as well as a friendly companion to keep her bed warm at night.
“She has only spoken to me about the possibility of marriage this morning. No formal decisions have been made yet, sir,” Nathan warned.
“But in due time you will do the right thing,” his father said, sending him a hard look. “Shall we adjourn into the parlor and have a drink to celebrate?”
“Of-of course, sir.” Nathan launched from his chair and offered his father a hand. After hauling the old fellow to his feet, they walked side by side to the adjoining room.
His father was offering Nathan the chance to be welcomed back into the ranks of his family. It was a most enticing reason to accept Jane’s marriage proposal. He couldn’t help but be sorely tempted and deeply affected by his father’s budding approval. But deep down he knew he had to ultimately refuse. He’d gone and done what everyone had expected of him. He’d ruined an innocent. Worse, ruined an innocent he dearly loved.
So instead of sharing in his father’s happiness, his thoughts were turning to Iona.
He could still feel the lingering heat of her silky skin clinging to his body. And, when he closed his eyes, he could hear her soft moans of pleasure as he helped her find her completion. Though he’d had no right to take her to his bed last night, he couldn’t deny that it had happened.
Her future, her happiness was now his responsibility. He simply needed to figure out how to convince her to let him do the right thing and marry her.
Perhaps his father would be just as pleased with Iona as he appeared to be with the prospect of welcoming Jane into the family.
After waving off Nathan’s supporting hands, the Marquess lowered himself into a leather armchair as if it were his throne and then propped his gout-plagued leg up onto a needlepoint-covered stool. A few barked commands later, the servants were running to fetch the drinks and the Marquess was forging into a story about how he’d purchased Holme Crossing, the property adjacent to their ancestral lands. And, amazingly, smiled—he smiled at his second son.
For the first time in a long time, Nathan felt truly welcome in his father’s presence. And comfortable.
And then Edward sauntered into the room.
* * * *
“With all due respect, sir, if left to his own devices Edward will bankrupt the estate,” Nathan had found himself arguing not long thereafter. The pleasant moment he had shared with his father had swiftly ended soon after Edward’s appearance.
Now, several hours later and in the heat of the day, Nathan rode with Talbot and a couple of Talbot’s friends across the Avon and up the hill to Prior Park. There he reined in his filly, Jezebel, and parted company with the gentlemen. He slowed Jezebel’s pace and steered her toward the shade of a leafy bower. His friends rode on ahead toward a gaggle of ladies who were strolling through a roofed Palladian bridge.
He immediately recognized Iona amongst the group. Several strands of her long blonde hair had escaped the confines of her wide-brimmed bonnet and waved in the summer breeze with a hoyden’s freedom down the back of her willow green walking dress. She stood next to a pedimented pavilion on one end of the bridge, apart from the other ladies. She looked terribly small and alone as she tossed breadcrumbs into the mirrored lake the ornate bridge traversed. Two white trumpeter swans were chasing each other, vying for her undivided attentions.
Nathan understood their frustrations. Instead of riding up to greet her, he sought the solace of the gentle wilderness. Unfortunately no amount of calm could keep the echoes of his father’s words from assaulting him.
“What t
rickery are you serving me this time, boy?” his father had demanded before banging his fist against a delicate rosewood table and splintering its center leg with a loud crack.
“None, sir. I assure you.” A few months earlier he had approached his father with these same concerns over Edward’s dealings with the estate and had run up against deaf ears. This time, with Miss Darly added to the list of troubles, he had hoped he’d be able to convince his father to listen.
“Do not listen to him, Father,” Edward had said. A vicious edge had infected his naturally smooth voice. “I can explain away his outrageous charges against me. But he cannot explain away what he has done.”
Nathan cursed as he remembered the hatred darkening Edward’s face during that harrowing moment. Jezebel’s ears twitched with alarm. The young filly danced sideways, anxious to break out into a hard run. Nathan bent down and patted the mare’s neck, cooing soft, meaningless sounds that seemed to soothe her.
If only his own concerns could be so easily chased away.
Edward, with his deceptively angelic face and quick tongue, always seemed able to sway their father’s opinions.
The heir and flawless scion of the Portfry name, who soaked up his parents’ affection like a sponge, chose to stand directly in front of Nathan. With his back to his own brother, Edward dealt a killing blow.
“All of Bath is awash with concern this morning, Father,” he said. “Despite the concern and charity you heaped upon him that first time, his actions once again soar beyond the pale. Scandalous whispers claim that he has spent the past week leading a young lady of considerable standing down the steep path to ruin. And not just any lady but an innocent whose reputation up until now has been beyond reproach.”
Beyond reproach.
Iona was known by all and sundry as the good daughter, the obedient one. She sipped her tea with the elegance of a queen and comported herself with an unemotional ease that elevated her cultured ennui into a kind of art form.
It was that beautiful reputation of hers—her exquisite perfection—Nathan had hoped to exploit. To use her to wash the stain of bad seed forever from his life.
The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection Page 37
