by Anna Small
“Jack…”
“Goodbye, Grandfather.”
“Stay where you are.” His voice rang out as strong and stern as it had when Jack had trembled before it as a child. He motioned helplessly toward the settee. “Please.”
The muted notes from the pianoforte a few rooms away carried through the walls and into the drawing room. Jack recognized the piano concerto in D minor, which was such an unlikely choice for Georgiana, whom he associated with light and airy pieces. For a moment, a look of peace overcame his grandfather’s patrician features, and his eyelids almost lowered as the notes wafted around them, invisible flags of truce.
“I see you so seldom, and I admit the acrimony is mostly on my side.”
“You must forgive my father and get on with your life. Stop punishing me for my parents’ sins.”
His grandfather turned sharply on him. “Is that what you think I’ve done? Blamed my own grandson for the faults of his parents?”
Jack dragged his hand through his hair. “You blamed my mother for Father’s death.”
The older man’s face turned red and his hands shook. “He was a damned fool to take his own life. She was not the cause.”
“She abandoned her husband and child for another man. A barrister, you told me once. Some would say that was cause enough.”
“I have never blamed your mother for my son’s death.”
Jack swirled the tea in his cup until a few leaves floated to the top. “You could have fooled me.”
“What say you?”
“You sent me away so you wouldn’t have a reminder of your only son.”
“I sent you away so you could learn what it is to be a man!” His voice rose, and Jack knew it killed him to lose his carefully governed self-control. “I spent thousands on your education, only to receive letters from the headmaster at every turn informing me how scandal-ridden my grandson had become. Seducing housemaids, drinking in your chambers, and all sorts of roguish behavior unbecoming to a Waverley.”
“I was young and foolish.”
“An excuse then, but not now.” He gulped his brandy and remained quiet for a moment while Jack supposed he was trying to calm himself. “I am tempted to halt your allowance as I did when you were at Cambridge. Then shall you see what it is to take on responsibility.”
“You may keep the allowance, Grandfather.”
“What, and have you continue boxing and gambling? A worthy occupation for a gentleman.”
“I have my salary from the vignoble, meager as it is. What do you pay Gaston?”
His grandfather sputtered. “More than you are worth! Gaston saved my life.”
“Yes, I recall the story. You and he, on an island in the middle of the West Indies, both separated from your ships.”
“Don’t sound so flippant. He risked his life to save that of his enemy.”
“He must have seen your pocketbook and made the decision.”
“Gaston Gironde is the son of a gentleman and comes from a most respectable family in Paris.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “You drive a man to distraction, Jack. I have forgotten what we were talking about.”
“Salary. Mine.”
“Very well. When you cross the sea to tend to my business, you will receive what I pay Gaston. Is that to your liking?”
Jack nodded shortly. “Honest pay for honest work.”
Lord Waverley snorted. “I will have the papers drawn up; since I’m sure you will not accept my word for it.”
“Your word is as good as any man’s.” He relented. “Perhaps more so.”
“Then we are agreed.” He poured another cup of strong tea and toasted Jack. “It shall all go to you when I’m gone, in any case.”
“What will?”
“All of this.” He nodded at the far wall. “The house, the estate, the vignoble.” He pronounced the French word as Gaston did. “Oh, by the by, did you know that your cousin, Wilfred, is now betrothed to a very rich young lady?”
“No, but that doesn’t surprise me. I always knew his handsome face and lack of brains would even themselves out in the end. Good for him.”
“Yes, good for him. Good for you, as well. Your mother’s beauty and charm are evident in you. Always have been.”
“But not my father’s sensibilities.”
Lord Waverley eyed him over the rim of his cup. “You have many of your father’s qualities, Jack. Honor, being one of them.” He rose stiffly, and Jack’s heart panged at the physical reminder of the wounds his grandfather had sustained as a younger man at the hands of Napoleon’s army. “Now, if you’d care to join me, I’d like to attend your lovely bride. She happens to be playing my favorite piece.”
“She will be glad of an audience.”
“Lend me your arm, Jack, will you?” His grandfather wrapped his thin arm around his as they exited the room. He shortened his stride to match his grandfather’s, remembering another time when he’d barely outrun the old sod when he’d been caught for some mischief or other. The music grew louder as they walked to the drawing room where Georgiana sat, her back to them as she played. They paused to watch her for a moment before she sensed their presence and turned slightly to acknowledge them.
“She’s as bewitching as your mother, when your father first brought her home.”
“Yes.” He didn’t know how else to respond, because the old man’s eyes had filled with tears as he swayed to the music, springing artfully from Georgiana’s nimble fingers.
“I miss him,” he said quietly, and Jack nodded, finally agreeing with him on some note. Although his grandfather could stand on his own, he remained with his arm on Jack’s, softly humming along as Georgiana played.
Chapter Thirty-One
Georgiana danced around the ivory and blue-colored bedchamber. Heavy gilt-edged mirrors and picture frames adorned the silk-hung walls. An overstuffed settee was placed before the fireplace. She felt the beginning tremors of excitement at the sight of the large bed. Her sudden gaiety was the result of nervous excitement when Jack had quietly instructed a servant they would share a chamber. He’d also politely refused a lady’s maid for her, and seldom used a valet anyway, so she was not surprised when the door was closed and bolted for the night.
Jack regarded her with a slightly amused look. It was the first glimpse of happiness she’d seen on him all day, and was grateful for it.
“Your playing was wonderful. He actually halted his tirade for a moment to listen to you.”
“I am so glad. I haven’t played Bach very often. One of my masters adored him, but the others favored Mozart. They said I was too young to play Bach.”
“And infinitely too pretty and cheerful.”
She gave him a little curtsy, and his gaze remained on her, as if he were trying to compose his thoughts. Gulping back a sudden wave of nervous energy, she motioned around the expansive room.
“Is this your old chamber?”
“This?” He laughed. “No. My quarters were a little less extravagant. Grandfather believed in a rigid militaristic upbringing. I slept on a cot by the fire, which burned out promptly at nine and was not lit again until daybreak. ‘Hot gruel and crusts, Jack! That will make you big and strong.’” He’d imitated his grandfather almost perfectly.
Georgiana laughed, but her heart ached. They’d had such opposite childhoods. Memories of sweets and dolls and happy voices flooded her whenever she thought back to her childhood.
“He was probably being hard on you so you wouldn’t be a soft little boy.” How hard it must have been, to lose both parents so young. “That explains why you spent so much time at Fairwood Hall.”
His face relaxed as a smile filtered through his gloom. “Those were the happiest times of my life. Lockewood promised to bring me home with him the moment we met. He said, ‘Hullo, Waverley. I’m Lockewood. As you’ve no parents, you’re welcome to my home at Christmas.’”
They both laughed. “That sounds just like him.”
“Yes. Even at thir
teen years, he was so like the man he’s become. I’ve never quite thanked him for sharing his home and family with me.”
They were quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he thought often of his parents. Perhaps not, she reasoned. Jonathan seldom discussed theirs with her, unless it was to cajole her into doing something she was loathe to do.
He removed his coat and gave her a pointed look, signaling it was time for bed. She hastened to the attached dressing room where their clothes hung in the wardrobe, even though Jack had insisted they would only stay the night. The door between the rooms had closed halfway behind her, and she was torn between closing it all the way and changing into her nightrail, or leaving it partly open so he would not think her a prude.
Her gown had a simple fastening at the back she could easily undo, and she quickly removed it and unlaced her stays with difficulty. She slipped off her chemise. The room was chilly, despite the warm evening, and she hastily pulled a nightrail over her head. She unpinned her hair, but then plaited it and stuffed it under a nightcap so it would be easier to arrange in the morning.
She emerged from the dressing room to find the lamps extinguished. Blinking rapidly to adjust her vision, she made out his shadowy form in the darkness. He’d removed his breeches, and stood with the long ends of his shirt covering him. She walked quickly to the bed and climbed under the coverlet, pulling it up to her chin.
“Are we leaving in the morning?” she asked, when the silence was too much.
He strode to the windows and pulled the drapes wide so more of a breeze would enter the room. He remained at the window for a few seconds, and she wondered if he was looking at something in particular or simply lost in thought.
“Hmm?” He turned and walked to the bed. “I suppose we can stay another day. He keeps mentioning a drain system he had installed. I think he wants to show it to me.” He pulled back the coverlet and tossed it to the bottom of the bed. “It’s too bloody hot.” He lay on the pillows with a heavy sigh.
“He misses you. Does he have any other family besides you?”
“I have a wastrel of a cousin and some distant relations we’ve never seen. He was an only child as was my father. My grandmother died years ago, before I was born.”
“He’s probably very lonely.”
“A situation he helped to create.”
She leaned up on her elbow to look at him. A faint light from the lamp on the table across the room illuminated him and she could see his eyelashes flutter.
“I’ve never known you to be so unforgiving, Jack.”
“One of many aspects of my personality I hide from questioning little brides.”
Again, the silence wrapped around them. She listened to his steady breathing, and realized he was still agitated. “Did you wish to talk, Jack? I don’t mind. But if you’d rather sleep…”
He faced her, the movement causing the mattress to sink, rolling her into him. “No, no. Let’s talk a while. Your voice is soothing.”
She laughed softly. “I am so dull I put you to sleep?”
“Your voice has a pleasant tone. Lockewood’s is the same. When one hears you speak, it is apparent you sing well. Which, by the by, you do.”
“I never heard my mother sing. I don’t have many memories of her, but I do remember she used to hum.”
“That was because her singing voice was terrible. Thank God, you didn’t inherit her lack of an ear. Your musicality is purely on your father’s side.”
“I’d forgotten you knew her better than I. Do you remember your mother?”
His silence revealed more than if he had spoken volumes. “I was very young when she and my father died. It was all very sordid and caused a scandal back in the day. I told your brother about it years ago, but he obviously never spoke about it with you.”
“How terrible,” she murmured. “What happened?”
He was quiet for so long she wondered if he was going to respond. “She abandoned him. Me. For another. I do not remember much. My father killed himself shortly afterward. She later died, of an illness, I presume. It’s not something I’ve told many people about.”
“Oh, Jack.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t affect me much. I remember little things about them. My father’s laugh. My mother’s voice, reading me stories when she put me to bed. Only then”—and he patted the quilt surrounding them—“I was in a chamber like this. Soft mattress, lots of toys. There was even a dog, as I recall. When they died, my grandfather got rid of it all. Even the dog. He moved me into a smaller chamber. He said I must become a man.” His smile appeared as a shadow on his face. “I remember your mother. She was the kindest soul I’ve ever known.”
Georgiana almost wriggled with impatience for him to tell her everything he remembered. “Jonathan said I look like her.”
He traced his finger down the side of her face, tapping lightly on the nose. “Yes, you do. You both have her eyes—that silvery blue color. Yours are prettier than Lockewood’s, however.”
“Thank you.”
“She was very beautiful. As are you.”
“I am?”
He puffed a little breath of air, which stirred the hair that had come free of her cap. “Has no one ever told you that? I hardly believe it.”
Her cheeks warmed with a blush. “My nurses always said I was, but I assumed they had to say it since I was their charge.”
He pushed up one elbow, staring down at her with an almost incredulous look on his face. “My nurses made certain I knew how naughty and frightful I was. No, Georgiana, they told you that because it’s true. You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What is beautiful about me?”
He continued caressing her face, and then her ear, pushing back the hair that had emerged from her nightcap. Her eyelids lowered, and she waited, almost breathlessly, for a kiss. Instead, he chuckled, which stifled the burning embers in her heart.
“Fishing for compliments? Ah—let me see…”
She smiled against the fingertip skimming her lips.
“Your mouth is very kissable—puffy and fat. It feels like a little pillow when I kiss it.”
She gasped in amused dismay. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”
“I am not a poet, Georgie. Would you have me compare it to a rosebud, instead?”
“That’s a little more romantic.”
“She wants romance now.” He grinned, and the fingertips on her face slid down her jaw to her neck, where he tickled her lightly. “So much for the marriage of convenience.”
“It is highly inconvenient either of us should have been forced to marry anyone.” She rolled away from him. Confusion swept through her, mixing with an odd sense of despair.
His fingers twined in her hair, and she smiled with guilty satisfaction. She’d noted the heightened look of awareness in his eyes and could tell from the way his voice had grown huskier and his caresses bolder he probably intended to carry out his marital obligations. But if they were still keeping track of whose night it was, for the record, it was hers.
“Your eyes haunt my dreams, Georgiana,” he said suddenly.
Her heart stopped beating.
“I go about my usual activities, and all I can think about is how you…” He seemed to stumble in his search for the right words, and swore softly. “I am a fighter, as you well know. I cannot spout pretty verses such as the ones your brother no doubt has in excessive supply with his bride. But I can tell you what I truly feel.”
She faced him, and this time, moved right up against him. He grunted, then draped his heavy arm over her, pinning her in place, as if he didn’t want her rolling away again.
“What do you feel?”
“I can perhaps show you more than I can tell you.”
“A true Jackian response!” They both laughed, and she pressed her hand to his cheek, rubbing her palm over his scratchy whiskers. “Shall I tell you what I see when I look at you?”
“My broken nose? The scar on my eyebrow?�
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She drew on his face with her fingertip the way he had done to her. “Your eyes are very handsome indeed. They aren’t a true blue, but gray—like mist on the moors.”
“You’ve never seen the moors.”
“I read it in a book once.” She explored the crooked spine of his nose. “Mamma told me she thought you’d grow into a handsome man, once you learned to give your heart away.”
That seemed to halt something in him. He frowned slightly, and the hand in her hair stilled. “Your mother was very clever.”
“She loved you as a son, Jack. I’m sure of it.”
“I know. She used to call me Jackie. She was the only one who could get away with it. And”—his mouth quirked into a little smile—“she always kissed me first when Lockewood and I came home for holidays. He complained about it once, but she said…”
He abruptly turned onto his back. She could see the dim outline of his opened eyes from the moonlight streaming in through the windows.
“What did she say?”
A few seconds passed before he spoke. “She said, ‘Jackie doesn’t have a mother to embrace him. You do.’”
A light misting of tears blurred her vision, but she smiled at his shared memory. “That sounds like something she would say. I remember when she died. Jonathan came home at once, and you managed to come with him.”
“I lied and told the head of our house my own mother was ill. He was new and didn’t know she was already dead.”
The urge to stroke his hair overcame her, and so she did, not caring if he moved away. She risked losing little pieces of her heart every time she was near him, but was powerless against the pull he extended on her soul. To her surprise, he didn’t stop her, but faced her again, only this time, he lay a little closer.
“I found you in the library, curled up on your father’s chair like a cat.”
She was surprised at the sudden tears the onslaught of the memory brought. She blinked hastily. “You said, ‘Hullo, little Pudding Face’ and picked me up.”
“Lockewood was with your father and other relatives. They’d seemed to have forgotten you in the confusion.”
