He shifted from foot to foot again, and though she didn’t think it was possible to feel worse, with each dart of his gaze, her humiliation deepened until her body was burning with regret.
“Two weeks,” he finally said.
“Two weeks?” She could hardly believe her ears. Anger and mortification warred within, anger winning the battle. She shook her fists in his face. “You are a disgusting pig,” she snapped. “We were together three nights ago.” Her heart hammered so that her chest ached with the force.
“I came to tell you everything and say good-bye.”
“Everything? There’s more? What more could there be?”
He jerked his hands through his hair. “She’s with child, Jemma.”
Jemma’s mind flashed back to the night they’d been together and he’d used what he’d called protective measures. Dear heaven! Had he used them with this Lady Jane and she’d gotten with child?
“Did you—” She gulped, not believing she needed to ask this. “Did you use—”
“No,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “I didn’t know of the measures one could use then.”
“Well”—her voice cracked and she willed herself to be strong—“I suppose you’ve learned more than the law in school,” she said dryly.
Will’s shoulders slumped forward. “Jemma, I’m sorry.”
“You are that,” she agreed, feeling nauseated.
“I did love you. I still—”
By all that was holy, she couldn’t take anymore. “Get out!” she demanded. “Get on the ship for England, and good riddance to you.”
“Jemma, please forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” Blood pumped through her veins like a raging river. Forgive him? She looked wildly around the room and picked up the only thing near her that she could use to harm him. Waving the half-empty tray of lemon tarts at him, she screamed, “Go now! Go or I’ll bash you over the head with this tray and you can leave for the ship with a split head and covered in jam filling.”
When he stood there gawking at her, she snapped. She hurled the tray at his head, and he deflected it with his arm. Tarts flew through the air as the tray went crashing to the ground with a loud rattle. Dual bells jingled, at once announcing someone entering the shop and either her mother or Anne coming out from the kitchens. Jemma expected to see Lady Jane appear in the door, but two men dressed in dark suits stepped into the bakery. A gasp came from behind her, and she whirled around to see her mother, white-faced, staring with huge eyes at the men. What little blood was in her mother’s face drained away, leaving even her lips blanched.
Jemma shoved at Will’s back. “Go, you cad,” she whispered fiercely.
Will stepped around the men and departed out the door, and Jemma didn’t even have time to spare a thought for her broken heart. The taller of the two men handed her mother a piece of paper. “Payment for the loan wasn’t received, so I believe you know what that means.”
Jemma could see the paper her mother now held, trembling in her hands. Her mother licked her colorless lips and nodded. “Yes. Please go.”
The man gave a curt nod. “You’ve two months to either pay the loan in full or leave the premises. The bank will repossess the property in exactly sixty days.”
“I understand,” Mother said in a shaky tone.
Jemma’s mind whirled with disbelief as the men departed. She stared at her mother, who was rubbing her arm and then her chest, clearly unsure what to say. Jemma swallowed and voiced one of her suddenly numerous fears. “Will we lose the bakery? Our home?”
Her mother forced a smile. “Don’t be silly. I’ll simply swallow my pride and write to my father. He owes me. After all these years, it’s time he paid the debt of driving your father away from me.” Her mother shuffled over to the tray Jemma had thrown at Will’s head, and as she bent down to grasp it, she let out a muffled cry and crumpled to the ground. Jemma raced to her mother’s side and turned her over.
A short gasp came from her as she clawed at her neck. “Can’t breathe,” she choked out.
Jemma’s skin tingled and her muscles tensed as she yelled out for Anne while pulling her mother’s head into her lap. She glanced wildly around the room. “Anne!” she shrieked again as Mother’s eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth fell open.
Anne came through the door singing a song. She stopped mid-tune and screamed before staggering over to Jemma and Mother. “What’s happened?”
“I don’t know! One moment she was standing and the next— Never mind! Take her head while I run to fetch the physician.” Anne nodded as Jemma slid herself out from under her mother, whose eyes had shut. Anne took Mother’s head in her lap and started speaking to her immediately. The last thing Jemma saw as she raced out the door was her mother’s hand lying unmoving against the ground.
Jemma raced down the block to the physician’s office and found him with a patient. It took what surely must have been only a second, but seemed forever, for him to gather his bag, and the two of them set off running back down the block to the bakery.
She burst through the door with the physician on her heels and dropped to her knees. She took her mother’s slack hand in hers and patted Anne, who was crying incoherently. The physician barked an order for them both to move, and Jemma had to physically drag Anne away. They hovered above him as he worked for a few minutes. All sound around Jemma faded, save the physician’s sighs and muttering.
The smell of lemon tarts swirled around her and made her stomach roil. Sweat dampened her brow, her hands, and under her arms, and the cotton of her gown clung to her, making her horridly hot. Then, suddenly, she shivered with cold.
The physician sat up and turned to look at them. His eyes held Jemma’s for a moment as he shook his head. “She’s gone.”
Sound crashed in, the loudest tick of the longcase clock. Her thoughts scrambled in her head as her mind raced to latch on to one. With a sharp intake of breath, she repeated what the physician had said. “She’s gone?”
He nodded as he stood, walked to the door, turned the lock, and then moved to the windows to pull the curtains closed. Anne’s sobs once again invaded Jemma’s awareness. For one brief, selfish second Jemma wanted to scream for Anne to stop it. Instead, she inhaled a deep breath and wrapped her arms around her sister. In shock, she clung to her, hardly able to believe Mother was gone. Memories of her mother flashed before her eyes and the pain twisted through her. She wanted to shut it all out, but she couldn’t. The bakery and their home would be gone, too, if Jemma didn’t take immediate action in her mother’s stead. Someone had to take care of them. Someone had to shelve her grief until the dark hours of the night. Jemma glanced at her sister. Mother had always taken special care of fragile Anne, and now it was up to Jemma.
She moved through the rest of the day in a numb haze, alternately soothing Anne and making burial arrangements. Very late that night, as Anne slept fitfully, whimpering in her bed, Jemma, with bleary eyes and a pounding head, forced her shaking hand to foolscap and wrote her first letter ever to her grandfather, the cold Duke of Rowan. Would he even read it? She worried her lip. Had the years softened his heart and made him regret disowning Mother after she had disobeyed him and married Father? She cried silent tears as she told her grandfather of Mother’s sudden death and the impending foreclosure on the bakery that was also their home, and finally asked him if he would send enough money to pay off the loan for the bakery. She knew, from Mother’s talk of his wealth, that it wouldn’t even nick his vast fortune to send that amount.
Jemma’s eyes burned and blurred as she sealed the letter. When she was finished, she laid her head on her mother’s desk and sobbed as quietly as possible so as not to wake Anne. She wanted her mother back. She wanted to apologize for acting as if Mother knew nothing. She wanted to take back every snide comment she’d ever made. Jemma rocked back and forth in her chair. Mother was gone. Gone.
She wanted more than anything to tell her she was sorry and that Mother had
been perfectly correct. Now she would never get the chance. She would gladly sit for hours listening to her mother rant about how men were not to be trusted, how they were callous and careless with the hearts they captured, how they would bruise, batter, and destroy the delicate organs, if only she could have her mother back. At this moment, it hurt far greater that her mother was gone than the fact that her mother had been right about men all along.
She wanted to apologize for scoffing at her mother, for arguing with her, and for making her life more worrisome. Perhaps it was the worry from the bank loan that had made Mother sick, or perhaps it was Jemma’s constant squabbling with her that had made her unwell. Jemma’s heart twisted as hot tears coursed down her cheeks and wet her hands. Before she fell asleep, she said another prayer to God that he would instill forgiveness and generosity into her grandfather’s heart. He was all they had now.
Time had a way of flying by in a blur when one worked ceaselessly to run a bakery. One night, just as Jemma was heading to the door to lock it, the bell jingled and the door swung open. In marched a serious-faced gentleman with tan breeches, shining black boots, and a long overcoat of a dark, superfine material. He wore a cravat of rich red, tied expertly and touching his chin, and a hat that appeared to be lined with some sort of luxurious brown fur capped a full head of silver hair. The man was tall but not lanky. He was solidly built and carried himself with the pretentious air of a duke. She knew at once it was her grandfather, even before her gaze locked with his.
The shape and color of his eyes matched her mother’s. A pang of sadness reverberated through Jemma, and she swallowed. Before she could properly introduce herself, a line of two men and a lady entered the bakery, filing in behind her grandfather in mute silence.
As she stared at them, it belatedly occurred to her that Grandfather had traveled across the ocean to meet them. Surely he was bringing good tidings and the money she needed to save the bakery! The burden of the last couple of months seemed to lift a little, and hope filled her. If he’d traveled all this way, he must care for them. She felt her cheeks pull into a smile.
“Are you the Duke of Rowan?” she asked, though she was fairly certain the answer was yes.
He nodded. Relief, weariness, and joy overcame her at once. She’d not held much hope he’d respond to her letter, let alone appear here as a caring grandfather would.
She rushed to him and hugged him, so very glad, for once in her life, to be wrong. “I’m your eldest granddaughter, Jemma.”
She felt him stiffen underneath her touch as he extracted himself from her arms, stepped back, and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m very sorry about your mother. I’m not sure what she told you about me...”
Jemma couldn’t stop herself from wincing, and his eyes immediately narrowed. “I see. I’m not surprised.” He flicked a dismissive hand behind him. “This is my valet, footman, and your new tutor, Mrs. Young.” His voice did not hold the warmth of a loving grandfather but the formalness of the man her mother had always described.
Jemma bit her lip as Mrs. Young curtsied, and Jemma simply gawked while everything her grandfather had just announced bounced around in her head.
“You must curtsy,” the woman chided.
Jemma stared the woman down until the tutor blinked, then snorted in contempt. Mrs. Young clicked her tongue and moved to Jemma’s grandfather’s side. “This will take at least six months if the young ladies don’t even know how to curtsy.” The woman’s voice was snide and her look condescending. Jemma knew very well how to curtsy, but something warned her to keep the information to herself for now.
Jemma’s grandfather gave a brief nod of acknowledgment to the tutor before assessing Jemma. “You look healthy, Granddaughter.”
Was that a compliment? It had the slightly warmer tone of one but was a rather pathetic attempt to start a conversation with a granddaughter he’d never met. “Thank you,” she managed. “I don’t understand why you brought a tutor, however. I don’t need a tutor—only money.”
Grandfather raised his silver eyebrows. “You are mistaken,” he snapped. “If you are to secure a proper husband, you most definitely need a tutor.”
“Marry? I don’t want to marry!” She never wanted to give her heart to another man to destroy again. Never mind that she was no longer innocent.
“Don’t be silly,” he replied. “You are eighteen. You cannot possibly know what you want. You and your sister will return to England with me.”
She clenched her teeth until her temples throbbed. When she released her jaw, she had to move it back and forth before speaking. “I don’t wish to return to England with you, and I’m sure my sister, Anne, will not, either.”
When her grandfather stared past her, Jemma knew Anne surely must have been standing there. She turned to confirm it. Anne was in the doorway, white-faced and with eyes open wide.
“Tell him, Anne,” Jemma insisted. “Tell him you don’t wish to go back to England any more than I do.”
Anne’s lips parted, and her forehead creased with a deep frown. She said nothing, but the silence was louder than a piercing scream. Anne wanted to go. She didn’t trust that Jemma could take care of them. Jemma deflated. “Oh, Anne.”
“I’m sorry!” she blurted.
Grandfather simply nodded. “At least one of you is sensible.” He pointed at Jemma. “You need to come to your senses, as well. Whether you want to go to England or not, it’s the only help I’m offering you. Without it, you’ll be homeless. Is that what you want for your sister or yourself?”
The years clearly had not made Grandfather any less cold or controlling than Mother had described him. But what choice did Jemma have? She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought. She needed time, which was something she had none of currently. If she went to England, she could buy herself some time and formulate a plan for how to afford to buy another bakery and take care of herself and Anne, if Anne wished it.
“What will be required of me if I return to England with you?” Jemma was not quite ready to admit defeat to this man.
“That’s simple. You shall do as I say or I vow you’ll meet the same fate your mother did.”
Jemma inhaled sharply. He was threatening to disown her if she disobeyed him as Mother had dared to do. Whatever hope she had briefly held of his loving them disappeared. She despised him, and she’d just met him. “Do you care to give me some insight as to what requirements you might have of Anne and me?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“I’m pleased to do so,” he replied, motioning to Mrs. Young. “You will follow all Mrs. Young’s instructions, as will your sister. Mrs. Young will ensure you’re both proper ladies in six months’ time.” He paused and looked sideways at the tutor who nodded. “At the end of the six months, as the eldest, you will marry. I took the liberty of setting up a suitor for you.”
You’ve done what? she wanted to shout. She clenched her teeth once again, until she felt she could speak without screaming. “How very kind of you.” Now was not the moment to defy him with nothing to her name. That would come when she had saved enough money to go off on her own. But how did one save money when one didn’t earn any?
“Think nothing of it,” he said and actually smiled. “Lord Glenmore is my neighbor’s son and heir. He will be a fine match for you.”
She felt her nostrils flare. It was just as Mother had said. Grandfather had cared more about a man having wealth and a title than Mother having love, and now he was trying to do the same thing to Jemma. Would he disown her if she told him now that she wasn’t an innocent so his plans to marry her off were futile? Her head throbbed with uncertainty. She couldn’t chance how he might react when she had no one else to turn to and nowhere else to go.
“All you have to do is learn to be a proper English lady, and I feel positive Lord Glenmore will be pleased to take you as his wife. He’s already agreed to court you. Six months should be plenty of time to learn the rules of etiquette so you’ll not do anything t
o drive Lord Glenmore away.”
Drive Lord Glenmore away! The words reverberated through her head, and a plan was born.
Six Months Later
The Year of Our Lord 1821
London, England
“Jemma, you simply must stop this!” Anne hissed in Jemma’s ear, as she thrust the pink-and-green bonnet at her once again. Jemma eyed the hideous bonnet but didn’t move to take it. Instead, she stopped walking, turned her face up to the brilliant sun, and inhaled a long, hearty breath of the freesia swirling in the air from the blooming gardens of Hyde Park.
“Are my cheeks pink yet?” she asked her sister.
“Yes!” Anne hissed once more, stomping her foot on the pebbled path that twined around the Serpentine. Her slipper crunched against the stone. “Please put on your bonnet. Mrs. Young will be beside herself.”
A little smile tugged at Jemma’s lips. It was unfashionable, unladylike, and unheard of to have sun-kissed cheeks. It would be the perfect start to the grand performance she planned to execute today of a young American who simply couldn’t master Society’s endlessly pointless rules.
“Serves the wretched woman right.” Jemma eyed Anne. “I’m heartily tired of hearing how dreadfully red and entirely too curly my hair is. Now she can focus on my skin instead,” Jemma ended, half-serious.
“Your hair is lovely,” Anne replied in her typical sweet, soothing voice that warmed Jemma’s heart. Or it had until Anne ruined the moment by frowning at her. Anne shook her head. “I know that you know Mrs. Young would quit browbeating you about your hair if you would simply wear it up as she’s told us time and again is proper.”
My Enchanting Hoyden (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel, #3) Page 2
