Once Upon a Kiss (Book Club Belles Society)

by Jayne Fresina

  Her mother waved a hand dismissively. “Clara is a perfectly adequate cook. For a child who once refused to eat anything but bread and jam for two years, you are remarkably hard to please these days. Now do go and wash your hands, and for goodness’ sake, do something with that hair.”

  She had not realized there was anything amiss with her hair today, but as usual her mother’s disgust was vague, never helpful, and thrown out in irritation. It was far more important that Cathy, the family’s great hope, be tended to. Justina fully understood that. But just once she would like to know exactly what it was about her own appearance that was so very lacking and how she might even attempt to put it right.

  Surely “beauty,” while there were certain standards of it upon which everyone would agree, could also be found in the eye of the beholder. Was there nothing about her that had the slightest promise, she wondered gloomily, staring at her face in the bedchamber mirror. Would she ever emerge from her unsightly chrysalis? Would she ever learn not to leap first and think later? Apparently not.

  Tonight Mr. Wainwright, handsome bachelor and dark menace, had been invited there for Cathy. And he came there for Cathy. He made it clear to Justina that he would do as he pleased, regardless of her wishes. Her hopes and feelings were inconsequential.

  The longer Justina sat staring at herself in the mirror, the less symmetrical her features appeared, and the angrier and darker her mood became.

  So he had kissed her, but she had practically cornered him into it, she thought, chagrined. There was absolutely nothing subtle or elegant about her or her methods. As Lucy had complained to her recently, her solutions to imminent problems were often more theatrical than effective. Wainwright probably feared for his life if he didn’t kiss her that day. Or he wanted rid of her and therefore kissed her to chase her out of his study.

  Justina decided a protest of sorts was necessary. Waiting until she heard everyone assembled below in the parlor, she came down late from dressing and when she opened the door, everyone looked over.

  “There you are, Jussy,” her father exclaimed and then immediately looked confused. Her mother, who had been in the process of offering a tray with a sherry glass to the rector, was frowning, frozen in place.

  The Wainwright person, seated on the couch beside her sister, winced in her direction and kept his lips very tight.

  “Good evening, everyone,” she said politely. “Oh, good! Sherry. I’m fair parched.”

  As she advanced with arm outstretched, her mother swiftly moved the tray out of her reach and set it on the pianoforte, forgetting the rector, who was left clutching at the air. “What on earth have you got on your head, Justina?” she hissed under her breath.

  “Why, they are butterflies, Mama, can’t you see?”

  “I can see, young lady, that they are from your father’s collection. What are those wretched insects doing in your hair?”

  Justina blinked. “You told me to do something with it.” Then with a wide smile, she moved away from her furious mother. “Mr. Kenton, how lovely it is to have your company this evening.”

  The rector stared at the precariously tilting arrangement of curls and colorful dead butterflies careening around her head. “Yes, quite.”

  Across the room Wainwright jerked upright, belatedly remembering his manners. “Miss Justina Penny. Good evening.”

  “Mr. Wainwright.” She kept her smile pasted to her face and returned her attention to the rector. In her peripheral vision she saw Wainwright finally lower his seat again to the couch. Surprisingly enough he hadn’t brought his own chair in which to place his superior buttocks.

  But Cathy appeared pleased with his dour company. Poor, unsuspecting creature.

  Seventeen

  What he was doing there Darius could only explain as morbid fascination. He might have claimed that Mrs. Penny forced him to accept her offer of dinner, but that would be false. There were plenty of occasions when he had no qualm about turning down an invitation. He spent a great deal of his time doing that.

  Yet tonight he stepped into her small house and forced himself to be sociable, for several hours, with near strangers.

  His palms were damp, his head hot and aching. There was some considerable guilt he felt in regard to his continuing encounters with Justina. He had never acted that way before, and it was even more worrying that he knew it would happen again. Anxious to gain some grip upon himself and the situation, he focused his thoughts upon the eldest Miss Penny.

  She was not a demanding conversationalist by any means, but neither was she terribly inventive when it came to subjects. Since Darius was no better at falling into an easy swing of conversation, they were quickly stalled. She did not have her younger sister’s sharpness, or that outrageous, reckless courage. He suspected Miss Catherine Penny’s attempts to continually restart the discussion were prompted by the anxious glances of her mother and not by any true desire to become better acquainted with him.

  Thinking back to Bath and that evening of chaos in the Upper Rooms, he recalled his friend Miles dancing with this young lady and being immediately in love. As was Miles Forester’s usual habit with a pretty girl. At the time Darius had not thought her much more than that—a pretty girl, rather shy—but Miss Penny’s appearance had improved over the past year. Her skin was clearer, certainly, or else she had been wearing too much powder of some sort when they were in Bath. Her eyes were a paler blue than her sister’s and did not hold the same challenging impertinence.

  When they were shepherded through to the dining room, Darius was seated between Miss Penny and her mother, with Justina diagonally opposite. By then the strange creation on the troublemaker’s head had begun to deflate, a few of the butterflies suspended upside down, seemingly about to take flight into the soup.

  “I do hope our Jussy hasn’t been too much in the way at Midwitch,” her mother said suddenly. “She usually is.”

  He forced his gaze away from the general disarray of the woman across the table.

  “If you desire the assistance of another pair of hands, I recommend Catherine. She will sort your papers most efficiently, Mr. Wainwright. You’ll never find a faster worker than our Catherine. Ever since she was a tiny thing she’s been a most obliging workmate and nothing is ever too much trouble. She’s been reading and writing since she was five and has a very quick mind for sums. Lord, that girl can add three or four numbers together while I’m still getting my fingers out to count, Mr. Wainwright.” She laughed giddily. “Catherine will soon have you and your great-uncle’s papers squared away!”

  “It is almost done, Mama,” Justina replied. “He won’t need anyone there in a day or two.”

  Darius squinted at her. “On the contrary, it is far from done.”

  “But there are—”

  “Many more chests and drawers to empty,” he snapped. She needn’t think she was getting away with a slipshod, half-finished job. Suddenly the thought of not having her there each day was causing him a headache. That manor house would be very dull and dark without her chattering presence.

  “Then you haven’t found what you’re looking for?”

  “I have not. Yet.” Damn you. He knew he had to stop looking at her. It was impolite and surely obvious to everyone else at the table.

  When her father asked what it was he sought among his great-uncle’s things, Darius managed to reply in a voice that was almost calm, “A document of value, Dr. Penny.”

  “It’s a map to a buried treasure chest,” the girl across the table exclaimed, eyes shining. “Full of gold doubloons. From old Hawke’s misspent youth as a pirate and a smuggler.”

  Short silence followed this, everyone looking expectantly in his direction. She reached for her wine and smiled smugly, leaving him to continue the story and probably expecting him to drop the ball she’d tossed.

  “Not pirate gold,” Darius replied. “That would be m
undane in comparison to the truth.”

  She shrugged, her sparkling gaze turned away from him.

  Darius did not care to be dismissed by this girl with an insolent face and dead insects in her hair. “As a matter of fact you were closer to the truth with one of your earlier guesses, Miss Justina.”

  Aha. That got her attention!

  She set her glass down. “I was?”

  “I seek a parcel of letters written to a lady.” He dabbed his lips on a napkin. Still with the weight of every eye upon him, he continued in a low voice. “Phineas Hawke apparently had a secret love, and he left her a provision in his will.”

  “Goodness gracious!” Mrs. Penny almost dropped her spoon in her soup.

  “Who was she?” her eldest daughter enquired in similar amazement. “A local lady?”

  Darius thought for a moment and then replied, “I know not. Unfortunately, my great-uncle referred to her in his will only by a…pet name he had for her.”

  “A pet name? Fancy! And all this time we all thought he was such a miserable old fellow.” Mrs. Penny laid a hand to her cheek. “Oh, I did not mean he was so very bad, Mr. Wainwright.”

  “He was a mean old devil,” her youngest daughter exclaimed with great energy. “I will not pretend he was anything else, even if Mr. Wainwright is his great-nephew.”

  Darius watched her splashing her spoon around in her soup, but he knew he’d caught her interest when she added, “Well, go on then. Tell us the rest of it. Did he throttle her because she did not return his love? Did he stab her through the heart with a hat pin? Now he means to make amends and absolve himself of the crime by leaving money to her heirs, no doubt.”

  He quickly hid the hapless tremors of a smile in his napkin.

  “Justina!” her mother protested. “The stories she tells, Mr. Wainwright, would curl your toes. Please forgive my youngest, sir. She is dreadfully outspoken and nothing we can do seems to curb her. I shall never forget the time—”

  “Mama, there is no need to talk about me as if I’m not present.” She twitched irritably and a butterfly dropped on the end of a springy curl to hover by her cheek. One more bounce and it would be in her soup.

  “Rest assured, Miss Justina,” Darius muttered, “your presence could never go unnoticed.” He spoke with feeling, since he suffered the effects of it whenever she was near. All sensible thoughts careened out of his head when he looked at her lips, her eyes, her bosom. Even when she mocked him, he was drawn in, forced to relive the moment on his Grecian couch. Her hand exploring, her nipple blossoming and swelling between his lips. How he’d longed to tear that muslin aside. He’d had to push away and turn his back before he embarrassed himself and spent like a green youth against her hand.

  She glowered at him across the table and then turned her head to speak with the rector.

  Darius loudly cleared his throat, making her look his way again. “The solicitor believes my great-uncle kept all the letters she returned to him—some still unopened—at the end of the love affair. It seems likely, as he seldom burned any papers. If I can locate the letters, I can discover the lady’s identity and see to it that she receives the bequest left to her.” He brought the spoon to his lips, tasted over-salted soup, and quickly lowered it again.

  At the far end of the table Dr. Penny spoke up quietly. “As I observed during my visits to the manor house, Phineas Hawke kept himself surrounded by so many things from his past. It will be an adventure to go through it all, eh, Jussy? There must be rooms in that house which have not seen daylight in fifty years and drawers unopened just as long.”

  “But what if the lady does not wish to be found?” Miss Catherine Penny muttered softly. “She may not care to be reminded of an old love affair. By now she will be aged, as he was, and her life went on without him, for better or worse. It is not pleasant to revisit old wounds, and some things are best left in the past. “

  “Well, good Lord, silly girl,” her mother exclaimed with a snort, “I should say she’d still want the coin if some has been left to her. It’s surprising how quickly money can mend a few wounds.” And she briskly rang the little bell beside her dish for the next course.

  Darius watched Justina’s expression. She seemed nonchalant, but he knew her enough already to guess this was an act. The story would have sparked her eager curiosity.

  She suddenly looked up from her soup and their eyes met. Or rather, they collided. He watched the candle flames reflected in those large, dark blue, satin pools. Again she raised her glass and touched the crystal rim to her lips. The tip of her tongue, just a tiny kiss of pink, caressed the glass before she took a sip, and then he observed her swallow.

  Darius felt the ache in his loins at once. The heat and heaviness returned. Perspiration formed under his clothes. He swept his gaze lower, down her slender neck, to the simple amber cross she wore on a thin gold chain. And then lower to her beautifully rounded, firm, pert bubbies.

  Bubbies? He groaned inwardly, where only he heard it, for that was a word Miles or Lucius would use. Apparently he was on a fast descent to debauchery thanks to that small, messy, butterfly-strewn woman across the candles.

  Anxious to halt his fascination with her, Darius ran through the list of her many and varied faults in his mind. She was too young, foolish, and unguarded. She insulted him even when offering a kiss. She laughed at him when he was being deadly serious. She had not the slightest compunction about her behavior and yet she had the audacity to call him uncivil. And the most boring man that ever lived.

  He watched her breathing quicken, the little amber cross winking in the candlelight as it rose and fell with the high swell of those two pretty parcels of warm, sweet, intoxicating delight. His tongue curled inside his mouth, imagining the taste of her nipples without that damn gown in his way. Briefly he closed his eyes and saw an image of her in his bed, nude, breathless, damp from his kisses. Thank God no one could read his thoughts, he mused, shifting in his chair. He was not usually such a fidget, but his breeches were uncomfortably tight this evening.

  It seemed as if reminding himself of her utter unsuitability had a disastrous effect, the complete opposite to that which he’d expected and sought to achieve.

  Reaching for his wineglass, he misjudged and knocked the stem with the backs of his fingers. Fortunately it did not tumble, but rocked dangerously, spilled a little on the cloth, and woke him from his reverie. Darius grabbed it quickly, splayed his fingers over the base to steady it, and drew his attention back to Justina’s face. When she blinked and then continued to stare at him, it was as if she’d leaned over and whispered an improper suggestion.

  Accepting another refill of wine—something else he never usually did—Darius drank it down swiftly to wash away the awfulness of the over-seasoned soup. He was soon feeling quite pleasantly warm and wishing he had a very large butterfly net.

  One more glass, he thought with a strange burst of mischievousness, and he might not feel the need to rely upon a net at all.

  ***

  Throughout the dinner, Justina felt his dark, sinister gaze settled on her too often and with deepening intensity. Did he watch the butterflies, expecting them to take flight from her head? Although she’d meant it as a form of protest, the spectacular arrangement of her hair had also won her his attention and now she realized he must think that was the reason why she did it. He had accused her before of misbehaving to be noticed.

  Perhaps he was right, she thought, and her “protest” had been another terrible error of misjudgment, or else it was an unconscious ploy to capture his attention.

  She must be going mad. A woman accustomed to attacking problems and obstacles head-on, she was quite at a loss with this particular crisis.

  “Mr. Kenton,” the menace across the table said suddenly to the rector, “do you serve other parishes as well as this one?”

  This was his fifth abrupt question sho
t out at the man beside her. Apparently Wainwright had stored these arrows up to fire at the rector whenever there was a pause in the conversation. But his victim handled the interrogation quite happily. Mr. Kenton was not often the object of anyone’s interest beyond a few polite words, so he must be enjoying the rare chance to explain himself and actually be heard.

  “I have only the one living, sir,” the rector replied solemnly. “I did not wish for a plurality, as I prefer to be resident among my dear parishioners, to provide proper guidance at every opportunity.”

  “And we are very grateful for it,” Justina assured the rector with a wide smile. “Mr. Kenton has made quite a difference here since he came,” she added. “His guidance has been invaluable.”

  “Really?” Wainwright choked and quickly wiped his mouth on a napkin. “I cannot imagine how ill-behaved you were before his guidance.”

  Biting down on her anger, she watched him swallow another glass of wine. It must be at least his third, she thought. Clearly it loosened his tongue and his wit.

  “Mr. Kenton always has the very best counsel,” she said primly. “And it is dispensed with kindness and generosity.” She felt the rector’s astonished gaze, but continued with determination, “He recently advised me against rhubarb, and I have not touched it since.”

  “I see.” Wainwright’s lips twitched. “Rhubarb.”

  She studied his fingers around the stem of her mother’s best crystal wineglass and remembered their touch upon her breast and then her waist. She refused to think of them anywhere else. That was far enough. Her throat was dry and tight, little sparks of a bonfire spitting about inside her.

  Poor Mr. Kenton was awash with blushes. “Well, I…I must say, I do try, of course, to help wherever I can.”

  Their mother merrily jumped in with her common refrain. “Oh, there is nothing to be done with Jussy. We quite despair of her. If we did not have Catherine, I do not know what we would do.”