Fanny wandered in as Gemma stood gazing at the silly piece of peach fluff in her hand. She quickly stuffed the peignoir back in its bandbox before her friend saw.
But Fanny’s thoughts were elsewhere. “I cannot believe it. He has invited Lady Russell—Eleanor Russell—to a party in our house.” She eyed Gemma. “Why are you wearing that old thing?”
Gemma looked down. The sage green cambric was new this summer, neat and simple. Unexceptionable, she had thought. “What is wrong with it?”
“I supposed you would wear one of those marvellous creations Sebastian bought from de Cacharelle.” Fanny grinned. “I took a peek earlier.”
Gemma turned to her dressing table. “Surely you know it is the height of impropriety for your brother to be buying me clothes.”
“Well, there is that, I suppose. Can’t you pretend they are from Mama?”
“No. I can’t. And what is wrong with my clothes anyway?”
Fanny waved a hand. “Nothing, darling. It is just that they are not precisely à la mode. When one must face the likes of Eleanor Russell, one should be armed with all the fashionable arsenal at one’s disposal.”
Gemma took a comb and began to tidy her hair, which didn’t need tidying. “Who is Eleanor Russell, and why should I be locked in sartorial combat with her?”
There was a pause. Gently, Fanny said, “Lady Russell is Sebastian’s mistress.”
Gemma froze. After a blind, blank moment, she realised she gripped her comb so tightly its teeth bit into her palm. She uncurled her fingers and stared down at the angry red depressions on her skin. An ice-cold hand clenched around her heart.
But as the shock of Fanny’s revelation gradually eased, Gemma wanted to shake herself for her stupidity. Hadn’t she known such a woman as Lady Russell might exist? Must exist? And why shouldn’t Sebastian go elsewhere for a bed partner when he could not get what he wanted from her?
But despite these reasonable, logical questions, talons of jealousy raked her heart.
“There is still time to change,” said Fanny.
Part of her was sorely tempted, but such petty behaviour would gain her nothing. As if what she wore could change anything that mattered.
“No.” She plastered a bright smile on her face. “Let us go down.”
The guests arrived in a steady stream throughout the afternoon. Gemma greeted them like a polite automaton while an awful sadness weighted her heart and tied her stomach in knots.
“You are doing splendidly,” Sebastian murmured in her ear as he paused beside her.
“Thank you.” She made herself look at him, and marvelled that the familiar, dark features remained the same, though the world had rocked on its axis since last they spoke.
Images of Sebastian kissing a faceless, skilled, willing woman the way he had kissed her in the park swirled through her mind. But it wasn’t just kissing that he and this Lady Russell indulged in, was it? That was the whole point.
Sebastian muttered a curse under his breath. Gemma turned in the direction of his gaze. And knew this woman instantly.
She was a beauty. Of course. Any mistress of Sebastian’s would be. But more than that, she was exquisite, from the soles of her Roman sandals to the dark hair curled à la Meduse under her dashing plumed hat.
Lady Russell posed for perhaps ten seconds on the threshold, waiting for all eyes to flock to her, before she undulated into the room.
I could never do that. Gemma let out a controlled breath and fought to keep her expression neutral.
Fanny greeted the newcomer with a chill hauteur that gave Gemma a crazed desire to laugh. Sebastian bowed as if he and this poised, elegant piece of feminine perfection were the merest acquaintances. “Ah, Lady Russell. The Chilterns are here and James Putney, too. Shall I take you to them?”
Lady Russell’s pencilled brows flexed. “But will you not make your friend known to me, Sebastian?” With a delicate wave of her slender hand, she indicated Gemma.
Gemma’s stomach lurched. Sebastian looked resigned, even a little bored. “But of course. Lady Russell, may I present Miss Maitland?”
“Lady Russell.” Gemma curtseyed and shook the paragon’s outstretched hand. “How do you do?”
The sparkling dark eyes assessed her. “Oh, I am sure we shall be friends. After all, any friend of Sebastian’s . . .” She threw him a teasing, sidelong glance and laughed with her pretty mouth closed. A musical little hum.
The knots in Gemma’s stomach pulled tighter. For two weeks until this house party ended, she would have to listen to that smug little laugh. Two whole weeks.
Gently, Gemma eased her hand free and forced an answering smile.
“YOU wished to see me, my lord?” Wilks bowed his grizzled head and entered the library.
Sebastian motioned for his steward to sit down. This would not be easy. He had never been obliged to interfere in the running of the estate before. Wilks was a good man and a proud one. Though he might cling to certain of the late earl’s practices with which Sebastian heartily disagreed, Sebastian had never cared enough to try to change things. But now he would have to step in, and he cursed the need to do so.
He frowned and ran a finger down the ledger in front of him. “Wilks, a serious matter has come to my attention. It appears someone has been falsifying the household accounts.”
Wilks straightened in his chair. “My lord!”
“Of course I don’t accuse you. I trust you implicitly, as my father did. But . . . Miss Maitland took an inventory of the larder, storerooms, and stillroom, and what she found there was considerably less than had been listed in the household expenses for this quarter. The household cannot have consumed so much in that time. You see my dilemma?”
“Of course. I shall have words with Mrs. Penny at once.” Wilks seemed a trifle breathless. He swallowed convulsively.
Sebastian hastened to reassure him. “Of course, I do not attach any blame to you, Mr. Wilks, but I would like this sorted out as quickly as possible. If you see the need, you have my leave to dismiss Mrs. Penny.” He sighed. “Goodness knows she does little enough around the place, so there’s not much chance she’ll be missed. It’s the last thing I need in the midst of a fortnight-long house party, but you’ll see to hiring a replacement as soon as may be, won’t you? Good fellow.”
“Yes, my lord.” Wilks appeared to be gasping for breath. “Might I trouble you for some water?”
“Yes, of course.” Sebastian moved to the drinks tray and poured a whisky tumbler full of water. He handed it to Wilks, watching him with concern. “Are you quite well?”
“It’s nothing, my lord.” Wilks shook his head and lowered it to drink, then licked his moist lips and set the glass down on the desk with a trembling hand.
He stood, straight as a die, and bowed with his usual correctness. Picking up the ledger Sebastian had shown him, he said, “I shall study these figures and see Mrs. Penny. You may leave the matter in my hands, my lord.”
Sebastian smiled. “Thank you, Wilks. I can always depend on you.”
WITH the ordeal of welcoming everyone over, Gemma thought she might safely retire into the background. All the more reason not to wear any of those scintillating gowns Sebastian had bought her.
But she was woman enough that she could not resist stealing another look at them when she retired to her bedchamber to dress for dinner. Dorry had taken charge of seeing that the ladies’ maids and valets were properly housed and provisioned, so Gemma had agreed to share Fanny’s maid that evening.
Waiting for Charters to finish with her mistress’s toilette gave Gemma leisure to finger her forbidden wardrobe. There were rich silks and satins, gauzes and muslins in a stunning array of shades—gold, jonquil, aquamarine, cobalt blue, and creamy magnolia—all selected to flatter her colouring. Not a frothy white ensemble to be seen.
Had Sebastian chosen these, imagining what she would look like in them? A shiver ran through her at the thought.
As she trailed her fingert
ips over the embroidery on a lustrous silk bodice, some dormant feminine urge sprang to life. An insistent murmur in her heart tempted her. What harm could it do to wear one of these gowns? Surely, it was a far greater crime to let all that shimmering loveliness go to waste.
But besides the moral implications of accepting clothing from Sebastian—she might as well accept his carte blanche—dressing finely always seemed to beg for trouble. She hated being the focus of attention, especially attention of the masculine variety, which so often brought feminine disapproval in its wake. If she wore her own modest, countrified clothes, the men might leave her alone, and perhaps among the women she might even find a friend. With a sigh, Gemma shut the clothes press on a beguiling dream.
When Fanny’s maid raised an insolent eyebrow at her old sapphire silk, Gemma paid no heed. She sat at her dressing table. “I want braids, please.”
Charters pressed her lips together in disapproval, but she arranged her pins and brushes in silence and set to with a will.
The result, when Gemma finally paid attention, was outrageously becoming. Instead of scraping her hair back hard from her brow, Charters had coiled and twisted it into a soft, loose knot, from which one thin, looped braid hung in a horseshoe shape behind, the smallest possible concession to Gemma’s orders. Fine, curling tendrils whispered about her forehead and temples. Her eyes looked impossibly large and blue.
“Ravishing, miss, if I may say so.”
That word again. Nervous anticipation spiked through her, though she could not have said why.
Charters gathered up the sapphire silk. She hesitated. “If you will permit me, miss, the high neckline of this gown does not show to best advantage with your coiffure. Perhaps . . .”
“Nevertheless, I shall wear it.” Gemma smiled to soften her words. “Come, Charters, help me. I want to be down before the others arrive.”
IN the drawing room before dinner, Gemma circulated among the guests, making sure her arrangements met with their approval.
Alistair Brooke answered her polite inquiry with an amused quirk to his lips. “Thank you, Miss Maitland. Every attention has been paid to my comfort.”
He gestured with his quizzing glass. “But tell me, do you think my cousin has turned queer in his attic, or is there some spark of wit in Miss Taylor’s conversation I have yet to discern?”
Gemma glanced at Romney, who gave the appearance of listening to the garrulous debutante with careful attention. Gemma sympathised. She had suffered the girl’s inane chatter for half an hour that afternoon.
She laughed. “Yes, Lord Romney is quite a reformed character. He took tea with the vicar yesterday, you know.”
“Good God! Is he ill?” Brooke’s thin lips quirked upwards. “But of course not,” he murmured. “One need only cherchez la femme.”
She followed the direction of his gaze and saw Fanny flirting desperately with Mr. Joyce, tossing a glance like a challenge at Romney over her shoulder. Gemma frowned. Hardly just reward for Romney’s recent efforts to win her.
“You look very fine this evening, Gemma.”
She jumped. Sebastian stood close behind her. Too close. Any closer, and he might have rested his chin on her head. The heat from his body warmed her back. She did not care for the possessiveness of his stance and stepped away from him, nearer to Brooke.
Sebastian’s gaze raked over her gown. “Very fine, indeed.”
“Thank you.” Gemma gave him a tight smile.
To Gemma’s dismay, Brooke seemed to sense the discord between them. With exquisite tact, he inclined his head in a slight bow and moved on.
Sebastian prevented Gemma from doing the same by clasping her wrist. Softly, he said, “You are mulish, Gemma. Why will you not wear any of the gowns I sent you?”
Gemma offered him another taut social smile. Her lips barely moving, she said, “This is hardly the place to discuss it, my lord. And you know my objections. We need not belabour the point.” She tugged to get free of his hold, but without success. “Please remove your hand.”
He released her. “I never thought you, of all people, would be so missish.”
Gemma subdued a flash of temper. “I, of all people, must be especially missish. With my background, I cannot afford to be careless of my reputation.”
“Oh, that old chestnut! No one cares about your mother, Gemma. Look around you. Has anyone here tonight slighted you or treated you differently?” His dark eyes glinted. “If you do not wear one of those gowns tomorrow, I shall come up and dress you with my own hands.”
The feigned smile calcified on her face. Out of the corner of her mouth, she breathed, “You wouldn’t dare.”
His jaw hardened. “Try me.”
Ripton announced dinner, preventing her reply. Sebastian bowed and stalked away.
Gemma took a deep, calming breath. With relief, she recalled that Alistair Brooke was to be her dinner partner. She took his proffered arm and they followed the rest of the company filing into the vast state dining room.
Despite her agitation, she could not help glancing around with a twinge of satisfaction at the products of the servants’ labour. The table shimmered and blazed with candelabra, delicate crystal, and gleaming gilt plate. Confections of sugar and marzipan in the shape of fruit bowls and fairy-tale castles ranged down the centre of the table to dazzle the senses. The rich scent of game and subtle Continental sauces flowed around them, as footmen entered bearing the first course—a far cry from Gemma’s first meal at Laidley.
The dishes were plentiful and varied, a blissful marriage of local specialties and French cuisine. Wine flowed freely. It was a young set of people, for the most part, and exuberant chatter filled the room, checked now and then by a chaperone’s quelling frown.
At one point, Gemma caught Sebastian watching her. Unobtrusively, he raised his glass in a silent toast, reminding her of his earlier challenge. A surge of warmth flooded her cheeks.
In the past few days, the atmosphere between them had altered, fairly crackled with tension born of repressed desire. She no longer felt at ease in his presence. With a pang, she realised that she missed their former friendly interaction. Just meeting his eyes across a crowded dinner table caused a wild flurry in her stomach, as if it contained a swarm of angry bees. The knowledge that she only came a tepid second to Lady Russell in Sebastian’s affections made this uncomfortable reaction even more humiliating. She could not wait for the house party to end.
At a nervous cough beside her, she dragged her gaze away from her tormentor and focused on the gentleman to her left. A Mr. Tilney, whose bobbing Adam’s apple and shock of red hair made him rather awkward, poor fellow.
She smiled at him and led him to speak of his favourite subjects, which appeared to be hunting, shooting, and fishing, in no particular order. Mr. Tilney’s descriptions were decidedly too graphic for the dinner table, and Gemma’s susceptible stomach squirmed. She refused the dish of veal olives a footman offered her. Her neighbour’s conversation had quite banished her appetite.
Fortunately, an eager young miss on his other side captured Tilney’s attention, and Gemma turned to her right to see Alistair Brooke observing her.
He did not leer, but his blatant admiration put her on guard. She returned his gaze with a hint of ice.
One side of his mouth lifted in a self-deprecating smile. “Forgive me for staring, Miss Maitland. Beauty such as yours does not often come my way. May I say what a pleasure it is merely to sit and look at you?”
His careless tone made light of the compliment. Against her will and common sense, the words soothed her wounded spirit like a balm.
She could not resist returning that rueful grin.
BY the time Sebastian led the gentlemen to join the ladies in the music room after dinner, he had almost exhausted his admittedly limited store of polite restraint. Most of the talk over port and cigars had been the usual ribald palaver and political discussion that attended any male gathering, but subtle hints and queries about the l
ovely Miss Maitland convinced him his matchmaking plan was working well.
Damn it.
And there was Brooke now, murmuring in Gemma’s ear, charming her with his lazy assurance. A delicate colour tinged her cheeks and her deep blue eyes danced. How could she be taken in by such obvious tactics?
Nauseated, Sebastian turned away with an inward, cynical laugh at his own naivety. When it came to the game of love, women were all the same. Every successful rake knew that.
Even Gemma, it seemed, was no exception.
There was music, there were card games, there was conversation, there was tea. Sebastian had no taste for any of it, though he circulated among his guests, never stopping for too long in any one place and doing his best to avoid Eleanor.
It wasn’t until Gemma excused herself to attend to some matter, that Ripton whispered in her ear that he saw his chance to get her alone.
Sebastian planned to waylay her in the corridor on her return, but then he stopped short. To do what? Seek reassurance? Probe her feelings for Brooke? Kiss her witless and make her admit she wanted him, and him alone? And what then? His mind foundered at that question.
What he should do was keep his distance, not corner her at every opportunity, trying to make her admit to her desire. For where would that lead? To her ruin and his. He would have to ask her to marry him. For the first time, he realised he was not at all certain what her answer to that impossible question might be.
He reminded himself he should do his best to deny the attraction between them, for Gemma’s sake. He should stand aside and allow one of those other, better men claim her.
And they were better men, weren’t they? While Miss Taylor sang a plaintive ballad, he propped himself against the wall and reviewed his male guests.
Brooke had made himself useful to some government minister or other before his grandmother obligingly died and left him her fortune. He had bought an estate, in Derbyshire, Sebastian thought. And according to Romney, he’d openly declared he was ready to take on a wife.
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