But where did Gemma stand? Sebastian grimaced. Squarely on his vital parts, was the answer his aching body gave. But she was so much more than an object of desire. So much more than any woman he had ever known.
He had never given pleasure without taking before. He had never thought there could be such overwhelming gratification in watching a woman climax, feeling her quiver and tremble in his arms, knowing that he had done that to her, and he alone. Gemma’s abandoned response had fired him almost to the point of explosion, but even as her mouth pleasured his burning body, she never lost her innocence, her fresh, dazzling appeal. He had wanted her to the point of insanity.
And yet, he had held back.
Because she was special. Precious. As far above him as the princess he called her. Ultimately unattainable.
Yes, it was that which made him chary of examining his intentions towards Gemma too closely. Even after all they had been to each other, there was still a part of her he could not reach. He had seen it, the distance in her eyes as she surveyed her territory, on that first day he arrived at Ware. The remote, untouchable beauty of her spirit, an innate sense of duty and belonging, a sense he had never known.
She deserved better than to be tumbled in an old cottage, far better than he, with his wasted, tarnished heart could give her.
And yet . . .
And yet, he could not let her go.
“A word?” Alistair Brooke cocked his head towards the library.
“Of course.” Sebastian opened the door and followed him inside.
Choosing a leather easy chair by the fireplace, Alistair folded his long body into it and crossed his legs before him. Sebastian threw his hat and whip on the table and flung himself into the chair opposite, wondering what the fellow could have to say that required privacy. There had been any number of opportunities for them to speak during their cross-country ride that morning.
Brooke inspected his nails for a moment, then looked up. “It transpires that I have some business in town and I shall not be at liberty to attend your ball at the end of the week. I regret the discourtesy, but it is something which cannot be put off, unfortunately.”
“Indeed?” Sebastian raised his brows. “Nothing serious, I trust.”
Brooke smiled. “That remains to be seen. At all events, away I must, but there is something I wished to ask you before I go.”
“Yes?”
“You stand in loco parentis to Miss Maitland, do you not?”
“I?” Sebastian stared at him, appalled.
Brooke rubbed his chin with his York tan gloves. “Yes, I’m certain you mentioned that her grandfather had consigned her to your care. Perhaps I misunderstood. But in any case, you have made her welfare your concern while she is at Laidley. I thought it appropriate for me to discuss this with you before I approach her grandfather.”
Suddenly, the world fell away and Sebastian’s vision narrowed to focus on the thin-lipped mouth forming those fatal words. He knew what was coming and raised a hand as if to stop the rest being spoken, but it was too late.
“I am greatly taken with Miss Maitland and wish to court her in form,” continued Brooke. “Do you think her grandfather would look on my suit favourably?”
Sebastian drew out his snuffbox while his inner self scrabbled to collect the tiny fragments of his mind and paste them back together. Brooke would ask Gemma to be his wife.
His voice rasped. “This is . . . sudden. Have you any notion that Miss Maitland returns your . . . regard?”
Brooke tilted his head. “I think—I hope Miss Maitland is not indifferent to me. Beyond that, I could not say.”
He smiled, and there was a light of anticipation in those grey eyes that made Sebastian want to lunge across the space that separated them and pummel the urbane, smiling face until its teeth fell out.
Oblivious, Brooke continued. “I would, of course, court Miss Maitland in the proper manner before I pressed my suit. She is a lady who deserves every delicate consideration. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes. Beyond question.” And if you lay one lily-white hand on her, I’ll kill you. An image of Gemma draped across his own knee, flushed and panting as he touched her in every forbidden place flooded his mind’s eye. He banished the thought.
With a nod, Brooke rose. “Well, that settles it, then. I leave for London this afternoon.”
Unable to restrain himself, Sebastian said, “Then you will not speak to her before you go?”
Brooke regarded him thoughtfully. “Only to say au revoir.”
THE rest of that week, Sebastian behaved strangely, sometimes paying Gemma absurd, flowery compliments that made her bite her lip against a chuckle. At other times, he spoke to her curtly or didn’t speak to her at all. And Aunt Matilda clung to her like a burr.
Even on her early morning rides, she could not escape. Matilda ordered the mare with the most docile temperament in Sebastian’s stables to be saddled ready for her to chaperone her great-niece whenever she ventured out. Clearly, Matilda did not believe the story Lady Carleton had concocted about the crying of the neck. She seemed determined not to be caught napping again.
With a sigh of frustration, Gemma matched Black Dancer’s pace with the gentle gait of Matilda’s mount. She had not told Sebastian how close they came to discovery on the night of the harvest feast, worried he might think she expected a marriage proposal. She wondered if Lady Carleton had mentioned the incident to him, but dismissed the idea. Sebastian’s behaviour was not such as to encourage a confidence from his mother. Gemma chewed her lip. There must be something she could do about that.
As for Sebastian himself, she tried to imagine putting into words the riot of emotions rampaging through her since their encounter in the cottage, and failed. Such a scandalous declaration would shock him even more than the need to make it shocked her. She could barely admit it to herself, this primitive need to take every forbidden delight Sebastian had to offer. She would never feel the same way about any other man. She would never want to do those things with anyone but him. She had never felt closer or more connected to any human being than she had to Sebastian when he’d held her and kissed her and pleasured her to the brink of heaven in that tiny cottage on the cliff.
She frowned. The distance Sebastian had set between them might be due to Aunt Matilda’s vigilance, but she doubted it. His reticence indicated he regretted what they had done in that cottage, but she could not. A new world had opened to her, a whole Pandora’s box of sensation and intense emotion she had never imagined she might experience.
She could not turn her back on that now.
Perhaps, instead of telling him, she might rather show him what she wanted. But how? They were never alone together—Aunt Matilda made sure of that. Even when Sebastian invited her to inspect the plans for the new row of tenant houses he planned to build in the village, Matilda had come to the library with her and interrupted their practical discussion with a string of vapid inanities.
So if she wanted to attract Sebastian back to her it must be done subtly, and in public. Perhaps at the Laidley ball?
Gemma fingered her lips. It was going to be a challenge.
THE last day of the house party finally came, and more guests arrived for the ball after luncheon. Gemma greeted them and saw them conducted to their rooms to rest before the evening’s entertainment.
Having handed the Chilterns over to the butler’s care, she was about to return to the house to attend to last-minute preparations for the ball, when that outrageous, turquoise travelling carriage swept around the circular drive and came to a smooth halt under the portico. She gasped. What was Mama doing here?
“Darling!” Sybil threw her arms around Gemma and hugged her close.
For a bare instant, Gemma buried her face in her mother’s shoulder and breathed in her light floral scent. Feeling oddly strengthened by that warm embrace, she linked arms with Sybil and led her to the house.
At the top of the stairs stood Lady Carleton. “Squib!”
she breathed, her face lit like a spring day. She held out her hands.
After a slight hesitation, Sybil slipped from Gemma’s hold and moved to greet her friend. She drew Lady Carleton close and kissed her cheek. “Lissybet.” There was tenderness in Sybil’s smile.
Watching them, Gemma’s heart felt as though sunlight had poured into it. She sensed these two women had much to say to one another. “I shall leave you to have a comfortable prose.”
Sybil looked an inquiry at her friend. Lady Carleton shook her head. “No, come with us, Gemma. You are the cause of our reunion, after all.”
They adjourned to Lady Carleton’s sitting room, newly refurbished in cheerful blues and yellows. Gemma had urged Lady Carleton to rid the walls of those sombre hangings, historically significant though they might be, in favour of charming Chinese wallpaper, a handsome pier glass, and her favourite family portraits.
Lady Carleton rang for tea and they sat down, regarding each other in silence. Then Sybil burst into her rich laugh. “Oh, we are as shy as schoolgirls! How ridiculous we are. Elisabeth, how are you? What have you been doing since I saw you last?”
Lady Carleton opened her mouth and closed it again, as if she did not know where to begin.
Sybil fluttered a delicate hand. “I heard Carleton died and I meant to write to you, but I could not think of what to say. Condolences would not have been appropriate, would they? You must be utterly thankful he is gone.”
“Mama!” Gemma gasped. Even for Sybil, this was outrageous. Gemma had the guilty feeling she was not meant to see her elders like this, speaking frankly about the past, but she was fascinated all the same.
Lady Carleton choked, and it was not a sob but a laugh that escaped her. “Oh, Sybil! You always liked to shock people, and now you have scandalised your own daughter.” She leaned forward to press Gemma’s knee. “But your mama is perfectly right, Gemma. I do not mourn the earl’s loss as perhaps I should. He made us all very unhappy, you see.”
She gazed earnestly into Gemma’s face. “No doubt you have wondered at my behaviour since you arrived here, my dear.”
She clasped her hands together, seeming to search for the right words. “When my husband died, I was like . . . oh, like a bird set free from a cage. Filled with exhilaration and revelling in my sudden independence. But he had kept me captive for so long, I could not cope easily with the outside world. Like one of those pathetic creatures dashing its head against a pane of glass, I kept testing my wings, flying at freedom, only to fall.”
She blinked a few times, and a sad smile touched her mouth. “Those stupid, petty rebellions—smoking the cigarillo, permitting Fanny to call off her engagement, attending the crying of the neck—each one of them seemed to go wrong. But I needed to break free from that cage, Gemma, and find my own way, once and for all. And now, with your help, I think I have finally done it. But it took a long time for my lord’s influence to wane. He has controlled me, you see, even from the grave.”
Sybil grimaced. “We neither of us made the best bargains with our husbands, did we? Only I chose mine, flew in the face of Hugo’s good sense, whereas you were forced to marry a man thrice your age. It was criminal.”
“Yes, I still recall you urging me to rebel, but I hadn’t half your spirit.” Lady Carleton sighed and gave a brief grimace, as if to hold back tears. Her voice trembled. “If only I’d had the courage to stand against my husband, our dear Andrew might still be alive.”
Sybil exchanged a concerned glance with Gemma, but the tea tray arrived before either could respond. Lady Carleton passed a hand over her eyes. “Gemma, would you? I don’t think . . .”
“Of course.” Gemma made them strong, sugary tea, a buffer against the shocks she anticipated lay in store.
Sybil moved to the sofa, where her friend sat and took her hand in a comforting clasp, her bright hair haloed by the sun streaming through gauze curtains. “Elisabeth, you must not blame yourself. Carleton was stronger than you and he had not an ounce of chivalry or respect for those he should have been sworn to protect. No amount of spirit could have prevented him from behaving exactly as he chose.” She lowered her gaze. “Wives have so little power, even where their own children are concerned.”
Gemma stared. Sybil’s tone contained a bitterness she had never heard from her mother before.
“Sebastian will not forgive me,” whispered Lady Carleton. She raised her teacup to her lips and gazed into the distance, into the past.
With meticulous care, she set down her cup. “He was supposed to be mine, you know. Andrew was the heir, handed over to nurses and nannies and tutors. But when Sebastian came, I thought he would be mine.”
Her face started to crumple, but she fought it, and soon her features smoothed. She took a shaky breath. “I nursed and cared for Sebastian myself, as I was never allowed to do with Andrew. I loved him so dearly, but over the years my devotion became a source of disgust for the earl. It reached the stage where he punished Sebastian for some minor transgression whenever I took the slightest notice of him. So, I had to pretend I did not care for Sebastian at all.”
Gemma caught her breath. She had known there must be some explanation for Lady Carleton’s cold behaviour towards Sebastian when he was a lad. The kind, generous woman Gemma had come to hold in deep affection could not have treated that small boy cruelly by design. If only Sebastian knew, surely he could not continue to hold a grudge.
Sybil squeezed Lady Carleton’s hand. “That must have been painful for you, my dear.”
Choking back tears, Lady Carleton nodded. “I never realised how I hurt that little boy. I sent him away as much as I could, because I could not bear to see his small body covered in marks from his father’s whip.”
Gemma winced. Her stomach churned at the thought of what Sebastian had endured. No wonder he had hated Laidley so much.
Sybil spoke. “You sent him to Ware and he was happy. There was nothing else you could have done.”
Lady Carleton looked up through her tears. “Yes. Yes, there was,” she whispered. “I could have told him I loved him.”
AFTER an hour, Gemma slipped away and left the ladies together. She was glad Lady Carleton had invited her mother to stay. Sybil seemed to give such comfort to her old friend. Gemma wondered if her mother might even persuade Lady Carleton to attend the ball.
The thought of the ball that night made her shiver with excitement. An involuntary smile of anticipation tilted the corners of her mouth as she checked over the final arrangements.
Despite turning the matter over in her mind almost every waking moment, Gemma had not yet hit on a plan to break down the wall of exquisite politeness Sebastian had built around himself. She had been formulating and rejecting all kinds of wild, improbable scenarios. While these imaginings heightened the nervous excitement singing in her blood, they made no practical contribution to solving the problem at hand.
Her heart knew what it wanted, and repeated its demands with insistent, powerful clarity. Mutual, complete surrender—nothing less. Her body cried out for Sebastian’s touch, the warm pressure of his mouth on hers, his hands on her body. Her mind still held sway, but only by the merest whisper, that sensible voice warning her if she obeyed her body and her heart, she would risk everything she held dear.
By the time she went upstairs to her bedchamber, her thoughts and feelings jangled in a discordant clamour. She was supposed to be resting, like all the other ladies, but she could not sit still, much less sleep. She made her toilette, then paced the floor restlessly, waiting for Charters to help her dress. Dear soul though Dorry was, tonight, Gemma did not want braids.
She glanced at the bed. Following Gemma’s earlier instructions, two dresses lay on the counterpane, pressed and ready for wear. One, her sapphire silk, modest and plain. The other, the pièce de résistance of Sebastian’s chosen gowns, a creation so delicate and evocative of hidden desire, only looking at it made Gemma giddy. She had never worn anything like it in her life.
Ridiculous, but she knew with utter certainty that her fate rested on her choice. Gemma closed her eyes. Mind, body, or heart—which of them would win the almighty battle waging inside her?
But before she could make her selection, Charters bustled in and decided for her, without so much as a by-your-leave.
Scarcely glancing at the sapphire silk, the maid picked up the gown Sebastian had bought and threw it over Gemma’s head. The fabric draped and swirled over her body as it settled into place. Although designed along classical lines, the sea-green gauze clung daringly to her curves. How had Sebastian judged her measurements so perfectly? A stab of excitement pierced her at the thought.
Seduced by this tantalising new vision of herself, Gemma did not heed the voice of her mind and conscience telling her wearing this gown would be the most dangerous thing she had ever done. When he saw her in this dress, Sebastian could be left in no doubt she wanted him. Wearing his gown would mean accepting that their friendship had stepped into another realm.
She should take it off. She should wear the sapphire silk and hold on to her virtue like a survivor clinging to the wreckage of a lost ship. But when Charters sat her down at the dressing table and brushed the braids out of her hair, she did not protest. She acquiesced without thought, almost without volition.
This time, Gemma made no mention of braids. With intense concentration, Charters dressed her hair in a unique variation of the Grecian style: a riotous, wanton disorder, with one fat, burnished ringlet brushing the sensitive, bare flesh where her throat met her shoulder. She picked over Gemma’s jewel case and drew out her gold Roman coin necklace and matching gold earrings with something almost approaching a satisfied smile.
When Charters’s work was done, Gemma inspected herself in the looking glass. She had never worn so little in public in her life before. She felt quite naked except for the soft whisper of gauze against her legs, and the firm support of her stays, thrusting her breasts into an enticing display. Her skirts fell in a slender column to the ground, and the layered gauze gave the illusion of being translucent, as if by concentrated effort, the viewer might see something underneath he wasn’t meant to see.
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