Panic shot through the nausea. Gemma’s cheeks burned with a hectic flush. “Sebastian? No! No, of course he did not.”
But her agitation betrayed her. Lady Russell’s stare became glacial. Gemma licked her lips and tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. This could not be happening. If Lady Russell knew she had accepted a gown from Sebastian, it would be all over the ballroom in the blink of an eye. She would be ruined, if Aunt Matilda had not already blackened her reputation beyond repair.
Lady Russell’s fine eyebrows peaked as if she awaited an explanation. As if she was entitled to one.
“There you are!” Romney stepped up to them and Gemma sagged with relief. She had never been happier to see anyone in her life.
Romney bowed. “Lady Russell, I believe this is our dance.”
Lady Russell continued to stare at Gemma. “No. It isn’t.”
“Of course it is. What a pitiful memory you have, m’dear.” He took her hand and tucked it firmly in his crooked arm. “Come along, now. Don’t dawdle. The sets are almost made up.”
Gemma did not wait for Lady Russell to argue further. She jerked a curtsey to them both and escaped.
Outside the ballroom, the cool air hit her face like a slap. She dashed down the corridor, not stopping until she reached the empty conservatory. Two branches of candles cast sinister shadows, transforming the pleasant courtyard into a mysterious jungle filled with wild, exotic scents.
Clutching her midriff, Gemma hurried to the long windows and threw one open. She leaned on the window frame and drew the fresh night air into her lungs. Her nausea had abated, but her mind revolved in a dizzying whirl.
For a long time, she stared out to the vast, rectangular lawn bordered by clipped yew trees, her mind numbed by dread. The night was warm, the fountain still and silent, its clear pool reflecting the star-scattered sky. She tilted her face and let the full moon bathe her in milky light.
What had she done?
She retreated from the doorway and sank onto a stone bench, trembling. Her thoughts tangled together. Impossible to separate each strand, to think logically about what she should do.
Ruined. After she realised the extent of her aunt’s mischief, she had hoped she might one day win back her good name. But between them, Lady Russell and Matilda had ripped respectability from her grasp once more.
Why had she hoped it might be different this time? Why did it matter so much to be accepted? She had never sought social acceptance before. She had never liked being an outsider, but Ware had been consolation enough. Why had everything changed?
She thought about going back to the ball and shuddered. How could she face them all again?
“Gemma.”
She looked up, and saw Sebastian’s tall figure silhouetted against the doorway. His face remained in shadow, but his snowy linen gleamed pure in the uncertain light. A diamond pin flashed in the folds of his cravat.
His voice sounded husky. “Is something wrong? Why did you leave the ball?”
What to say? She could not tell him about Lady Russell. She plaited her fingers together and forced out the words. “My aunt. She has been busy this evening. Telling everyone her poor opinion of me, no doubt. By now, the story of my mother’s disgrace will be everywhere. Comparisons will be drawn, and it will start all over again.”
“I see.” He hesitated. “Gemma, there have been many rumours, much gossip about me in recent years. You have heard some of it. Does that make you feel differently towards me?”
Arrested by this unexpected question, she thought for a moment. “No. But then I’ve known you forever, Scovy. And you are a man. It is not the same.”
He moved closer, pushing aside a trailing stem of geraniums as he passed. Flipping the tails of his black coat out of the way, he sat on the bench beside her. “Gemma, do you care about the approval of someone who will judge you lacking without knowing you?”
She sucked in a breath at his nearness. Despite her distress, her body reacted to him on an elemental level, a level far beyond her control. She took another deep breath and focused on answering his question. “When you put it like that, of course not.” She bit her lip. “Yes, I do, though. I can’t help it, Scovy. I want people to like me. I don’t want to hide anymore, or have to hold up my head and smile while they whisper about me.”
“But I have heard only the highest praise of you,” said Sebastian. “Your beauty, your charm. All the old cats think you’re a delight. You may depend on it that the shrewd ones will see the spite behind your aunt’s tales. With my support and my mother’s, we can brush through this, you’ll see.” He took her hand and kissed it. The shock raced up her arm. “Come back to the ball and waltz with me.”
Tingling from his touch, she made herself shake her head. It was far, far worse than he realised. After Lady Russell said her piece, Gemma would never be able to face those people again. She pressed his hand and tried to smile. “No, you go. I do not wish to return just yet.”
He stood and bowed over her hand, watching her through the lock of hair that fell over his brow. “Then I shall have to dance with you out here.”
His firm grip and intent gaze melted her defences. A terrible longing flooded her. She wanted him to hold her so much it hurt to breathe. She succumbed to the insistent pull of his hand and rose.
His arm encircled her waist. She placed her left hand on his shoulder and felt the steely strength beneath. Their other hands clasped, an electric connection even through virginal white gloves. Her heart bounded as he swept her into the waltz.
She wanted to urge him closer, but he held her at the proper distance, a vast, respectable chasm between them. Faint strains of music filtered from the ballroom. Her dancing slippers whispered in three-quarter time over the hard, stone floor.
Negotiating flower beds and urns instead of other whirling couples, Sebastian held her gingerly, as if he thought she might crumble. She hungered for the warm, hard length of his body against hers, wanted him to make love to her until she forgot who she was and why they must be apart.
Looking back, it seemed inevitable that they would come together like this. From the time he returned to Ware, from the time he dipped his head and gave her that teasing kiss, everything had led to this moment. How she wanted him! She craved his heat and his masterful, gentle touch.
She locked gazes with him and threw all that longing into her eyes. His breathing hitched and his steps faltered. The depths of his eyes smouldered and the circle of his arm grew rigid, but he did not pull her closer.
Her lips parted, so sensitised with desire, even the faint rush of air between them sent shivers down her spine. If he kissed her now, she’d go up in flames.
Sebastian held himself in check, though she saw the tension in the set of his jaw, felt the rigid restraint of his carefully impersonal embrace.
Did she dare kiss him? What if he repulsed her? She did not think she could bear that. Not tonight. She stared at his lips and willed them to meet hers.
One kiss.
He halted abruptly, his chest rising and falling as though he had run a great distance. “God, Gemma, when you look at me like that, I can’t think straight. Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”
It was now or never. On a spurt of brazen daring, she reached up and curled a hand around his nape, spearing her fingertips through his thick, dark hair. “I want you to kiss me, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I want to feel your arms around me, your mouth, your hands on my body.”
His hand clamped her wrist with a grip that was almost painful. “Gemma, what are you saying?”
“I’m not sure how I could put it more plainly.” She forced her lips into what she hoped was a seductive smile. “I am wearing one of the gowns you gave me.”
His hands released her and dropped by his sides. In the cold light of the moon, his face could have been chiselled from stone.
“You were right,” he said finally. “I should never have bought you those gowns. I don’t know wha
t I was thinking.” A pulse ticked in his jaw. “We should return to the ball before we are both missed.”
A powerful mix of emotion filled her chest: shame, disappointment, and above all, excruciating hurt. Scarcely able to breathe, Gemma turned away. She had lost her only chance. Tomorrow, she and Sybil would leave for Ware.
“Please make my excuses to your Mama,” she whispered. “I—I think I shall retire.” Blindly, Gemma pushed past him and hurried to the door.
“Gemma, wait!”
She stopped, bowing her head, unwilling to look at him. Shakily, she said, “I must go.”
But shameless longing made her turn back, and she saw with a sudden, staggering clarity what it cost Sebastian to hold himself in check. His mouth was a hard line, his arms rigid by his side, his hands clenched into fists. Only the scorching heat in his eyes could not be restrained. He wanted her—as badly as she wanted him.
How could she break that grim resistance?
Before she knew what she was saying, the words came out, sounding not seductive at all, but ridiculously arch. “If you change your mind, Sebastian, you know where to find me.”
YOU know where to find me.
The rest of Sebastian’s evening passed in a blur of half-heard conversations. He did not dance again. Gemma was absent, so there seemed no point.
He watched Romney revert to his old self, murmuring wicked things in Fanny’s ear to make her blush. How silly all their bickering seemed when compared with the intricate maze he trod with Gemma.
That whispered invitation echoed through his mind. He thought of her lying in her bed upstairs waiting for him, imagined giving in to temptation—taking everything she offered. But how could he make her his mistress? How could he turn her into a woman like her mother, something Gemma had fought all her life not to become?
“My dear? Sebastian, did you hear what I said?” His mother smiled slightly at his blank look. “Where is Gemma? I have not seen her since supper.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, ma’am, I forgot. Gemma asked me to make her excuses. She was not feeling quite the thing.”
His mother’s brows knitted with concern. “Should I go to her, do you think?”
“No, no. She would hate to cause a fuss. A slight headache, I believe. She has worked hard for us, you know.”
His mother sighed. “Yes, she is a dear girl. So like her mother.”
She raised her brows at his confusion. “Did you not know that Sybil and I were bosom-bows? It was why I made Hugo your godfather.”
“No, I . . .” Sebastian frowned. He had never thought about it. Just that Ware had been his home.
But not anymore. Becoming reacquainted with Laidley, the land he had loved as a small boy—planning improvements, involving himself in the day-to-day business of the estate as his steward’s convalescence continued, he’d come to a realisation almost blinding in its simplicity. This small piece of England had existed long before his father walked the earth, and would continue long after the old earl’s death. The earl’s dark reign was but a wrong stitch in the rich tapestry of time, a miserable aberration. Sebastian had resolved that the true pattern of existence would begin again with him. And with that decision, he found a new sense of belonging, an affinity with the place of his birth.
But Gemma belonged at Ware. She would never give up that dream. If he understood her unprecedented behaviour in the conservatory, she was prepared to take him without his ring on her finger so she would not have to abandon her dream of running the estate.
The knowledge made his stomach churn. He could almost laugh at himself—the worst rakehell in London, balking at taking a willing woman he desired without marriage. Was he mad?
He needed time. He needed to think.
Sybil Maitland glided up to them with a slight frown marring her exquisite features. “Sebastian, where is Gemma?”
“She has retired with a headache, ma’am.”
Her frown deepened. “A headache? That is most unlike her.” She cast him a shrewd glance, then turned to his mother. “That wretched Matilda has been spreading stories again. I have put a stop to it, but I very much fear the damage is done.”
His mother’s face froze in a disdainful expression he knew from old. “Indeed? Well, we shall see about that.”
Linking her arm through Sybil’s, she threw her thin shoulders back and marched off into the fray.
HE wanted her. She knew it. But he would not come. Gemma gripped her hands together as she paced her bedchamber. She felt like a caged animal, raging to break free, desperate to go to him. But the ball still whirled below. The chatter and music and laughter swelled beneath her feet.
By now, everyone would be whispering that she was Sebastian’s mistress. By now, her name would be a byword, thanks to Aunt Matilda’s scandal-mongering and Lady Russell’s elegant malice. She would never get her reputation back, so what was there to lose in doing what she wanted, what every cell in her body urged her to do?
She should have been more ruthless, less hesitant. She should have hammered at his resistance until she smashed it to pieces and felt his lips hot on hers, his hands roaming her body, making every inch of her skin tingle and burn.
What sort of sorry excuse for a rake was he, anyway, to have a fit of conscience now? He’d already done such intimate things to her it made her body blush all over just to glance at his hands with their clever, magical fingers. In the eyes of Society he had already ruined her. Why hesitate to finish what he had started?
A shudder ran through her at the memory of that night in the cottage. Heat pooled low in her stomach and her loins seemed to melt. The sensations made her heart ache. There would never be another man for her. She would go to her grave without ever knowing such pleasure again. Lonely, dried up, and bitter—like Aunt Matilda.
Unless . . .
Gemma slowly moved to stand in front of the cheval glass. She untied the belt of her wrapper and shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor. In her night rail, now, she ran her palms down her body, learning the shape of it, assessing the strength of its appeal. Her legs were adequate, she supposed, her waist slender but not scrawny. Her neck was neither too short nor too long. Everything seemed in proportion, except her overlarge chest. She turned to look at her reflection side-on, smoothing her lawn night rail down her stomach so that the curve of her breasts was clearly defined.
She had always been ashamed of her bosom, deeming it more suitable for a chère amie than a respectable female, but Sebastian seemed to like it. Her cheeks burned at the memory of his hands stroking and teasing her through the fabric of her gown. What would it be like to feel him, skin to skin?
Listen to your heart. Listen to your body. Her mother’s words whispered in her ears. For the first time in her life, Gemma shut her mind, closed her eyes, and simply let herself feel. The exhilarating sense of feminine power she had first experienced in the ballroom surged through her again, igniting her blood, making her heart pound a wild, primitive beat.
She swayed and opened her eyes, suddenly imbued with a desperate sense of purpose. Crossing to her dresser, she took out the brown paper package.
She knew what she had to do.
“SEBASTIAN, I wish you would explain something to me.” Restlessly, Eleanor paced the small, curtained alcove.
Sebastian had accompanied his mistress to this secluded spot against his better judgment. There was a dangerous glitter in her eye that he greatly mistrusted. He had never taken the trouble to fathom the inner workings of Eleanor’s mind, but he knew her well enough to realise that she was in a towering fury—and she was about to unleash it on him.
Her lips thinned. “What is Miss Maitland to you?”
The cold, staccato words pierced his chest like shards of ice. He betrayed no reaction, but inwardly, he flayed himself for making his preference for Gemma so blatant.
He stared down his nose at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Her voice t
rembled slightly. “That girl is wearing a gown designed by de Cacharelle. To your order, I make no doubt. She as good as admitted it, the little whore.”
Fury ripped through him. He took an involuntary step towards her before he made himself stop. If she’d been a man, he would have hit her for speaking of Gemma that way. Slowly unclenching his fist, he did his best to look amused. “I’d be careful whom I called hard names if I were you, my dear.”
A hiss of outrage escaped her, and immediately, he knew he had said the wrong thing. He needed to put a stop to this, before Eleanor’s temper made her throw discretion to the winds and spread the story far and wide. Then it would not be Eleanor alone, but the entire ton who labelled Gemma a whore.
Gemma would never be able to hold her head up again if it were known he had bought gowns for her, and from the same modiste patronised by his mistress. He could not let that happen.
Taking his time, Sebastian removed a piece of lint from his coat sleeve. He met Eleanor’s gaze coolly. “My mother commissioned Miss Maitland’s wardrobe, not I. You may ask Lady Carleton yourself if you don’t believe me. And she will tell everyone else the same if you are stupid enough to spread this scurrilous gossip about a gently bred lady in her charge. I guarantee you, Eleanor, you will only make yourself look foolish if you take this further.” In a voice that cloaked steel with softest velvet, he said, “For your own sake, my dear, I beg you will not risk it.”
A subtle threat, but she was intelligent enough to take his meaning. It was one thing for a widow to have affairs, as long as she was discreet. It would be quite another for Sebastian to openly acknowledge Eleanor as his mistress. It was not the act of a gentleman to threaten her with exposure, but he would fight fire with fire to preserve Gemma’s good name.
Eleanor sucked in a breath. She was defeated, and she knew it. Even at the height of her fury, she would not ruin Gemma at the expense of her own reputation.
Still, Eleanor lifted her chin, dark eyes flashing. She was a magnificent creature, there was no doubt about it. But even as some corner of his mind acknowledged her beauty, he realised she had lost the slightest power to move him.
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