by Elisa Braden
Darting a glance across his shoulders, she murmured, “It fits you handsomely.”
“You noticed. Careful, Miss Gray. You’ll have me blushing.”
“I scarcely recognized you without that black wool sack you always wear.”
She’d obviously been spending a lot of time with Lady Holstoke. The bluntness was catching. “I favor pockets,” he replied, glancing at his sleeve. “This has only one.”
“Why did you ask about Griffin’s father?”
More bluntness. A surprising change when she’d always been so reticent before. “Curiosity,” he answered. “A hound’s affliction, I’m afraid.”
“Stop calling yourself a hound.” Soft lips tightened. “It doesn’t suit.”
“What should I be called, then?”
“Your name.”
“And what is my name?” He was only half teasing. He wanted to hear his name on rosebud lips.
Her eyes, for all that they stopped a man’s heart with their beauty, gave him nothing. In all his days, he’d never seen a woman so opaque. She was as cool and pristine as mirrored glass in a moonlit room. But for a split second, something flickered beneath the surface. A shadow, then a spark. Fear followed by defiance.
“Jonas,” she whispered. “Jonas Bartholomew Hawthorn.”
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Bloody hell, in three words, she’d lit him afire.
Her gaze slid to his chin, his neck, his waist. “I am glad you are well,” she said, her voice small and tight. “I have never been so glad of anything.”
Her maid came to fetch her. A light breeze blew across his skin as she gave him a polite nod and walked toward the castle. Distantly, he heard the fountain splashing. Birds calling. Guests chatting. Lady Wallingham crowing.
But all he could do was stand there with the sun warming his back.
She knew his name. He’d never told her the middle one. Perhaps she’d learned it from her brother or Lord Dunston. Perhaps the physician had mentioned it. One thing was clear—a woman who bothered to learn his middle name and speak it back to him was not as indifferent as she’d have him believe.
*~*~*
CHAPTER FOUR
“My sister insisted I speak with you. She did not specify politeness. Neither did she insist your coat remain unsoiled. But, then, she knows me rather well.”
—Lady Dorothea Penworth to Malcolm Charles Bainbridge, Earl Bainbridge, in a letter of non-apology for a confrontation at an otherwise civilized party.
She huddled in a blackened corner, gasping for air. With clawed hands, she tore away her bonnet so she might breathe.
She’d done it. She’d been normal.
With him.
She’d spoken his name. Held his eyes. Felt herself falling into him like warm, clear water.
Stifling her mouth with both hands, she collapsed onto an old, dusty surface.
Earlier, when Hannah had confronted Eugenia about Jonas Hawthorn’s unexpected presence at Grimsgate, her sister-in-law had flatly refuted Hannah’s accusations of betrayal. “You are choosing a husband, dearest. Offering you the option of the man you truly want is the opposite of betrayal.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because you would not have come.”
“He complicates everything. I cannot choose him, Eugenia.” She hadn’t been able to disguise her anguish. “You know why.”
“Yes. But your choice must be made in full awareness of what you’re rejecting. And whom.”
“Why must it?”
“To weaken the regret you may feel one day.” Eugenia had explained how she’d received word that Lady Wallingham intended to hire a Bow Street runner to track down a lost trunk. She’d promptly encouraged the dowager to hire Jonas Hawthorn and orchestrate the “happy coincidence” of a house party and his arrival at Grimsgate.
Then, to give Hannah the “best possible chance” of making a proper decision, Eugenia had made her practice being normal. Hannah had run through scenarios a hundred times since this morning. How to greet him. How to control her reactions. How to converse like a normal lady with a man she …
What? Dash it all, what was he to her? Their connection remained murky. He’d saved her life. She’d refused to let him die. He’d reached for her. She’d run away. Sent him away.
But the longing—oh, the longing remained.
Her lips trembled against her fingers as she rocked back and forth.
Good heavens, he was handsome. When she’d seen him in that green wool coat, his brown hair trimmed so neatly, his lean, square jaw freshly shaven, her bones had turned to molten gold. How could he be handsomer than before? It seemed impossible, and yet there he’d been, a wolf in gentleman’s clothing.
He scared her silly. Even now, she thought pieces of her might break loose and fly away.
Griffy had been a comfort, an anchor. But there, at the last, she’d felt herself slipping.
A soft knock sounded at the door. She closed her eyes.
“Mistress?”
It was Claudette, her lady’s maid. Probably come to fetch her back to luncheon. But Hannah had burned up every ounce of normal to speak with him. She had none left. Only the fear, and it threatened to break her apart.
The door creaked open. “Mistress? His lordship—Lord Holstoke, that is—he is waiting for you.” Her young maid slipped into the old stone chamber. Claudette was small and gentle. She carried a lantern. She came to sit beside Hannah, setting the lantern on the floor. Then, she rested her open hand on the surface between them.
Slowly, Hannah forced her hand away from her mouth. She lowered it into Claudette’s palm. The girl stroked her knuckles with her thumb.
“We shall take a moment to repair your skirts, mistress,” the maid murmured. “It is very dusty in here.”
Hannah glanced around. It was a cellar. Cool and dark, tucked away below ground in a corner where even servants rarely ventured. Hannah had found it on her first day at Grimsgate Castle. She liked hidden spaces. “I suppose it is.”
“Lady Wallingham offered me a position again.”
Hannah squeezed her maid’s hand. “Did she? This is the fourth time, is it not?”
“Third. I do not count the last one, as she was dismissing her previous maid at the time. I think she meant to torment that poor girl.”
Gradually, with Claudette’s cool hand holding hers, she managed to quell the forces trying to pull her away. She took a breath. Then another. “Would you—would you consider it?” Hannah forced herself to meet Claudette’s eyes. They were pure kindness. “Leaving me?”
“No, mistress.” Her thumb stroked the back of Hannah’s hand. “So long as you want me to stay, I will stay.”
She couldn’t manage a smile. She felt it. Wanted to respond with the gratitude she felt. But all she could do was nod.
What a fool she’d been to listen to Eugenia. Everyone treats you like wet paper, her sister-in-law had once scoffed. You are stronger than anyone I know.
Foolishness. She wasn’t strong. She was broken.
“Come, mistress. Let us clean you up and return to the garden. Lady Wallingham is serving peach tarts.”
Peach tarts were her favorite. Finally, after long seconds, Hannah nodded.
Claudette was an excellent lady’s maid, so she had her mistress dusted and repaired and returned to the garden in minutes. Hannah spotted Jonas instantly, conversing with Lord Wallingham near the fountain. She drifted toward him without thinking but caught herself before she’d gone farther than the hedge that circled the fountain. There, she hovered and tried not to stare.
A man approached from her right. Handsome. Golden. Tall. He smiled at Hannah with affection lighting his blue eyes.
She couldn’t help smiling in return. He’d been her champion, her teacher. After the bad time and before she’d found Phineas, he’d been the one man she’d known was good, for he was the one who’d brought the bad time to an end.
“Lord Colin,
” she exclaimed. “How lovely it is to see you.”
“And you, Miss Gray. It seems an age since our last visit.”
“A month or two at least,” she agreed. “I fear Eugenia has kept me occupied with her new millinery shop in Weymouth.” Hannah glanced around for his wife, who was usually by his side. “Is Sarah …?”
“Waylaid by two pint-sized ruffians, who have demanded a ransom of five peach tarts each. Good behavior grows costlier by the day,” he observed with a fond papa’s wryness. “I expect she’ll return momentarily.”
Colin and Sarah Lacey had two daughters, three-year-old Rebecca and four-year-old Abigail. Both were mischievous imps too adorable not to spoil, though they looked like perfect cherubs with their father’s blond curls. Hannah sometimes plaited their hair into fanciful halos when she visited them in Devonshire. Their home, Yardleigh Manor, also housed the school Colin and Sarah ran together. Hannah had attended St. Catherine’s Academy for Girls of Impeccable Deportment for two years before she’d gone to live with Phineas.
Lord Colin had taught her to love music. He’d helped her learn to dance. He’d offered her a sense of safety during the time she’d needed it most. And in the years since she’d left the school, he and his wife had become dear friends.
He tilted his head closer. “I’ve been told you may be seeking a husband,” he said with an approving smile.
“Who told you?”
“First Sarah, then Reaver.” Colin grinned, blue eyes sparking with his usual humor. “I should warn you, between him and me and Dunston and Holstoke, any gentleman seeking your hand will have a devil of a gauntlet to run before he’ll be deemed worthy.”
She smiled softly. “I am thankful for every one of you.”
“Have you met anyone who strikes your fancy?”
Instinctively, her eyes shifted to Jonas. He was glaring at Lord Colin with the oddest expression.
“It is early yet,” she murmured, fighting a queer twist in her midsection. “Not all the guests have arrived.”
“A few interesting ones have, though.”
With effort, she pulled her gaze away from where it wanted to be and back to her friend. “Eugenia insists I must make an informed decision.”
“Hmm. Quite right. Though I must say, sometimes one simply knows. It was that way for me.”
She frowned up at him. “With Sarah?”
“I was half dead when she found me. Should have been fully dead, by all rights. I awakened in an angel’s arms and thought by some clerk’s error, I had been sent to heaven rather than where I truly belonged. She didn’t know me at all, yet she refused to leave me. Refused to let me die.”
“Sarah has a kind heart. You must have been grateful for her care.”
Sky-blue eyes glowed with the love he felt for his wife. “Yes, but I was also grateful to her mother,” he noted wryly. “And I did not move heaven and earth to marry Mrs. Battersby, charming though she is.” His expression grew thoughtful. “It took some time to accept, you know. I was damaged goods. How could I ask Sarah to take me on?”
Confused, Hannah shook her head. “But, your injuries healed.”
“My body, yes. But I’d damaged myself beyond forgiveness long before Sarah found me. I didn’t want her to know the terrible things I’d done. I thought she deserved a better man, one who hadn’t made my mistakes. And so she did.” His smile was wistful. “But she had different ideas on the subject. To her mind, we are all damaged in one way or another. The ones who truly love us don’t judge us by our scars but by who we’ve become as a result.”
Her scalp tingled as she realized what Colin was trying to tell her—that he understood. He understood how frightened she was to ask someone to share the burdens of her past. But even Colin, who had been tortured by the same hand as she, could not comprehend the extent of the damage she’d be bringing to a marriage. Further, no one—not Eugenia or her brother or her friends—knew why Jonas Hawthorn was both her greatest risk and her greatest temptation.
Carefully, she laid a hand upon Colin’s arm. “She is a wise woman, your wife.”
He grinned and started to reply, but a commotion beyond the hedge interrupted their conversation. Deep barking and a resounding howl echoed past greenery and over lawn. Childish giggles followed. Then, “Over here, Humphrey! Chase me!”
Hannah and Colin exchanged amused glances then wandered around the hedge to see a floppy-eared, deep-wrinkled brown dog loping after a young boy with dark hair and a gleeful grin. The sight sent happiness beaming through Hannah like sun through a window.
Lady Wallingham’s hound, Humphrey, might be getting on in years, but when her grandsons were about, the dog romped like a pup. The oldest boy, Earl Bainbridge or Bain for short, sprinted around the fountain and dashed between the tables. He was followed closely by Humphrey and two smaller boys, his brothers Christopher and William.
This was why Hannah had allowed Eugenia to push her into a husband hunt. This was what she would risk everything for—the pleasure of watching children play and laugh and run, the joy of pouring her heart into a babe of her own. Perhaps she should thank her sister-in-law. Normal wasn’t easy for Hannah, and likely never would be, but Eugenia had been right—it was her one chance at having a family of her own.
Drawing a deep breath, she searched the growing crowd for Eugenia.
But her eyes snagged on green wool and a rakish grin. He wore his usual disarming expression, the one that revealed his overlapping tooth. The one that could charm a lady out of her petticoats. But this time, it was not directed at Hannah.
It was directed at a lady she’d never seen. Beautiful. Hair the color of morning light. The woman beamed up at him, fluttering long lashes and blushing sunrise pink. She had an open smile and large bosoms. She had full lips and a vividly blue gown.
She had, in other words, everything Hannah did not. Of particular concern, however, was that she had his attention.
And like a wave pulling sand from beneath Hannah’s feet, something powerful flooded in. It pushed against her skin. Flushed into a hot prickle.
Jonas laughed at something the woman said. He leaned in close as though to confide a secret.
The heat worsened. Hannah’s throat burned. Her hands clenched. What was this? She hated it. Hated the feeling. Hated the woman. Hated him.
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.” Eugenia greeted Colin as he left to find Sarah. Then she clasped Hannah’s arm. “I have two gentlemen you must meet. Both untitled. Both mild as blancmange. Not too handsome, though not repulsive, either. I think you’ll be impressed.”
He was standing so close to her. And she looked at him with such … flirtation.
Hannah had never flirted with him—with anyone, really. Eugenia had forced her to practice, but she remained dreadful at it. She simply could not simper or flutter her lashes or pretend interest in hunting properties without thinking how very foolish it all was. This woman, by contrast, seemed talented in the art. Shameless, even.
“What the devil are you staring at, dearest?” Eugenia leaned sideways to align her head with Hannah’s. “Oh. I see.”
“Who is she?” The question emerged from nowhere. Well, perhaps not nowhere. But certainly somewhere dark and unexplored.
“Clarissa Meadows. Lady Darnham’s granddaughter. Quite pleasant, really. Spent years as a wallflower. This past season, she managed to climb down off the shelf and turn herself into quite the popular figure. No engagement yet. I expect she’s enjoying the attention after all those years sitting next to her grandmother whilst other girls waltzed away toward matrimony.”
Jonas said something that made Miss Meadows laugh. The woman’s pink color deepened. Hannah’s insides turned jagged.
“What did you suppose might happen, dearest?” Eugenia’s tone was gentle. “He will not keep forever.”
“I want him to stop. I want her to leave.” Hannah’s breath quickened. She clenched her fists over and over. “What can I do, Eugenia? This i
s … I hate it.”
“These feelings you’re having, they’re unpleasant, hmm?”
“I don’t like them at all.”
Eugenia snorted. “Imagine feeling them for your sister,” she muttered before waving the thought away. “Never mind that. You asked what you can do. Think of Mr. Hawthorn as a chair you would like to claim for yourself, a prime perch at a lovely feast with acres of ham and peach tarts. If that perch is desirable to you, it must naturally be desirable to others. Leave it unoccupied too long, and you’ve forfeited the chair to other … sitters, as it were.”
“Speak plainly, Eugenia. Riddles do not suit you.”
“Hmmph. Feeling prickly, aren’t you? Very well.” Eugenia squeezed her arm and leaned close. “Take your seat, dearest. Show Miss Meadows and any other roaming female that this particular perch is occupied.”
“What if I cannot?”
“Then, you must cede your perch to someone else. Unlike a chair, Mr. Hawthorn has feelings, too. And he deserves to be treated fairly, wouldn’t you agree?”
Hannah swallowed. Yes, fairness was important. But, at the moment, her least noble impulses had her in their grip. Watching him flirt with someone else was a pain she’d never felt before—and she’d thought she’d experienced every sort of pain there was.
“Come. Glaring daggers at them will only make matters worse.” Eugenia tugged her toward a group of gentlemen chatting between two tables. “Let me introduce you to my two blancmange candidates. They may be less enticing, as perches go, but perhaps they’ll offer you a new perspective.”
*~*~*
Miss Meadows was a charming woman. Small yet voluptuous. Polite yet lively of humor. Breathlessly talkative yet endearing. Splendid, really.
Had Jonas not been an utter fool, he might have pursued her—but he was, so the point was moot.
Blast, he’d missed half of what the chit had said. Of course, she packed ten-stone of talk into a two-pint jar.
