He hooded his lashes and brought a hand up to her cheek. His gentle caress set a wild fluttering inside her belly. “I believe love finds its way to those fortunate enough to desire it,” he said gruffly.
Her lashes fluttered and she leaned up on tiptoe, needing to know his kiss again.
He dipped his gaze to her mouth. “Just as you found Westfield.”
Those casual words spoken by Richard shattered her thick haze like a discordant violin in a silent ballroom. He stepped away from her and cast a deliberate look beyond her shoulder. Gemma whipped around.
Her heart started.
“It appears the day’s entertainments are at an end,” Richard murmured.
The afternoon’s archery event now dissolved, Lord Westfield strode purposefully through the grass, to the sanctuary she’d stolen. A sanctuary she’d secured and shattered with one deliberate arrow.
Folding her arms at her waist, Gemma looked about the thick copse. There should be a sense of panic at being discovered with Richard, but there was a rightness, a comfortable ease between her and this man she’d known for but a handful of days. In his presence she felt none of the pressure to be something other than what she was. And there was a beauty to that and a need for the moment to stretch on to forever…
“Westfield is almost here. I will leave you.” A tight smile marred his lips. “After all, I suspect your intentions with that arrow were to demonstrate your skill to that very gentleman.”
A denial sprung to her lips, but then died a swift death. In this, Richard knew her better than she even knew herself. Her cheeks flamed hot. So where was the heady thrill at this stolen moment upon her with Lord Westfield?
With a sleek grace better suiting a stealthy panther, Richard retreated deep within the copse until Gemma remained, alone. Waiting with what should be breathless anticipation for Lord Westfield’s arrival. Yet, there was a cloying panic and dread that made her tongue heavy and jumbled the words running in her mind so that she was the same uncertain lady bumbling through ton events. The snap of a branch brought her spinning.
Lord Westfield came to an abrupt stop. He flared his eyes, the blues radiating shock. Doing a quick sweep of the wooded area, his gaze fell to her flat bow and arrows. “Miss Reed,” he said with no small degree of surprise in his words.
She shot a hand out and pressed her palm against the uneven oak, finding comfort in the solid, reassuring feel of it. “L-Lord Westfield.” Her palms grew moist with nervousness and she prayed for even a hint of the excited fluttering roused by Richard.
Instead of bowing to propriety, the marquess strolled deeper into the thicket of tree and brush. He drew to a stop beside her archery equipment and sank onto his haunches. With a faint reverence he picked up one of her arrows and weighed it in his hand. “It was you.”
Even as he spoke more to himself, Gemma nodded, anyway. “It was.”
“I had to see who was responsible for that impressive aim and shot.” Lord Westfield unfurled to his full length, impressive in his six-feet three-inches of masculine golden perfection. Yet, she remained oddly fixed on not the elegant figure he cut but rather Richard’s earlier claim. Hers had been a rash bid to differentiate herself from that group of utterly perfect English ladies. To what end? She’d have a gentleman’s regard for something more than an impressive showing with her bow. “What a remarkable shot, Gemma.”
Gemma. Her fingers curled reflexively upon the ragged bark. Odd, how the use of her Christian name could so alter an exchange. “Th-thank you,” she managed. For she really should say something.
A smile pulled at his lips as he strode ever closer.
The skin of her neck prickled and she fought the urge to search her gaze over the area. Was Richard here even now watching? What did he think of this stilted exchange? Did he feel even a frisson of the jealousy she had in his earlier telling of his lifelong love? She thrust away those foolish thoughts. Richard would not remain an interloper on this exchange, and especially not one which would threaten them both with discovery.
Lord Westfield stopped at the opposite side of the tree she still borrowed support from; that thick trunk all that separated them. He leaned slightly around and that slight movement allowed him an unobstructed view of her. “You did not care to join the day’s entertainments?”
“I quite despise the triviality of these events,” she said, giving him an honesty that, until now, had always come out stammering and rambling. Nay, until Richard.
“Yet you enjoy archery,” Lord Westfield pointed out.
Gemma pushed away from the tree and did a small circle about the towering oak. “I enjoy it,” she agreed. “But I enjoy the clearing as I rid my head of all thought and focus on nothing but the target calling my notice.” Not the trivial display practiced by the other ladies earlier.
He eyed her bemusedly for a long moment and then he matched her movements. “You have intrigued me, Gemma.”
The intimacy of his tone sent her toes curling reflexively into the soles of her boots, but she did not move away. For if she loved him, she should crave his words and his kiss with an equal fervor. How was she to truly know if he was her heart’s truest desire if she continued to flee whenever he came near? “Then you would be the first,” she said simply. With the same practicality she’d forged as a young lady venturing into the scientific study of horses and hounds, she eyed Lord Westfield curiously.
“Come,” he made a sound of protest. “I do not believe that.” He came closer, ever closer. “Surely there has been a gentleman not too much a fool to appreciate your uniqueness.”
Richard’s visage flitted through her mind. You are a remarkable young woman… He’d been the first to ever note anything about her, but his profession mattered for reasons so much more than that.
Beatrice’s brother stared expectantly at her and she gave her head a clearing shake. She’d always been rubbish at this dance of words. Why could a man and woman not simply state their thoughts without this intricate stepping around what they truly thought, felt, or meant?
“I would wager, Gemma, that you are not at this summer party for the same reasons as the other ladies,” he murmured.
A frisson of guilt ran through her. He would handily lose that wager. For her intentions were not unlike those other women, however, they were also vastly different. “I am not altogether certain how I am to reply to that,” she said, pressing her palms together. Tell him. Tell him how you feel. Tell him the words you’ve carried in your heart…
Her lips went numb like a winter storm froze her from the inside, out. For did she truly love Robert, Lord Westfield? Richard, well, the woman he loved had been a young woman whom he’d known throughout his life, who’d shared a friendship, and who’d earned his heart. How very different than the three year, more stranger than anything, relationship she’d shared with her best friend’s brother. The love Richard had for that woman had been borne of years of friendship, of special children’s secrets, perhaps, and a lifelong bond forged early between them. What did Gemma truly have with Lord Westfield? Why, she didn’t even refer to him by his Christian name.
“And that is what makes you different,” he said, studying her the way he might a new genus of butterfly on display at the Royal Museum.
Her breath caught hard as he lowered his head. Where Richard had claimed her lips in an explosion that had left her breathless, Lord Westfield gave her time to pull away. Pressing her eyes closed, Gemma willed herself to feel, to turn herself over to his kiss and want him in ways that only a scandalous lady would.
He touched his lips to hers and she concentrated. They were firm and commanding and his breath bore the faintest hint of chocolate and brandy, an odd combination, and… She opened her eyes as he kissed her. And yet, she dissected his kiss the way she did a newly discovered piece of information. There was no explosion of simply feeling.
Gemma closed her eyes again as he angled his head, deepening that kiss, a meeting of their mouths which felt like a betray
al to another man.
I do not love him.
She went still and allowed that realization to creep in. Through the years, she’d loved the idea of him. In her darkest, loneliest moments amongst Polite Society, the dream of him coming to her rescue like a knight of old had sustained her through horrible, ugly, lonely balls and soirees. But in that, the Marquess of Westfield had never been anything more than the dream a lady might carry of romance and happily-ever-afters. Not truly. The whole of their meetings rolled together bore not a hint of the emotion or passion she’d known in four days with Richard. Gemma put her palms to his chest and a small groan escaped him. Taking a hasty step away, Gemma broke his kiss.
He blinked slowly. “Forgive me.” A dull flush mottled his cheeks.
Another man, one with chestnut hair and teasing eyes, would never make apologies for having taken her in his arms. Gemma gave her head a pardoning shake. “There is nothing to apologize for,” she said quietly. Then, as though scandal did not creep just outside the wooded copse, Gemma dropped a curtsy, picked up her bow and arrows, and then left.
As she made her hasty escape, she could not sort out which was worse; convincing herself she was in love with one man, while in truth, she’d lost parts of her heart to a man who’d only ever loved another.
Chapter 10
From within his guest chambers, Richard stood at the edge of the floor-length window overlooking the duke’s expansive, sprawling grounds. The moon bathed the earth in a soft, ethereal glow, a calming white light at odds with the inner tumult raging within him.
Reflected in the crystal windowpane, his flask sat mockingly on the side table beside his bed. With a handful of casual, direct words, Gemma, had upended his world. She’d forced him to look within himself, to the man he’d been, and the person he’d become in this past year. He didn’t recognize the stranger from the respectable, focused gentleman he’d been.
Instead, he’d wallowed in the regret and pain of Eloise’s marriage to his brother.
“…The memories you speak of, they are memories of your childhood. Who did she become as a woman…?”
Clasping his hands at his back, Richard passed a blank gaze over the countryside. He’d been indignant with Gemma’s innocent questioning that morning. His sister-in-law Eloise was a good woman, for the devotion she’d shown to Richard’s family in Lucien’s absence. The truth was, Richard had exalted her to a status where she’d dwelt as a paragon of a woman. He’d seen no flaws. He’d marveled at her returning to the country to care for Richard’s dying sister-in-law and nephew. When Lucien had retreated within himself after the war, Eloise had been the sole person who’d managed to draw him out, back into the living, and help heal their broken family. How could he not love such a woman? Only, in the silence of the midnight hour with nothing but his thoughts for company, he realized—he’d relegated her to the role of more saint than woman.
As Gemma had so innocently put to him: what had Richard’s relationship been with Eloise through the years since she’d left for London almost ten years ago? She’d existed in frequent letters and the occasional visit, but he didn’t truly know her beyond the memories shared from their childhood.
Odd, how he should know Gemma for but four days and yet he could close his eyes and breathe the honeysuckle scent that clung to her skin. He knew her interests, and admired her honesty, and her unfailing directness when all other ladies practiced prevarication the way they did every other ladylike charm. For what he knew, however, there was so much he did not. And he wanted to. The lady, in a few days’ time, had battered down the cynical walls he’d erected about his heart and completely and hopelessly captivated him.
His mind danced around and then promptly shied away from what he truly felt for Miss Gemma Reed. “Get a grip on yourself, man,” he muttered, pressing his palms into his eyes. He’d made more of their meetings than there was. Just because he could not rid his mind of the taste of her lips or the thought of her endearingly honest admissions did not mean he felt anything where the lady was concerned.
Except, thoughts of Westfield taking her mouth in a kiss slowly trickled in like an insidious poison, invading every chamber of Richard’s mind. It spread out, numbing so that the muscles of his stomach clenched. And this blinding rage did not feel like nothing. It felt very much like—something, something potent, powerful and so very different than the dull regret he’d known with Eloise’s marriage to Lucien.
Abandoning all hope of sleep, Richard made a disgusted sound. He stalked over to the door and wrenched it open. With purposeful strides, he strode through the duke’s quiet home. At the late night hour, the guests occupying the chambers were silent in their slumbers. He tightened his jaw. Only Richard remained haunted by the complexity of his midnight musings. He scoffed. Why, even the lady who’d laid siege to his thoughts was no doubt tucked firmly under the covers of her soft, down bed, and…
An agonized groan stuck painfully in his chest as his supposition carried him down a path that involved the spirited Gemma Reed sprawled on satin sheets with her brown tresses cascading about them in a shimmery curtain.
Richard turned at the end of the corridor and, keeping his gaze forward, marched down the steps, and continued on to the billiards room. For perhaps with the world asleep around him, he could seek out the answers to whatever this was, in that room where she’d professed her love to…he shoved the door open and stepped inside.
Westfield.
The other man sat slumped in his seat with his head buried in his hands. Richard’s sudden appearance brought his friend’s head up, and Westfield stared back at him through tired eyes. How many times with his father’s wasting illness and eventual death had he bore the same defeated, agonized expression in his eyes? “Jonas,” Westfield greeted and made to rise, but Richard waved him to a sit.
“Forgive me,” he said, a flush burning his neck. “I did not mean to interrupt.” He turned to go, not wanting to sit casually across from this gentleman who’d long been a friend but now a man who’d kissed Gemma’s lips.
“Stay, please,” his friend said tiredly and climbed to his feet.
A protest formed on his lips but then he saw the demons haunting the marquess’ eyes and, reluctantly, Richard closed the door behind him.
“A game of billiards?” Westfield asked. Before Richard could formulate a reply, the other man marched to the rack on the wall and removed two sticks. Born to one of the oldest, most respected titles in the realm, Westfield oftentimes demonstrated the power of that role; where a question was more a command.
Richard hesitated and then made his way to the table. The marquess turned over a cue stick. “Two hundred points?”
He made to speak. Except, he stared at Westfield’s lips as they moved and Richard’s fingers curled hard around his cue stick. He thought of those lips on Gemma’s, claiming them as Richard had. Had she moaned with the same breathless desire? A long, slow growl climbed up his chest and lodged in his throat.
Furious energy thrummed inside him. How very casual Westfield was taking a position alongside Richard. The man spoke of billiards and points, while all the while Richard tortured himself with the earlier embrace he’d had no right to witness. Wordlessly, they let their cues fly at the same time.
“Your shot,” he said gruffly as Westfield’s ball rested closest to the baulk cushion.
A thick silence descended. With an unsuspecting Westfield examining his shot, Richard studied the other man. He’d known the Marquess of Westfield for more than twenty years. In the course of their friendship, the other man had proven loyal, unwavering, un-pompous, and more brother than friend.
It spoke a good deal about the manner of lousy friend and dishonorable bastard Richard was. For playing billiards, with Westfield casually eying his shot, he wanted to knock the other man on his bloody arse. And it also forced him into a moment to confront the irrational, but now obvious, truth.
I want Gemma.
He slid his eyes closed a moment. He
wanted her in all the ways a man could know a woman. With her clever wit, unapologetic honesty, and endearing ability to tease, she was the lady he’d spend the rest of his life with. A strangled laugh clogged his throat. The great irony of this moment did not escape him. Gemma, a woman who’d never want anything more with him, had shown him the truth of his feelings for Eloise, opening his eyes to nothing more than the lifelong friendship that had existed.
In the quiet of the room, he studied Westfield as the other man walked a bored path around the red baize table, hating him, even as he had no right. Hating him for having secured the affections of a woman who was real and honest and who, for those reasons, would make him a bloody perfect duchess. “Are you going to take your goddamn shot?” he snapped.
His friend blinked several times and then glanced about. He furrowed his brow in abject confusion. Not unlike the way he’d blinked like a besotted sop when Gemma had broken the kiss.
“I said are you going to take your goddamn shot.” Yes, he wanted to do more than knock Westfield on his arse. He wanted to knock him bloody senseless.
“You are in a rotted temper,” the other man said with a slight frown.
That slight rebuke gave Richard pause and he silently cursed. He tossed aside his stick and crossed over to the sideboard. Where once, avoiding Eloise and Lucien’s presence had seemed tantamount to his sanity, now remaining at the duke’s goddamn matchmaking summer party threatened his very survival. “Forgive me,” he mumbled. He picked up the nearest crystal decanter and then froze.
…He assuredly does not carry a flask in his pocket and drink with a staggering frequency…
With another growl, Richard slammed the bottle down hard. Drink with a staggering frequency, did he?
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