For a moment, she leaned into his touch, catlike, shutting her eyes. Then she was all clipped energy again. “Think of this, too, Joss: the prime minister has Indian blood. Lord Liverpool. He is welcomed everywhere in society. He’s powerful.”
Joss drew his hand away, then picked up the knife and stabbed at their remaining cheddar. “Lord Liverpool is also wealthy and titled. He could speak to Parliament dressed in petticoats and a bonnet, and no one would think the less of him. I do not set my sights at the level of the prime minister. Tutored commoners of indifferent birth, such as I am, are thick on the ground.”
“Maybe so, but you are the only Joss Everett.” She tilted her head, setting the loose curl free again. “Are you doing what you wish?”
Doing what he wished? No, of course he wasn’t. Right now he wished he could make her smile as she had when giving away her gloves. He wished he could dispense with his conscience and plead for her to take him as a lover. He wished he could pluck the pins from her sunset hair and send it tumbling over her naked skin, wished he could stop kissing her only to make her cry out in pleasure.
But always, in the face of a wish, came prosaic reality. A scarred wooden table, a plate of mutton and potatoes, a wedge of cheese. An adequate fire and a roof over one’s head. Such a reality was perfectly acceptable, even if it didn’t hold the luster of a gemlike fantasy.
“I try to wish,” he said in a calm voice, “for what I know I might attain. For respectable employment for a reasonable wage. For a reasonable employer.”
This brought a faint smile to her features, but the expression fell away in another instant. “That seems a very small dream.”
“What on earth do you mean by that? It’s a very suitable dream.”
“But it’s not really a dream, is it? It’s what you have now, just shuffled about a bit.”
Again, he folded his arms. She lifted her hands, placating. “As you say, it’s perfectly suitable. And if you insist that it’s exactly what you want, then I suppose it is a dream, after all.”
Of course it wasn’t a dream. It was good sense. It was practicality. “I don’t know what else I ought to wish for. This is my life. I am a man of business for a nobleman.” Remembering Chatfield’s words, he added, “I am not in bodily danger, nor in mortal peril. It could be far worse.”
“It could be. But if you want it to be better…”
“Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to buy happiness.”
“No one is fortunate enough for that.” She turned over her fork and scratched the tines into the surface of the table. “That’s not what I meant. I know happiness can’t be bought, or I would have bought it.”
Whatever clouded her mind, here was the muddy base of it. He seized the chance to turn the conversation from himself. “Are you recalling the loss of your lover?”
The fork in her hand skidded; four tiny notches were gouged in the wood.
He expected a heated retort, the sort of fiery response that got them both a bit too flustered for sense. Instead, though, her auburn brows knit. “We probably should not refer to him with that word. There wasn’t any love involved, as I eventually learned. Lord Chatfield told you something of him, I suppose.”
As she did not present this as a question, Joss thought he was safe from having to provide an answer.
Her lips tightened. “I thought he might. Chatfield loves to know things, and to him, much of the fun of knowing is telling what he knows.” With a harsh laugh, she added, “That’s how I knew he could not be a blackmailer. He doesn’t hoard secrets for money, only for other types of gain.”
You must come and work for me. Chatfield wished to turn Joss into an extension of himself. But that was what a man of business always became, if he had any sort of competence.
Against his silence, Augusta gave a faint sigh. “The man you called lover, for lack of a better word, always assumed he could find someone better than me. I must have been his insurance against a life of poverty. But people hope never to need their insurance, isn’t that so?”
“Do forgive me if I am being dull-witted.” Slice. Slice. Joss made a neat tower of Cheddar cheese. “But you have told me you seek a lover. It seems as though you want to replace someone who, when you felt terrible, made you feel worse.”
“Exactly.” The fervor in her voice made him look up, puzzled. “I shall replace him. If someone else is in that role—someone of my choosing, whom I control—then he will be gone from my thoughts.”
Such a vain hope on which to toss away one’s heart and body. Joss’s insides twisted at the thought. “That is not the only possible outcome.”
Tipping back her tankard, she drained it. A hard look was on her face when she set the mug down. “Very well, not replace. I don’t want someone to pretend he wants anything more from me than sex. I know now that love and sex and marriage have nothing to do with one another.”
“I wish you did not.”
“Why? Because I’m too fragile?”
He hesitated. “Because I wish no one had ever treated you badly.”
Her brows drew together. “You are serious?”
“Rarely.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right now, I mean. You—mean that?”
“It would be unkind of me to wish the opposite.”
“True.” She pursed her lips and studied him; the sinking light from the windows painted her face in rosy tints. “I am coming to think of you as quite a good man.”
“I am nothing of the sort.” Somehow, he managed to feign a haughty tone, though warmth shot through his chest. Good. He had never been called that before. Clever, maybe. Amusing. Damned useful, even. But never good. It was an old word, and a simple one, and a very deep one.
“Well, Joss, here’s what I want. Here is my dream.” She spoke the words delicately, as though testing their sound in a foreign tongue. “When my parents died, there was no one left who loved me just as I was. I want to have that again someday. Though I know it’s impossible, I want to be listened to without having to play any games or tricks. I want people to know my mind without being distracted by my—”
“Dockyard?” He could not resist.
“Yes. Right.” Setting down the fork, she traced her forefinger over the holes left behind in the table. “Or my money. Or this pestilential femininity that makes most men assume there’s nothing on my mind but a bonnet. I certainly like bonnets, but I should hate to have my entire person reduced to what I was wearing.”
“Is that why you gave away your gloves to the barmaid who admired your appearance?”
She frowned. “Maybe. Damnation, that would make it a selfish act instead of a kind one, wouldn’t it?”
He had thought exactly this, but he liked her all the better for it. “No matter why you did it, the gift made her smile.”
It was very tempting to offer to admire her appearance in the hope she would shed more clothing. Instead, he pointed out, “If you do not wish to play any tricks in order to gain attention, it might have been a poor strategy to pretend to be a widow named Mrs. Flowers.”
Folding her arms on the table, she groaned and rested her chin upon them. “If I tell you again that you are right, will you promise that this is the last time you will bring up the matter?”
“No.”
She chuckled. “Fair enough. I wouldn’t make such a promise either. I will simply admit that I thought Mrs. Flowers would free me, but she has restricted me to the silly bits of life that I grow tired of. Yet she’s better liked than I ever was. Discouraging, to say the least.”
“I wonder,” Joss said slowly, even as the beat of his heart sped up, “if it has occurred to you that I am listening to you right now, Augusta, and that you are not playing any tricks to get me to do so.”
In an instant, she was sitting up straight again. Seizing the fork as though she’d be rewarded for the am
ount of damage that she caused, she dug its tines into the holes she had created.
Gratified by this reaction, Joss pressed on. “Also, at the moment I am thinking less of your dockyard than of the fact that if the proprietor sees you carving up his furniture with his cutlery, we shall be thrown out on our ears.”
She drove the fork so deeply into the wood that it swayed, upright, before toppling with a clatter.
“Impressive strength.” His heart was pounding now: too eager to lie, too wary for the truth. In the end, those amber-gold eyes were too much to resist. “I wonder, too, if it has occurred to you that the things you say are not you—your admirable dockyard, for one, or the fact of your femininity—are indeed you. You should not be the magnificent Augusta Meredith if you were a scrubby little creature. Or a man.”
“I can never tell if you are mocking me or not.”
“Usually it is best to assume I am mocking someone, but I do not seem to be able to mock you. And if I cannot deny my Indian blood, you cannot deny the fact of…you. Certainly being raised by loving parents at the edge of the polite world, growing up beautiful and wealthy, has shaped you more than I was shaped by the chance inheritance of foreign blood from an ancestress I cannot even remember.”
Blithe words, blithely spoken. They were not entirely true, of course; his blood was half his mother’s, and he had known her well indeed. Poor woman, there was no one who had loved Kitty Sutcliffe Everett just as she was, as Augusta had put the matter, except for her young son, Josiah. And a child was helpless to act in any significant way.
“Maybe you are right,” Augusta said at last. Again raising her tankard, she eyed its empty depths with some disappointment until Joss shoved his own ale in her direction. “Oh. Thank you.” Her deep draught seemed to wash free some hesitation. “I didn’t have imagination enough to choose a sensible name for my widowed alter ego, and I certainly don’t have enough to imagine myself as poor as my parents grew up. And…I think they would have wanted it that way. They wanted me to belong. They wanted better for me.” She paused. “Mainly because they thought it would make me happy to step up in the world. I suppose that’s what they really wanted: for me to be happy.”
Yes. Probably so. And what a dream that would be, wouldn’t it? If only happiness really could be bought. So long he had hoped one hundred pounds might be sufficient for this—but as Augusta had trenchantly pointed out, this would merely permit him to continue his old life in a new place.
“As long as we are asking one another difficult questions,” he said, “what do you think might ensure your happiness?”
Stretching her arms before her, she looked at the short puffs of her sleeves. “I lack the imagination for that too. I’ve no inkling what would ensure my happiness, as you put it, for the rest of my life. Nor even for a year.”
“What about for a day? Or even an hour?”
“An hour? I don’t know. But a minute, maybe.” She traced the pits she’d dug in the table, then stretched out her hand to him. “Just for a minute, will you hold my hand?”
“A man would have to be a monster to refuse such a request.” His fingers laced with hers, warming them. She was right: she really was dreadfully cold. “Must I refrain from making improper comments?”
A smile touched her lips. “No. You may say whatever you like. It’s only fair for you to be happy too.”
Ha. It would take more than a bit of hand holding to accomplish the feat.
Though for a minute, this was pleasant. Sitting at a table in the White Hart, with people eating and drinking and coming and going in a swirl of color and conversation. With the earthy scent of the coal fire, the savory remains of their dinners, a hint of sweet flowers at Augusta’s throat, no more than a tantalizing trace. Joss had grown used to life at the edges of rooms, and he liked this comfortable space. With his hand in Augusta’s, his blunt fingers around her slim ones…he liked it even more.
And he wanted it to last for far longer than a minute.
“You asked me what I wished for,” he said. “I wish for things that would make you gasp to learn of them, things that would make you blush should I speak them in your ear. Things that would make you look on me with pity, or maybe with surprise. Passionate things and everyday things and, most of all, quite simple things.”
Sometime while he spoke, her lashes had become wet. With his free hand, he pulled forth his handkerchief and skated the cotton square over her cheekbones. “Like the right to dry your tears. Or to hold your hand when it’s cold.”
“My hands are always cold,” she said.
“Then I always want to hold them.”
He had thought it might be difficult to admit these things, but actually it was quite easy.
No, what was difficult was watching the expression on her face change. Second by second, it hardened; he could almost watch her donning her armor—hard and polished and bright on the surface. He had no idea what lay behind it. “That is impossible,” she said.
The silence that followed was practically alive: a thrashing, vermillion thing full of words barely swallowed.
“Of course it’s impossible.” He managed to sound calm, logical. “For one thing, we should have the devil of a time changing our clothing. It was only a wish. It has nothing to do with what’s real.”
Her amber eyes went liquid again. “No. It does not. But I can’t—I can’t.” Now she looked stricken, which was even worse than her armor.
Only now did she pull her hand free, and he stood, stumbling as her chair shoved back. Joss had no choice but to stand, too. He pulled a few coins from his coat pocket, leaving them on the table.
“Thank you for joining me for dinner.” The smile across his features fit smoothly—a perfect mockery of joy. “It was a most enlightening meal. Do let me walk you back to Queen Square, Mrs. Flowers.”
***
Though all the streets leading back to Queen Square were familiar, for the first time since arriving in Bath, Augusta felt she was venturing somewhere new.
The city’s Assembly Rooms, beautiful though they were, held the same nervous young women and hopeful mothers as any London ballroom. The Queen Square garden had her walking in pointless circles through its well-tended order.
Then Joss’s rooms startled her, made her feel raw and different. Next, the White Hart—so busy, so bustling, that there was room for everyone within its walls.
Never had she heard anything more seductive than when Joss said he always wanted to hold her hand.
Never could she remember being more afraid. She could not lose control again, and there was no one so likely to strip it from her as Joss Everett. And she would let him; she wanted to surrender so badly.
She must be very careful.
They walked in silence, and the sound of Joss’s footsteps was almost lost in the afternoon bustle of the streets. Bath chairs being tugged through mud, children selling newspapers and buns and whatever fruits the wintry landscape could be coaxed to produce. A few men tipped their hats in greeting to Mrs. Flowers; Augusta smiled dimly, not sure whether she had spoken to them once or ten times.
She did not say anything herself, and she didn’t expect Joss to do so either. Theirs was a distracted trudge, seemingly locked in silence until the moment they would part at Emily’s door. The welcome moment, or the dreaded moment?
Only the question matters, Lord Chatfield would say.
Thus musing, she was surprised when Joss spoke up as they walked. “You said you thought you fit with no one anymore. But there is someone in your life who cares for you just as you are. A true friend.”
She stumbled sideways on the pavement, away from him. Swiftly, he caught her arm and set her aright. “Do not worry; I did not presume to refer to myself. I am speaking of Lady Tallant. She’s a true friend to you, and she wants you to be happy. You are not alone.”
He was right—yet she
felt lonelier than ever with him at her side. A distance drizzled between them, cold as mist falling.
A half step ahead of her, he made the final turn into Queen Square. She looked up at him; his profile was chiseled so sharply that he would have made a beautiful coin. He did not even glance at the manicured garden where they had recently passed a few cheerful minutes.
Feeling out of step, left behind, confused, she hurried after him. The long wool cloak caught around her ankles, flapping sodden and heavy. He seemed so sure-footed as he walked ahead.
At the steps to Emily’s house, he bowed a farewell to her. “Be well, Mrs. Flowers.”
One of her hands reached from the folds of the cloak and caught his coat sleeve before he could turn. “Why did you kiss me when we were in the mews?”
His smile was harsh and wry. “Because it was unthinkable not to.”
“And now?” Breathless, her words were almost a gasp.
His gaze skated away, as though the sight of her pained him. “I am not a fool. It would be unthinkable to kiss you again.”
Yes. This was good sense, and so there was nothing to say but: “I see. Thank you for the dinner, and—and for accompanying me home.” Releasing his sleeve, she hurried up the steps. She had beat a quick tattoo with the door knocker before she recalled that no one in the house knew she had left.
When the door opened, she slipped inside before the butler could ask any questions. She permitted only one glance behind her before the door closed again.
And this was what she had seen: Joss Everett, his shoulders square and hands folded behind his back, watching her with a face of desolation. He looked like a man hungry for something who had just realized he would never be fed.
Her hands went icy again—which made her realize that, as she walked at his side, they had been warmed.
No, it would be unthinkable to kiss him again. And yet somehow, it was all she could think about.
Fifteen
This troubling issue still on her mind, Augusta rushed up the stairs to the drawing room. With more force than grace, she flung open the door.
Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress Page 16
