“After he kissed the ladies, Jack would…” Jenny bowed her head. “He would report back to me and we would decide if the lady and her kisses were worthy of repetition or not.”
The silence made her lift her head again.
Sharla looked startled, although Ben was smiling.
“You must understand,” Jenny told Sharla. “We weren’t being mean. It was purely…it was…” She gripped her hands together. “Oh, how could you understand? Either of you? You were always the center of attention, Sharla. You are beautiful and colorful and elegant. You can talk to anyone and never wish you could slide out of the room to recover and draw breath. And you, Ben—everyone adores you. Everyone watches you. Both of you. You don’t mind people watching you. Will and Cian…they were the anointed heirs, adored by their parents….”
“Jack is heir to his father’s title,” Ben said slowly, sounding puzzled.
“His father left him in England. Alone! Jack grew up being Sharla’s protector and he always looked out for me, too. Jack had to become a man when he was still young.” Jenny gripped her hands tighter. “Harmless comparisons of kisses were just a distraction for us. They were entertainment. That was all.”
“Because you and Jack always stand at the side of the room…” Sharla said.
“Yes!” Jenny said.
“Jack has always preferred to be outside,” Ben added.
“Especially after the first snowfall of the year,” Sharla added.
“Because of the silence,” Jenny told them.
Ben and Sharla looked at her, puzzled.
“The silence,” Jenny repeated. “The quiet. The way everything becomes muffled and still…surely you know what I mean?”
Sharla pressed her lips together. “I like kicking snow about, when it is fresh and light.”
“Especially at someone else,” Ben added.
Sharla laughed.
Ben turned back to Jenny. “Let us accept that the assessments were harmless entertainment. You would not be telling us about them, though, if they had remained harmless.”
Jenny sighed. “It happened at the end of our first season. It was the first time I realized how seriously Jack was taking it all…”
* * * * *
Six Years Ago: The Wardell house, Grosvenor Square, London. 1861.
Jack found Jenny in the drawing room. It was still only mid-morning, yet Jenny did not like to linger in the morning room with the other women of the household. She had also declined the invitation to morning tea with Lady Devonport, that both she and Sharla had received. Sharla seemed to have an infinite capacity for attending one function after another, even if there was more than one of them crammed into the day. She would hurry home to change, a flurry of bows and ruffles and lace, turning the house upside down with the speed of her toilet, then dash gracefully from the house once more, while everyone else recovered.
Jenny, on the other hand, found more than two consecutive days with a single event in each exhausted her and made her long for a chair by the hearth with the company of a kitten and a crackling fire.
Jack didn’t seem to be surprised to find her sitting upon the hassock by the fireplace. He merely dropped into the chair next to her and ruffled his hair, with a deep sigh.
“How did your dinner engagement fare, last night?” Jenny asked. “Did you speak to Lady Sarah?”
“I did.”
“Did the conversation take place in a suitably dark and private corner?”
“Behind a potted palm and velvet swags, yes.”
“You expressed your admiration?”
“And my regret that I would be returning to Cambridge within the month.”
“Did that cause her interest to lapse?”
“Sharply.”
“Oh dear. That is a strike against the lady.”
Jack grimace. “Then she asked why I was returning to Cambridge.”
“Ah! A curious lady.” Jenny straightened. “That is better. Did you tell her?”
“That I was advancing my knowledge of engineering to better meet my contracts? Yes.”
“And…?”
Jack grimaced again. “She asked what engineering was.”
Jenny pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oh, Jack, I am sorry. Lady Sarah seemed so promising.” Yet there was something in Jack’s eyes that made her add slowly, “You kissed her anyway, didn’t you?”
For a moment she thought Jack would not answer her. Then he pushed out his breath. “She kissed me.”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “Why, how forward!”
“Why is it forward?” Jack demanded.
“Well…because it is! A lady does not kiss a man.”
“A gentleman does not kiss a lady, not if he has no honorable intentions, yet men kiss ladies all the time with no intentions at all beyond the moment.” He ruffled his hair again.
“Was the kiss of a suitable standard?” Jenny asked.
Jack’s gaze cut to the fireplace.
“Jack?” Jenny sat up. “What is it? You seem…angry.”
“This isn’t amusing anymore.” His gaze met hers.
“Kissing?” she clarified.
“This. The standards. The measurements. The analysis.”
Jenny got to her feet, her hoops swaying. “Then of course we will stop doing it at once.” She had left her sewing box in the morning room. She would collect it and go to her room.
“You are far too harsh and demanding, Jenny,” Jack said, as she passed the chair.
“Me?” Shocked, she halted.
“No lady ever meets your standards. Even if they match every particular, their kisses are always disappointing.”
“You insist they are disappointing,” Jenny pointed out.
“They are disappointing,” he ground out. “That is because you have spoiled it.”
“I?”
“You have made me examine every aspect of a lady and now they all appear to be lacking.” He looked up at her. “What if it is me who cannot kiss properly? What if, because you have made me consider this so closely, I have ruined it?”
“Let me find out,” Jenny replied and bent and kissed him.
It was an intellectual exercise, designed to eliminate the possibility that Jack himself was the source of all dissatisfaction in the ladies he had kissed. She meant only to learn if Jack could kiss properly.
Yet the moment her lips touched his, all curiosity and reason fled. For Jack was warm and his lips soft, and his scent…
Her thoughts evaporated as she enjoyed this, her second kiss ever. Unlike Sharla, she did not have a string of suitors panting after her favors. She would have been frightened if a man declared his passion and devotion for her the way they did to Sharla.
Only, Jack was familiar and dear and sensible. He liked solitude and reading. And he liked kissing and if all Jack’s kisses were this good, then she understood why he enjoyed it so much.
Abruptly, Jenny realized what she was doing.
What they were doing, for Jack had not pushed her away and stomped off in disgust.
She straightened…or tried to.
Jack caught her face and held her still, her mouth just above his. He was breathing hard.
His fingers moved restlessly against her cheeks.
“Jack…”
“Shh.”
He got to his feet. He moved slowly, as if movement of any greater speed would startle her away from him…and it would have.
Jenny’s heart swooped and slammed against her chest as she watched him stand. A voice in her head, sounding far, far away, told her to leave. Now. For she knew what Jack intended to do. She could see it in his eyes.
Why had she not seen until now the clear color of his eyes? They were green and deep like a still summer pond, framed with lashes as black as his thick hair.
Why had she never noticed the width and strength of his neck, before? The square line of his jaw and the dimple on his chin?
She had seen them. Of course she had. Jack had
lived in this house all her life and she knew the lines and angles of his face well. Only it was as if she was seeing them for the first time.
Jack wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her against him, until her hoops swayed back and only the fabric of her petticoats and dress and his breeches were between them.
How hot and firm he was!
His other hand cupped her cheek and lifted her chin, so she could do nothing but look at him, and the rounded firmness of his lips as he bent his head and kissed her again.
Jack’s kisses were perfect. They dissolved all her thoughts, drained her of strength and left her trembling, her body throbbing.
When he released her mouth, he didn’t let her go, which was just as well, for she could not have stood without assistance.
His gaze met hers once more. The silence, which was normally a neutral, empty thing that soothed her soul, was now a leaping, heated entity, writhing with questions and fear.
“Now I understand.” Jack’s voice was low. Hoarse.
“I do not,” Jenny whispered.
His fingers stroked her cheek. “You will.” He looked over her shoulder. “Someone is coming.” He touched her lips with his once more, then put her back on her feet and moved away.
Chapter Four
Present day: Eton College, Berkshire. February 1867
Ellis made sure not to meet the gazes of any of the bigger boys as he made his way down the long, covered walk to the administrative building where Head Master McCreary’s office was located. The teacher who had summoned him, Master Perry, walked three paces ahead and made no concession for Ellis’ short legs. Ellis had to jog to keep up with him.
Master Perry had offered no explanations for the summons. The Master did not walk away and leave Ellis to find his own way to the Head Master’s office. Instead, Perry accompanied Ellis back to the administration building as if to ensure he arrived. Perry’s hovering presence told Ellis that the matter was serious.
No students were allowed inside the administrative building. The polished floors gleamed, sans scuff marks from idle shoes. Large oriental rugs broke up the expanse of floor and muffled Master Perry’s stride.
In the anteroom, Head Master McCreary’s assistant, Mister Brown, put down his pen and looked at Ellis over his glasses. Then he looked at Perry. “Take him in directly. McCreary is waiting for him.”
That declaration made Ellis’ heart beat even harder. Neither man was smiling and neither of them looked at him.
Fear making his knees knock, Ellis followed Master Perry into Head Master McCreary’s office. He tried to think of any transgression he might have made that would warrant this summoning, only his mind was not working at all. He could think of nothing except for failing to eat all the peas on his plate at dinner last night.
Head Master McCreary was standing at the multi-paned window, his hands on his hips and his elbows spread. Through the window could be seen the main quadrangle, where hundreds of boys from the smallest newcomer to nearly-grown men studying for their entrance requirements for university all tussled and played and congregated in the weak winter sunlight. Faintly, their shouts and calls sounded.
On the desk behind McCreary were dozens of newspapers, some of them folded, some opened.
Perry cleared his throat. “The Devlin boy, Head Master.”
McCreary turned. His rheumy eyes fixed on Ellis, making him squirm and shift on his feet.
“Sir,” Ellis said. His voice came out high and wobbly.
“Devlin,” McCreary acknowledged. “It has come to my attention that you are Marblethorpe’s heir.”
“Yes, sir.” Ellis made himself say nothing else—not until he knew the shape of the trouble he was in.
“Your father recently remarried,” McCreary added.
“Nine years ago, sir,” Ellis said. “I was a year old.”
“His second wife was the Earl of Innesford’s widow?”
“Yes sir.” Ellis couldn’t help wishing Mama Natasha was here at this moment and standing at his back. His father, too, for Raymond did not like be kept waiting for answers, the way McCreary was making Ellis wait.
“Sir,” Perry murmured. “He’s not even related, not really…” There was entreaty in his voice.
McCreary shook his head, making the loose fold of skin under his chin wobble. “He’s related by marriage, which is legal and binding.”
“But he’s only ten, sir,” Perry replied. “His family is not part of theirs.”
Ellis looked from one to the other man, his fear increasing. He could not demand either of them explain themselves. He would get the cane, at the very least, for such impudence. Yet he wanted to shake both of them, and yell at them to put him out of his misery.
“They’re all part of the vaunted great family of theirs,” McCreary replied. “He’s tarred by the same brush. I have to think about the reputation of the college. If it’s known we have a child of such sullied background housed here, families will decamp their children at a rate that will destroy the college. It’s hard, but there it is. It must be done.”
Ellis made fists with his hands as McCreary looked at him once more.
The Head Master’s countenance was stern. “Pack your trunk, Devlin. You are to return home at once.”
Ellis stared at him. “I am expelled, Head Master?” His voice was little more than a squeak now.
“There is no place for you at Eton,” McCreary replied. “I’ve a letter being drawn up which you can present to your parents. That is all.”
He turned back to peering out through the window once more.
“But…why?” Ellis cried. “What have I done?”
Perry stirred. “Best ask your family for explanations, lad,” he said. His tone was not unkind.
Ellis looked around the room, desperate for a hint, something that would make all this make sense. No one in the family had ever been expelled from Eton. Every male member of the Great Family had been educated here. Ellis’ father had been proud that Ellis would be the first of the new generation of the family to attend.
To return home in disgrace in this way was impossible.
His gaze fell upon the strewn newspapers once more. Newspapers, with their stories and gossip and scandals among the more sober political essays and journals.
McCreary had spoken of his family’s reputation, implying it was tarnished, too.
Something was threatening the family, then. Something that was reported in the newspapers.
Ellis had heard all the stories everyone in the family delighted to retell, most especially at the gatherings in Cornwall. There were stories of scandals averted, successes wielded out of impending failures, adventures gone astray that had been steered back to true. The stories had delighted him his whole life, yet at the base of them was a greater pleasure in the knowledge that this great family he was lucky to be counted a part of protected their own. They worked together to fight off the ills of the world.
He could return home and find people who would right any wrongs.
Ellis drew himself upright. “As you have nothing further to say, Head Master,” he said, speaking to McCreary’s back, “I will remove myself at once. There is a ten o’clock train to London. I would appreciate a carriage ride to the station.”
“The carriage is for the use of masters, not students,” McCreary said.
“As I am no longer a student, that is irrelevant,” Ellis replied.
McCreary spun to look at him, shock making his mouth open.
“I am, however, Seth Ellis Devlin. Baron Wakely, to you, and heir to the Viscount Marblethorpe. I demand a carriage be provided at once.” Relief touched him when his voice emerged without a quiver.
McCreary, who had spent decades staring down the sons of dukes and princes and kings, stared at him, unmoved.
Only, McCreary had revealed he was vulnerable.
“If you do not help me leave this place,” Ellis added, “my family will ensure that every friend and relative they have with
draws their sons and their sons’ tuition fees from Eton at once. They will tell everyone how you treated me. My family, Head Master, knows everyone. My cousin is married to Archeduke Edvard of Silkeborg. My aunt is cousin to Queen Victoria. Do you really want them whispering about your college to their friends and family?”
McCreary swallowed. “I’ll have the carriage sent to the dormitory,” he said stiffly.
“Thank you, McCreary,” Ellis told him and turned to leave.
Perry was smiling.
* * * * *
Present day: The Wakefield Residence, St. James Square, London. February 1867. The next day.
Jenny’s sleep had been broken and dream-filled when she dozed at all. She woke feeling drained and listless. The strange bed, comfortable though it was, was not the bed she was used to. Everything about Sharla’s household was different and new, making her uneasy.
Breakfast was a noisy family affair—in that regard, Dane Wakefield had adopted the family standard of not banishing children to the upper floors. However, the twins were still babes in arms. The nurses joined the family at breakfast, their charges on their laps…or their parents’ laps as the mood struck them.
Jenny had been dumbstruck with surprise when Sharla had introduced her to the twins. Jennifer Jane and Benjamin Dane Balfour had been named for her and Ben, a gesture that had touched her, for she and Sharla had been estranged for more than a year. Jenny had become acquainted with Sharla’s delivery via the announcement in the Times of the yet-unnamed twins.
All three of them—Dane and Sharla and Ben—doted on the children. No one pointed out that the twins had Ben’s black eyes, instead of Dane’s blue ones, or Sharla’s green eyes.
Jenny’s own two children were at the table, too. Stuart sat on the nurse’s lap while Jackson struggled to use a spoon. Jenny had dismissed the nurse whom Burscough had employed, while Sharla arranged the hiring of a better qualified nurse. Both Jackson and Stuart had taken to Smithers with alacrity, which was a small blessing, for Jenny could barely think for herself right now.
It might be better to send the children away from London for a while, even though Jenny hated the idea of being parted from them. They would be away from the gossip and away from Burscough’s reach, too.
Scandalous Scions Two Page 20
