“My behavior has always been beyond reproach,” Jilly said, a touch defensively.
“I wasn’t speaking of you,” Aunt Marcheline said, waving away the thought. “But those other girls—they don’t consider a man snared until the vows are spoken. You ought to remember that. You’re not a flighty young thing anymore, and you stand to lose a great deal with your wavering.”
Was she wavering? Had she ever been a flighty young girl? She heaved a sigh. “Aunt—”
“No, no,” Aunt Marcheline said, waving her hand dismissively. “I know it all already. But you mark my words, girl—I never approved of your mooning over Lord Kirkland. He was spineless and foolish. I knew it then, but you were so happy with him. The duke—he is not a weak man. And he adores you.”
Surprised, Jilly glanced up to see Aunt Marcheline regarding her with knowing eyes. She searched for words, anything that would express the befuddlement she felt.
“You think I am afflicted with headaches?” Aunt Marcheline snorted. “I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”
“But, you said—”
“Dear girl, do you imagine it is easy for a man to press his suit in the company of a woman’s maiden aunt?” Another snort; Aunt Marcheline turned to stare out the window. “I provided an opportunity for you to be freer than you could, for the duke to speak plainly to you. Don’t think I don’t know that your little friend, Lady Ravenhurst, has a touch of scandal in her. You come home reeking of cigars and whiskey, and you thought you were pulling the wool over my eyes? Just because I never married doesn’t mean I don’t remember what it was to be young.” She huffed, as if the very thought of it were offensive. “You are my younger sister’s daughter,” she said. “And Charlotte married for love. I wanted that for you, but you were far too stubborn, too injured to seek it out for yourself.”
For the first time, Jilly was cognizant of the love her aunt had for her. They had been too often at cross purposes for her to see it before, and Jilly had eschewed personal relationships for so long that she had never looked for love in the faces of those who surrounded her. Unbidden, she felt tears springing to her eyes.
“Aunt Marcheline,” she said. “Thank you. I suppose I never told you, but I do love you.”
“I can’t abide tears,” Aunt Marcheline said, though Jilly suspected that she was masking tears of her own. “Do go on with you, child. And stop wallowing. You’ve suffered enough for ten lifetimes, I’d say. And as you’ve only got the one, I find that rather a tragedy.”
Jilly laughed, torn between exasperation and tears, and she nodded, turning to leave.
“Just be aware that this is a house party,” Aunt Marcheline said. “And there will be a good many opportunities to slip off to a private corner. You should be certain you wish such a thing to happen before you allow it to happen.”
Jilly’s feet paused in their trek for the door. “Aunt,” she said, “are you giving me permission to be…indiscreet?”
“Dearling, you’re two and twenty. I daresay you don’t require my permission to be anything.” She huffed, lifting her traveling bag onto the bed. “I’m simply saying that if I had been courted by a man like that when I was your age, I think I would have made the most of it.”
On a flutter of appalled laughter, Jilly said, “Aunt, you would have been scandalous.”
“Of course,” came the reply. “But what’s a bit of scandal when measured against a long, lonely life?”
Chapter Eighteen
James was rather glad that the majority of the ladies had elected to rest up for dinner. It seemed that the current fashion dictated that ladies be frail and delicate, and though he didn’t see how the same ladies that had taken to their beds could declare that a forty minute carriage ride outside of London had exhausted them, when those very same ladies had no issue strolling the streets of London, shopping from morning until nightfall, or spend five hours twirling across the dance floor of some ball or another. But he was grateful that there wasn’t a veritable flock of them about. Aside from Jilly, only two other ladies had ventured outside upon arrival.
Presently they were on the lawn, as the two other gentlemen present, Lords Haversham and Hastings, were pressing wickets into the ground in service of setting up a pall-mall course.
James had wanted to get Jilly alone, find some secret corner of the house to sneak her off to. Perhaps a library. He’d always loved the smell of books, the ink and the paper they were printed on, the pungency of the leather binding, the sharp scent of the glue. He could imagine few things more appealing than pressing Jilly back against a shelf of books and listening to the sweet sounds she made as he let his lips explore the silky softness of her skin.
“Your Grace.”
Or perhaps a cozy sitting room. In a manor this size, there had to be more than a few of them. And the Countess of Hewlitt was a woman of renowned taste; surely she would have some suited to men, where there would be a high-backed leather chair, big enough to contain a man of his stature, big enough to merit drawing Jilly down across his lap. Somewhere he could drape her over his chest, ease her skirts up over her knees, slip his fingertips beneath the hem and slide them along the smooth length of her thigh until he reached the damp petals of her sex.
“Your Grace.”
Or, most dangerously of all—her room. He wondered if she had yet discovered that his own was just next door, just beyond the wall, the barrier of the connecting door no true barrier at all. If he could convince her, somehow, to leave it unlocked for him, he could come to her in the dead of night, when she wore no more than a virginal white nightgown, her hair loose over her shoulders, shining in the glow of a single lamp, the amber curls like little licks of flame and light. She would be soft and warm, her skin flushed from sleep. He would lift the covers, ease in beside her, wake her with the press of his hips to hers, his hands cupping her face—
“Your Grace.”
He started at the sharp address, blinking in the sunlight. Jilly stood before him, her delicate features arranged into a frown of confusion. She offered him a mallet, and he was suddenly aware that this was not the first time she had addressed him.
Once she realized that she had at last garnered his attention, she released an awkward trill of a laugh. “My goodness,” she said. “I have been trying to get your attention for a full minute now. Where were you?”
In your bed. “Woolgathering, I suppose,” he said, aware of the husky tenor of his voice. He reached out and snagged the mallet from her fingertips. He supposed he ought to feel lucky that she had pulled him from his reverie when she had; already he had felt the stirrings of desire, and he had no wish to embarrass himself before their company. “Whose turn is it?”
“Yours,” she said, her voice suggesting that they had all been waiting for him for some time now. “Lady Beatrice was before you.” She gestured to her left, to the tiny blond slip of a girl next to her, who by turns fluttered her lashes at James and slanted baleful glances at Jilly. Of all the other ladies who could have turned out for the game, of course it would have to be the ill-tempered, conceited Lady Beatrice, he thought sourly. She’d determined she was entitled to a duke, and she did not intend to let such a chance slip through her fingers.
“And you?” he asked of Jilly, resolute in his dismissal of the haughty younger girl.
“I’m after,” she said, and when a brief smile flitted across her face, he knew she was imagining sending his ball flying across the lawn, erasing any chance he might have of obtaining victory.
“Why, Lady Jillian,” he said. “I never suspected you of a competitive bent.” But he rather enjoyed it. Though he had not had occasion to indulge in these sorts of games with ladies, as they invariably went hand in hand with courtship, and he had never before wished to give even the slightest impression that he was amenable to such a thing, he found it refreshing that there existed a woman who might actually attempt to give him a run for his money rather than using the occasion to flutter her lashes and declare
herself no competition for his athletic prowess.
He toed the green ball to the starting point with his boot, took careful aim, drew back his mallet, and gave it a mighty whack. The ball went flying across the lawn toward the first wicket, coming to rest some four feet before it. Not a bad shot if he was any judge, and even Hastings and Haversham looked rather impressed.
Jilly’s ball was pink. She had balanced her own mallet over her shoulder, rather like a parasol, but she swung it down, lining the flat edge up with the ball and drawing it back in a smooth swing. Her own ball went sailing, and her aim was impeccable—her ball knocked into his and sent it careening down a slope to come to rest at the bottom of a small hill.
Jilly let out a victorious whoop and Lady Beatrice gasped. “Lady Jillian,” she said, horrified. “That was unkind!”
“Pall-mall,” Jilly said patiently, “is not a game where one is kind to one’s competitors.”
Hastings and Haversham laughed.
“But you hit His Grace’s ball!” Lady Beatrice protested, and she turned the full weight of her blue-eyed gaze on James, batting her lashes furiously. “That was not well done of her, Your Grace.”
“I beg to differ,” James said, casting a grin at Jilly, who smiled back. “It was an excellent shot. I’m impressed; you are a worthy opponent.”
She leveled her mallet at him in a strange parody of wagging a disapproving finger in his face. “You would be wise not to underestimate me, Your Grace. I lived in the country until my come-out; pall-mall was my favorite pastime.”
This he had not known, but for some reason it fascinated him. James tried to recall the last time he had experienced even the slightest sliver of curiosity over a woman, but drew a blank. In truth, he had never cared for any woman beyond what they could offer him in bed. But Jilly—Jilly was different. He wanted to know about her, learn about her. He wanted her to share her memories with him, tell him the experiences that had shaped her youth, share with him her thoughts and feelings and opinions.
He had the suspicion that she had a great many opinions. Opinions she likely only shared with her nearest and dearest—that was to say, the Ravenhursts—but surely she would take him into her confidence presently.
Lady Beatrice gave her ball a delicate tap, and James only just restrained the impulse to roll his eyes. “Oh, dear,” she said, her rosebud mouth rounding into a moue of feigned disappointment. “I fear I haven’t the robust strength of some other ladies.” Again she fluttered her lashes at James, and he knew he was meant to feel a sweeping urge to comfort her, or to gallantly offer her his arm, or perhaps to suggest he take her turns for her, with respect to her delicate constitution.
Instead he said, “Perhaps you ought to try adding some exercise into your daily routine.”
She took up fluttering her lashes once again, but this time it was in confusion, as if she could not believe that her contrived effort to secure his attention had failed so miserably. Jillian disguised a laugh with a careful clearing of her throat, averting her face as she strove to erase the grin that had spread across it.
Was Lady Beatrice merely stupid, or did she indeed believe that her charms would be enough to sway him from Jilly’s side when all of the Ton knew that he’d paid not the slightest attention to anyone else all Season? He couldn’t say, but he did derive a sort of enjoyment from the flash of annoyance in her sharp blue eyes. Clearly she thought herself a higher prize than Jilly, and her vanity was wounded by James’ lack of homage paid to her charms. By the look of her she couldn’t be any more than eighteen or nineteen, and she had clearly spent hours before a mirror, primping and preening as her maid tamed her hair into the sort of perfect coif that was expected of a lady. She was the same as all the other vacuous, empty-headed London misses that James had grown to loathe. The depths of her mind were shallow indeed, and laden with little more than fripperies and fashion plates, juicy gossip she would share with her equally idiotic friends, and practiced smiles and lash flutters designed to have eligible gentlemen eating from the palm of her gloved hand.
While Lady Beatrice looked like a little china doll, all perfect delicacy and pink-and-white beauty in her starched and beribboned blue day dress, Jilly exuded a sort of earthy sensuality that Lady Beatrice could never hope to achieve. Jilly had clearly expended the least amount of effort with her toilette; her dress buttoned up the front, a simple, mint-green frock that would not require a maid to get her into and out of. Her hair had been tamed only with a bit of ribbon, and the curls drifted over her smooth shoulders in the breeze. He doubted she realized it at all, but while Lady Beatrice wore her garments and hair like armor, Jilly wore hers like a simple country miss—her smile was sincere and inviting, and the tiny cinnamon freckles that dusted her nose were enchanting. She looked exactly like what she was—a woman grown who obeyed society’s edicts only as suited her. She would laugh too loudly, drink too freely, and she, unlike Lady Beatrice, might just accompany a man to an illicit rendezvous without insisting upon marriage.
Hastings and Haversham saw it too. Lady Beatrice—a lady born and bred, too aware of her own consequence—could never truly understand men. She would never realize that while a man would almost certainly wed her for her connections and her dowry, and yes, even her pale and fragile beauty, it was women like Jilly to whom they were drawn. Women whose curls floated on the breeze, who weren’t afraid to laugh in the face of a duke whom they had soundly trounced.
“Your turn, I believe, Lord Hastings,” Jilly murmured, in an attempt to diffuse the tension that had ratcheted up the moment that Lady Beatrice had tested her wiles on James.
“Right,” said Hastings. He stroked the points of his mustache, and his gaze lingered on Jilly’s bosom, which was magnificent, even if it was covered entirely properly. James coughed into his fist, turning as he did so—and let the mallet slung over his shoulder connect with Hastings’ head, sending his hat flying clean off.
“I say!” Hastings snapped, scowling as he rubbed his head.
“My apologies,” James said silkily, a thread of menace weaving through his voice. “But perhaps you’d do better to keep your eyes on your ball.”
Hastings caught the implication, his cheeks flushing as he stooped to retrieve his hat. When he righted himself once again, he made a great effort to avoid meeting James’ gaze, and took his swing, sending his own ball careening wildly off course in his nervousness.
Jilly was engaged in quiet conversation with a mousy little thing—James thought he remembered being introduced to her once before, Miss Amelia Prescott or something like that. If he recalled correctly, no one in her family possessed a title, but her father had made a veritable fortune in shipping, and so she had a dowry that even a notable spendthrift would have trouble running through. She was clearly uncomfortable here, rubbing elbows with the upper class, and if she was garbed impeccably, she wore her clothing uncomfortably. It would have been more appropriate to say that it wore her. But she bloomed under Jilly’s kind regard, her fearful reticence ceding to a brief, hesitant smile that changed her face from pinched to rather pretty, in a bland sort of way. She didn’t have Jilly’s dramatic coloring, but if she could erase that nervous demeanor long enough, she would certainly catch a titled husband.
“Miss Prescott,” Lady Beatrice said sharply, as if it had irritated her simply to have to voice the name. “It is your turn. Pray don’t keep us waiting.” She tilted her nose at a haughty, imperious angle that made James want to give her a set-down.
Jilly frowned at the caustic tone of Lady Beatrice’s voice, but tucked Miss Prescott’s arm into her own, leading her toward the ball.
“I—I have never played before,” Miss Prescott said, her voice squeaking through several octaves.
“That’s quite all right,” Jilly said, and with careful precision she adjusted Miss Prescott’s grip on her mallet, instructing her in a low voice to alter her stance, how to aim, where to send the ball. She showed Miss Prescott how to draw back the mallet, how
to keep the head level as she moved through the swing, and then stepped back. Miss Prescott drew in a steadying breath, her grey eyes flitting toward Jilly for reassurance, and, having received the nod she sought, she drew back her mallet and let fly. The crack of the mallet hitting the ball split the air, and the ball went sailing across the lawn, straight through the wicket some distance away.
“Oh, good show, Miss Prescott!” Haversham said, in an uncharacteristic show of good sportsmanship.
“I did it?” Miss Prescott whispered. “I did it!” She gave a giddy little giggle, then turned in Jilly’s direction and embraced her exuberantly. It should have been shocking—one did not embrace in mixed company after all—but James thought it rather charming. And after a half-second of surprise, Jilly’s arms came up to return the embrace, and her eyes closed as if it had been so long since she had received genuine affection from a person who was not Lady Ravenhurst, that she had to savor it while it lasted.
Lady Beatrice gave a disdainful sniff. “Bad blood will out,” she hissed spitefully.
Fury reared its ugly head, swift and bright. James felt his fingers clench on his mallet, felt a muscle tick in his jaw. His eyes jerked to Jilly, who had gone quite stiff with anger herself, her fingers frozen upon Miss Prescott’s back. Though Miss Prescott had not responded, he could see by the turn of her cheek that she had gone rather pale, her eyes averted in shame.
“Lady Beatrice,” Jilly said, her voice carefully modulated. “That was beneath you. You must apologize at once.”
Lady Beatrice was unaccustomed to being chastised, for she tipped her nose further in the air and said, “Lady Jillian,”—this she stressed as if Jilly’s claim to the title were very much in doubt—“I am not answerable to you. I am the daughter of a marquess, and the granddaughter of a duke. I take pride in my ancestry and what is beneath me is socializing with commoners—and gentlewomen of dubious reputation.”
His Favorite Mistake Page 14
