Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

And hence this kiss, which was hardly a kiss at all except that it did things to his body and his heartbeat and his mind that far more lascivious embraces with other women had never done. It moved him somehow into a physical space that was neither his nor hers but something else without a name. It was shockingly, inexplicably intimate.

And he wanted more. By God, he wanted more.

He did not take more, except that he set his fingertips against her jaw, and when he drew back his head and gazed into her eyes again, he ran his thumb lightly over her slightly parted lips.

She smiled fleetingly and moved her own head back.

“You have a strange idea of romance, Mr. Thorne,” she said. But she did not say what she meant by that and he did not ask.

“If we do not go for tea soon,” he said, “the food will be carried back indoors and we will go hungry.”

“That would be a ghastly fate,” she said. “Let us go by all means. I daresay my mother is wondering where I am.”

“Especially if she has seen Rochford and you are not with him,” he said. “I gather your family is trying to promote a match between the two of you?”

“Just as they are trying to promote one between you and Estelle,” she said. “Being a member of the Westcott family can be a severe trial. And a great joy. Frequently frustrating and endlessly entertaining.”

“I look forward to becoming a part of it,” he told her, removing his fingertips from her jaw and returning his foot to the ground.

“And there you go again,” she said. “Making assumptions.” But she did not sound annoyed with him this time.

Twelve

Mr. Rochford was expected at Archer House. He had begged for the honor, and it had been granted. Jessica was wearing one of her new dresses, a sprigged muslin she thought would be more suited to a garden party like the one she had attended the day before yesterday. But her mother had suggested it for today. Her mother had also come to her dressing room in person to suggest that Ruth dress her hair in its usual upswept style, but a little fussier than usual for the daytime, with perhaps a few curled tendrils to trail over her ears and along her neck. Ruth had done a perfect job of it, as usual.

Anna had gone with Cousin Elizabeth and all their children except Beatrice to visit Wren and her children. Jessica was sitting in the drawing room with her mother when they heard Mr. Rochford arrive. But she did not listen for footsteps on the stairs. He was not coming to call upon her. Not yet. He had asked to wait upon Avery.

Last evening at a literary evening Jessica had attended because it was given by one of her friends, Mr. Rochford had seated himself beside her for the first reading and refused to be dislodged afterward. It was customary at such events to circulate, to move about the room between each reading of a poem or story, discussing its merits and conversing upon other literary topics with one’s fellow guests. Mr. Rochford had followed Jessica wherever she went and had seated himself beside her whenever she settled for another performance, even though she chose a different chair each time.

She had found it irritating and did not doubt it had been observed and commented upon. She had also felt a bit sorry for him, for she knew that what was facing him was going to be a disappointment of colossal proportions. But then he was a liar. He had pretended he had known Gabriel Rochford as a boy when he had not. And if he had lied about that, could he be trusted on any details of the story he had told?

This morning Mr. Rochford had sent a formal written request that the Duke of Netherby grant him half an hour of his invaluable time at two o’clock in the afternoon.

“He is very handsome, Jessica,” her mother said now. “And personable. And charming.”

“Yes,” Jessica agreed. “He is all three, Mama.”

“And eligible,” her mother added.

“Yes.” It was hard sometimes to hang on to a secret.

“And young,” her mother said.

Four other gentlemen had reached the point of calling formally upon Avery in the past six years or so. The last one had been close to fifty years old—older than her mother. Avery had observed in that aloof, bored way of his after she had refused him that if she had accepted, he would have locked her in her room and fed her bread and water until her wedding day.

“Yes,” she said now. “He is probably about my age. Maybe even a little younger.”

“You are twenty-five years old, Jessica,” her mother said. She sounded a bit despairing. “This would be a very good match for you even though it may be years before Mr. Rochford succeeds to his father’s title. You could be happy. Surely.”

“We do not even know for certain that an offer is about to be made, Mama,” Jessica said.

“Oh, come now.” Her mother laughed. “Are you nervous , Jessica? Do you like him?”

“I do not dislike him,” Jessica said, and hoped she was not lying outright. It would be unfair to hate him. He was trying very hard. If he lacked something in town bronze, it was understandable. This was his first visit to London, after all. It was his first taste of life lived in the bosom of the ton . He was doing his best. And he would surely learn. But . . . he was a liar. And it had been such an unnecessary lie if he believed, as he no doubt did, that his cousin was dead.

“I hope,” her mother said, “you are not dangling after Mr. Thorne, Jessica.”

Dangling after? She had never openly flirted with anyone in her life.

“I am not,” she said. But she thought of today’s pink rose in its narrow crystal vase upstairs beside her bed and of yesterday’s—yellow, probably as an echo of the dress she had worn to the garden party or of the rose she had cupped in her hands in the rose arbor. And of all the others, in varying shades of pink, pressed so that they would not turn brown about the edges and wither and die. And she thought of that kiss, which only afterward had she realized was not remotely lascivious, though every part of her body, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, had melted with the sheer sensual intimacy of it. “I am not dangling after anyone, Mama, and can safely promise never to do so.”

“It was the wrong word,” her mother admitted with a sigh. “Of course you are not. There is no need. I can think of a dozen men without even taxing my brain who would fall to their knees with one glance of encouragement from you. But do you . . . favor Mr. Thorne?”

Jessica feared she was going to marry him.

Feared?

He might be a ravisher and a murderer. She had not asked him, and it seemed strange now that she had not. Had she been afraid of the answer? It seemed strange that after shrugging off so many worthy candidates for her hand she was finally giving serious consideration to the suit of a man who might have committed two of the worst crimes imaginable. But . . . Oh, but he had returned from America, not because he was the Earl of Lyndale and owner of what was probably a grand home and estate and a sizable fortune. In the more than six years since the death of his uncle he had not been tempted by those things. He had been happy in America. He had actually used that word— happy . He had returned because a hermit of a woman who had been born with severe physical challenges was about to be turned out of her modest cottage by the man who would be earl if Mr. Thorne did not come back. He had given up everything that was dear to him, perhaps forever, for the sake of that one woman. Because he loved her—though not in any romantic way.

Could such a man be a ravisher? A murderer?

But she had only his word . . .

And she had only Mr. Rochford’s word . . .