Louise Allen - Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume Two

‘Oh, I see.’ She tried another sip of port, beginning to enjoy the warm slide of the wine down her throat. ‘I am, perhaps, just a little bit desperate to find a new protector?’

‘Not desperate yet, but certainly a trifle concerned. This London adventure is a big gamble for you.’

‘And yet I am retaining the good will of the Grand Duchess?’ Jessica took the fresh walnut that Gareth cracked for her, frowning over the intricacies of her new character. She seemed as convoluted as the whorls of the nut.

‘Eva is a continental—London society will expect her court to be a touch more…relaxed. And I am sure she will let it be known that the family owed your late husband a debt of gratitude for some service. Given the intrigues of her late husband, the exact nature of the service is naturally something we do not speak about. It would explain a little indulgence on her part.’

‘May I ask a personal question?’ What was making her so bold? Perhaps the port, perhaps the intimacy of sitting like this with a man with the curtains drawn tight against the cold, damp night and the candlelight flickering. Or perhaps it was just this man

‘You may, although I cannot promise I will answer.’ He smiled at her, a look heavy-lidded and amused. ‘In return I will ask you again about your family.’

‘Very well.’ She did not have to tell him everything, after all. ‘If you met this Mrs Carleton in real life, would you pursue her, attempt to become her protector?’

Would he answer? ‘I don’t know,’ Gareth replied, his expression becoming speculative. ‘I haven’t met her yet.’

Very clever, my lord , Jessica thought, determined not to let him escape with word play. ‘But in principle?’

‘In principle, possibly.’

‘Even if you were not trying to shock Lord Pangbourne?’

‘Possibly.’ He watched her face. ‘Now have I shocked you?’

‘No.’ Jessica shrugged, hiding the fact that, yes, she was a little shocked. Which was foolish. Did she think this man was different from all the rest in some way? ‘It is the way of the world. Or at least, of so-called polite society.’

‘And not-so-polite society, I can assure you. Enough of my moral deficiencies—where do you come from, Miss Jessica Gifford?’

She had thought about this moment and what she could safely reply. ‘My father was a military man. And a gamester. He and my mother eloped and both families cut them off. He was killed in an argument over cards when I was twelve.’ She paused, wondering how much more she might tell him.

‘Twelve? Were you the only child?’ She nodded. ‘How did your mother support you?’

Tell him the truth, the shocking truth I only realised when I was sixteen? Tell him that I was raised and sent to a good school in Bath on the proceeds of Mama’s great charm and thanks to the liberality of her protectors? No .

‘Mama had many good friends. I was well educated and able to take all those expensive additional lessons that have equipped me for life as a superior governess. I can play the harp as well as the pianoforte, speak three languages, paint in watercolour. Mama died of a fever when I was in my final year at school in Bath.’

The protector of the moment had disappeared before his paramour was even laid in her coffin. She fought back the memories of those days when she could not allow herself to give way to her grief, days while she sold every piece of jewellery, every pretty trinket, every length of lace, buried her mother decently and bought herself the good, but sombre, wardrobe befitting her new role in life.

‘And those good friends could not support you?’ Gareth asked, the concern in his voice almost upsetting her careful control.

‘One—a vicar—did offer to take me into his home, but I do not care to be beholden.’ And certainly not to a pious hypocrite who preached virtue to his flock while visiting Mama every Saturday night! And there was always the fear that those men might expect her to carry on in her mother’s footsteps.

Mama had done the shocking, the unthinkable thing and had sacrificed her virtue and her reputation to give her daughter a future. Jessica could only guess at what that had meant for a woman who had loved her husband, with all his faults, and who had been brought up in the strictest respectability.

‘You do what you have to do, darling,’ she had said once when Jessica had protested that the Honourable Mr Farrington was anything but honourable. The reality of what Mama had been to those men had never been spoken between them, the fiction that Mama was merely keeping them company was always maintained, even when Jessica dabbed arnica on bruised wrists or listened to her mother’s stifled sobs late at night.

You do what you have to do . And now she was all but standing in her mother’s shoes, only she was doing it to gain her own independence, once and for all, and to repay a debt to a man who had rescued her from degradation and shame.

‘I see.’ Gareth poured himself more wine and sat back, loose-limbed, relaxed, in the high-backed chair. ‘I must confess to even more admiration for you than I was already feeling. Your independent career and high standards are to be applauded.’

‘Thank you.’ Jessica felt embarrassed. She knew, without false modesty, that she deserved the praise and yet it was strange to have someone recognise what she had achieved, what it had cost in sheer hard work and determination. ‘Now, tell me about tomorrow.’

He smiled, obviously recognising that she was trying to turn the subject. ‘I will go and buy your jewels and you and Maude can go and have your scent designed.’

‘Designed?’ Jessica stared at him.

‘But of course. When you pass by, men will inhale, entranced, and know it is you, and only you.’

‘Poppycock!’ Jessica retorted roundly. ‘You are teasing me.’

‘Not at all.’ Gareth regarded her for some moments, then stood up. ‘Will you come here, Jessica?’ Wary, she stood and walked towards him. ‘Give me your hands.’

Biting her lip, she placed her palms in his outstretched hands. His fingers meshed with hers then lifted, carrying her inner wrists up to his face. His breath feathered the fragile, exposed skin and her own breath caught in her throat.

‘You have your own, unique, fragrance. I can smell it now, warm and female and Jessica.’ His voice was husky, the words, spoken so close to the sensitised flesh, was like the brush of feathers across her pulse. ‘But it is subtle, a scent only a lover will know and recognise.’ And you , she thought, unsteady on her feet. You will know the scent of me again . ‘We need to give you a scent the hunting male can find and then seek out.’

‘That is a disconcerting thought,’ she murmured.

Gareth’s eyes lifted, met hers across their conjoined hands, and she thought she glimpsed the hunter there, in front of her, dangerous, more of an animal than a man. She drew their hands towards her, pulling down until his knuckles were level with her mouth, then inclining her head until she could inhale the heat from the back of his hands.

‘Warmth and man and Gareth,’ she murmured. His very stillness told her she had startled him, even without the sudden hammering of his pulse against her wrist. She kept her eyes on the clean lines of his tendons, the blue veins under the skin, the healing graze on one big knuckle. A man’s hands engulfing hers, and yet, at this moment, who was the stronger? She rather thought it was she.

‘You learn your lessons well, Miss Gifford,’ Gareth said after a moment, and she admired the control in his voice. ‘You are going to become a very dangerous huntress.’