Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

But nary a black stone in sight, thought Jeremiah wryly as he walked his horse down the long gravel drive. He didn’t like these ancient, overgrown English houses, reeking of endless capital and family histories so much older than his own country. As Desire explained it, Lord Byfield was only a middling sort of nobleman, yet his home was more grand than any to be found in New England, and Jeremiah thought of what a fool he’d been to babble on to Caro about his grandfather’s plantation house on Aquidneck Island. Crescent Hill would fit into the stables of Blackstone House and not be missed, but at least Caro Byfield would never have to know that. No, once he returned her jewelry, she wouldn’t learn another word about him.

As he climbed from his horse, a groom came running to take the reins, and slowly Jeremiah began up the long flight of steps to the door. He took his time, telling himself he wouldn’t wish to be winded before the countess, but reluctance slowed his steps far more than any exertion. If the diamonds hadn’t been so valuable, he could have sent them back with a messenger and been done with it, and with her.

His jaw tightened as he remembered what Jack had told him. Why would any lady want to speak of Hamil? Damn her, he wouldn’t talk of what he’d been through for her cheap amusement! Jack and Desire had pieced together the barest details from what the men who’d rescued him had said and from his own delirious ravings, but he’d refused to tell them anything more. Even if he could, what was the use of it? Better to forget. It was done, finished, and all the yammering in the world wouldn’t bring back the men who’d been slaughtered. Men who would still be alive if he hadn’t been so—

“Good day, sir.” The eight-paneled door swung open and a butler nearly as tall as Jeremiah himself gravely met his eye. “Your name, sir?”

“Captain Sparhawk, but it doesn’t signify since I’m not staying.” Still on the step, he held out the small flannel bag—Desire’s contribution—that held Caro’s jewelry. “Give this to your mistress, and be quick about it. Go on, man, take it, don’t keep her waiting!”

“Why Captain Sparhawk, how splendid to see you again so soon!” Caro poked her head around the butler’s arm, crowding him in the doorway. “Do show him in, Weldon. He’s quite an agreeable man, for all he’s glowering fit to burst at present.”

Stiffly Weldon stepped aside, bowing his powdered head as slightly as he could.

But Jeremiah chose not to enter. “Thank you, ma’am, but no,” he said as he handed her the little bag. “I’ve only come to return your property, and that done, I’ll wish you good day.”

“Oh, fah, don’t be so pompous!” Impulsively Caro seized him by the sleeve and tugged. “Why else did you dress yourself so handsomely if you didn’t mean to call on me?”

“I cannot, ma’am.” Jeremiah tried to disentangle his arm while she laughed and clung to him and Weldon’s disapproval grew more and more apparent. The devil take the woman for making him feel like such a fool! “My sister expects me to return shortly.”

“I’ll vow a man like you has never answered to a woman in his life, let alone his sister,” said Caro, her tone shrewd as she released his arm. She smiled gleefully. “But then I should remember that myself, shouldn’t I?”

“Aye, ma’am, perhaps you should.” Jeremiah tried to look stern. Here in the morning sun he could see she wore no paint nor powder on her face, and little gold freckles that matched her lashes were scattered beguilingly across the bridge of her nose. Her cropped hair was simply dressed with a white ribbon across the brow, and only a narrow band of white work decorated the hem of her muslin dress.

She drew herself straight, folding her hands neatly before her as she carefully composed her expression. To Jeremiah’s surprise, she succeeded, for though nothing else had changed she suddenly looked every inch an imperious, aristocratic countess. Frederick, wherever he was, would be proud.

“If you would be so kind as to favor me with your company, Captain,” she said, her smile now no more than the merest genteel curve, “I would be quite honored. For a moment, that is all I beg of you. Only long enough so that I might thank you properly for your—your services last night.”

The butler sniffed, and inwardly Jeremiah groaned, guessing too well what services the man was imagining. At least if they went indoors they’d be free from Weldon. “Very well, then. But mind, not long.”

Jeremiah followed her down a long hall with a marble floor like a checkerboard. Lining the hallway on either side were life-size statues raised up on half-column pedestals. Some of the statues were men, some women, and all were mostly naked, and worldly though he considered himself, Jeremiah’s pace slowed as he passed beneath the line of sightless marble eyes. He’d been in his twenties before he’d seen a statue like these, in an expensive Jamaican fancy house, and he and his mates had marveled over the ancient goddess’s marble breasts and bottom for days afterward. What must it be like, especially for a lady, to live with such things every day?

As if she read his thoughts, Caro turned to face him, running her fingers lightly along the knee of young man with a kind of shawl draped over one shoulder and not a stitch more.

“He looks rather bashful, don’t you think? Almost shy,” she said. “Not very good for a warrior, which is what Frederick says he’s supposed to be. I never remember his true name, something ancient and foreign, so I call him Bartholomew instead. Bart’s one of my favorites.”

Jeremiah made a noncommittal sound between a grunt and a cough. “He doesn’t look like any Bart I’ve ever known.”

“Ah well, he’ll always be Bart to me.” She patted the statue’s muscular thigh with a fond familiarity that unsettled Jeremiah. She glanced up at him archly. “But then, of course, you’d prefer the ladies. Gentlemen do.”

She laughed merrily as she walked away from him. At the end of the hallway was a tall arched window, and the sunlight filtered through the sheer muslin of her gown, silhouetting the curves of her body as plainly as the statues that flanked her. Jeremiah swallowed, unable to draw his eyes away though he knew he must. For her to be ignorant of how much the sunlight revealed was bad enough, but what if she knew the effect, what if she’d planned it to entice him?

“Ma’am.” He looked down, away from her and away from the statues, and was surprised to see his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. “Ma’am, I told you before I didn’t have much time.”

“Then it’s just as well we’re here,” she said as she reached the end of the hallway and threw open the double doors to the right. “This is the Yellow Room. My sitting room. Not even Frederick can enter without knocking. He calls it my—oh, what was it?—my ‘sanctuary.”

He would have known this place was hers even if she’d said nothing. Unlike the chilly formality of the rest of the house, this room was warm with color and cheerfully cluttered. The paneled walls were white with gilded trim, each centered with a painting of overblown roses spilling from baskets. More flowers formed the design of the soft wool carpet underfoot, and real ones—daffodils, hyacinths, Dutch tulips that filled the air with their scent—in Chinese porcelain vases clustered along the mantelpiece and table-tops among figurines of commedia dell’arte characters and sly-faced cats. The hangings and upholstery were all of yellow silk damask, and piled in the chairs and sofa were plump down-filled cushions with gold tassels.

Caro dropped into one of these, propped her feet up on a gilded stool as she carelessly tossed the bag with her bracelets and earrings onto the table beside her. She waved her hand airily for him to sit in the chair opposite hers. As if, thought Jeremiah, they were the oldest of friends; as if he hadn’t come here intending never to see her again.