She said
nothing as he stared at her, his lips parting as if he wanted to say something
more. A hollow silence swept through the hall like the echo of a cold arctic
wind.
"Jane
is expecting me in the drawing room," she finally blurted out, and without
waiting for his reply, grabbed hold of her skirt and turned blindly down the
hall, walking with as much dignity as she could gather.
Why did
he have to come back into her life? She was a silly twit. Every fiber of her
being had wanted to cling to him, and it had taken every bit of resolve to pull
away. He was dangerous. Dangerous to her heart and to her future. What had
happened to the independent, confident woman she had become?
For the
first time since her brothers returned home, she wished they were there beside
her, spouting their little speeches and watching her every move. But most of
all she wished they were protecting her from the world and all the disagreeable
baggage that went along with it, including a certain earl that could do more
damage to her heart in five minutes than an entire army of suitors could do to
her in one day.
Jared
purposely missed Emily's arrival the previous evening at Hemmingly, but he was
not ready for the bitterness that radiated from those violet eyes when he
literally ran into her this morning. She was no longer the slim, dark-haired
girl he remembered. She had grown into an independent beauty who challenged his
resolve to stay away. Dash Roderick and his plans! If the duke had not rescued
him from a French prison, Jared would not be put in this position in the first
place.
Honor,
of course, demanded that Jared do as his friend asked and watch over Emily
until her brothers found a suitable husband for her.
Yet as
Jared strode back toward the library, he realized he could make a list a mile
long of the very reasons he should leave Hemmingly . . . and Lady Emily.
Reasons that would set the duke and his brothers onto him like hounds to a fox.
Naturally,
Jared would never run from them if he had his mind set on their sister, but
Lady Emily was no longer part of his plans.
His
thoughts turned to his daughter and his reunion with her as he stalked past the
maid brushing up the shattered vase in the hallway. By chance, he dropped his
gaze to a small black book resting at the foot of the Greek statue. It looked
oddly familiar.
"Wordsworth,"
he said, picking up the book and opening to the first page. To the woman
closest to my heart. He cringed.
The
written words had come back to haunt him like a ghost from the past. So the
little spitfire had kept the book he had slipped to her in Hyde Park the last afternoon
they had been together. Did she still love him? No, impossible. What the devil
was he thinking? Their love had been but a fleeting emotion of youth.
Slapping
the book closed, he strode into the library and slammed the door. Whether she
carried the book in her heart or in her hands, it mattered not. He had no right
to her now. No right at all.
Hours
later Jared raised his cool gaze over a cup of tea and greeted his aunt as she
joined him for an impromptu nuncheon, a spread consisting of hot croissants,
rolls, ham, cheese, grapes, and biscuits. Breakfast had been missed by all for
one reason or another, and Agatha had asked Cook to set a small meal for her
and her nephew. It seemed Jane and Lady Emily were preoccupied with an
invitation at the local vicarage.
Jared
thought the trip to the village an innocent excursion, but in the event the
legitimate outing turned into something havey-cavey, he secretly conveyed to
James, one of Agatha's new footmen and Jared's former aide, that should any
eager gentlemen present themselves to the ladies for want of closer
acquaintance, James was to hasten the ladies back to Hemmingly as soon as
possible.
Using
James as an extra pair of eyes had made guarding Lady Emily much easier, Jared
decided. He put down the tea and gave the newspaper he was reading a determined
snap. Much easier indeed.
"It
appears Lady Emily is quite good friends with Jane," he said, making small
talk.
Agatha
leaned her plump body forward, setting her trusty parasol, a handy weapon she
carried everywhere, beside her chair, and deliberately folded her chubby hands
onto the lap of her green morning gown.
Jared's
brain instantly registered the militant expression. Two salt-and-pepper brows
arched above steel gray. Blast. He was going to have another setting down by
his aunt. These little talks were becoming most intolerable.
"If
you would have deemed to come home for a while instead of spending your time in
India, you would have known that Lady Emily has been a frequent guest here the
past three years."
Jared
swallowed his ham. "I had obligations to my wife and my country, madam. I
was a major, if you do remember, and was stationed in India."
One
plump hand flitted in the air. "Major, Smajor. Do not deem to tell me that
you could not have visited the last few years. But nevermind about an old aunt
like me, it is Jane that I am concerned about. She has missed you
terribly." Agatha's accusing glare reached out to him like a noose chafing
about his neck. "Or did you forget that you happen to be the girl's
guardian?"
Jared
had never forgotten that indeed he was Jane's guardian. Harry Greenwell, the
girl's father and Jared's cousin, had died in the war. The man's death had been
followed immediately by his wife's suspicious drowning in the Thames. Jane was
a sweet girl having lived with Agatha for the past five years, and he never
doubted that his ward would not be in the very best of hands.
"I
daresay, Jared, that I simply cannot fathom your reasoning forbidding me to
meet your wife." Agatha gathered a croissant off the platter in front of
her and lapped on some butter. "Surely you could have brought Felicia to
Town before you made your hasty departure. At least have introduced her to
me."
Were
those tears in his aunt's eyes?
Jared
hastily shook some salt on his eggs. The devil! His stay at Hemmingly was bound
to drive him mad, but he refused to divulge his past about Felicia or Emily.
The late duke's vehement rejection of Jared's suit to marry his daughter was
not a fact for discussion. However, there was no denying the fact that when he
set his eyes on Emily this morning, the painful memories of the duke's revenge
surfaced as if it were yesterday.
It had
been almost three years ago at Lady Rosalind's ball when Jared had been sent a
letter telling him to meet Emily beyond the French doors, down the garden
trail, at the birdbath near the rosebushes. However, it was not Emily he
encountered, but a swooning Felicia Fairlow, ill from too many glasses of
champagne given to her by her scheming, indebted father, whom Jared later
realized had been paid a good sum by the duke for his role in his daughter's
downfall.
Moving
quickly, Jared caught the tiny lady in his arms. It was only seconds later when
Felicia's father, along with the Duke of Elbourne, came upon Jared holding the
limp female across his lap. With the duke as witness to the scandalous scene,
Felicia's father demanded satisfaction. Deciding his honor was at stake and
Felicia's as well, Jared found himself coerced into a marriage he never wanted.
"Felicia
barely made the trip to India," he said calmly, avoiding his aunt's
comment about meeting Felicia when he had first married. He set his fork down,
watching his aunt's eyes narrow. "She was a delicate creature. I assure
you another trip back home would have killed her." The words were out of
his mouth before he thought twice. He had never admitted Felicia's frail health
to anyone, not even Roderick.
Jared
and his new wife had settled in India, where he had purchased a commission. He
had hastened away to another part of the world, away from Emily, away from
scandal, away from his foolish dreams.
A year
after leaving England, Felicia had died of typhus three weeks after giving
birth to their daughter, Gabrielle, now a two-year-old whom Agatha knew nothing
about.
Immediately
after his wife's death, Jared began to work for Wellington as a special agent
to the War Department, working in both England and France, leaving his daughter
to be raised by friends in India until he returned. Though he had sold out
months ago, some of his work with the Foreign Office in Whitehall was still
ongoing.
"Well,
goodness. I had no idea," Agatha went on. "Forgive me, my boy. I had
no wish to pry into your life. But one does wonder when one's favorite nephew
does not even deem to post a single letter." The accusation hung in the
air like fireworks at Vauxhall.
Jared
pursed his lips at his aunt's attempt of diplomacy. He loved Agatha, but for
Felicia's sake, no one but a small contingency of people had known that his
marriage had been a forced union. Any communications he sent were either
letters posted to Lady Emily at Elbourne Hall, all of them never received, or
letters of business through his solicitor in London, hence his way of informing
Agatha and Jane of his nuptials and consequent departure to India.
If he
had made any contact with his aunt concerning his forced marriage, he knew
without a doubt, the older lady would have crossed the ocean to ease his
burden, not to mention along with sweet Jane, who would never have left Agatha
to make the journey alone.
At
first, Jared had been too distraught to write Agatha, and after the birth of
Gabrielle, he had been too protective. Agatha and Jane had no need to know
about his covert actions in the war after his wife had died, and his enemy had
no need to know the soft spots in his armor either.
Of
course, with Napoleon finally at St. Helena, Jared had decided his covert
missions must eventually come to an end. His decision seemed to coincide with
his brother's demise, a fact that had shattered Jared’s happiness like a French
cannon ball to his heart. Jared had loved Edmond and regretted having to return
to England to carry on the earldom his brother had lost.
Jared
had learned one too many times that love must be kept at a distance or avoided
altogether. Hearing his aunt clear her throat, he looked up. What in the world
had she been chattering about now?
"You
have not upset Lady Emily, have you?"
Jared's
fork halted halfway to his mouth. Had Agatha knowledge about his past with Lady
Emily and the old duke's wretched scheme? "Upset her? What do you take me
for?"
Agatha's
burning gaze drilled into him as if she were Wellington himself.
He
clenched his jaw. "What?"
Agatha
picked up her trusty parasol and thumped it twice on the rug. "You are
concealing something from me. Your eyes have fallen halfway open like a cat that
ate his favorite mouse. For your information, when Emily departed for the
vicarage, her face was as pale as Lord Beelhaven's ghost."
"Dash
it all, Agatha. Lord Beelhaven has no ghost. And I have done nothing to upset
the lady." Liar. "However, if I had done such a thing, I would not be
the one to confess it to you."
"Oh
ho, there is a ghost. I have seen it." His aunt tore off a piece of her
bun and raised her head with a cool glare in his direction. "For depend
upon it, you are an incorrigible liar, Lord Stonebridge." She skewered his
title with a heavy dose of sarcasm that hit its mark quite accurately.
"Incorrigible
now, is it? Last time I was here I was lovable."
"Hmmmph.
Lovable liar. What's the difference? And pray, remember the last time you were
here was three years ago, after which you bought into the army and sailed off
to India with your new wife." She paused, looking at him suspiciously.
"And now you have no one."
No one
but his little girl whom he would see soon. Yet because of his direct involvement
in stealing missives from Napoleon himself, Jared had no wish to involve his
daughter in any type of confrontation with one of Boney's loyalists, namely
Monsieur Devereaux, who vowed revenge and could still be alive, though most
thought the contrary.
As to
Agatha and Jane, Jared knew the chances of revenge against them were slim. Yet
as a precaution, he had installed more secret aides from Whitehall to act as
servants at Hemmingly to watch the ladies as well.
All this
extra security seemed to amuse the duke, since Roderick was one of the persons
who knew of Jared's covert actions. In fact, the duke, himself, had been
involved in similar activities. Roderick assured Jared that the French agent,
Monsieur Devereaux, was dead. Roderick proclaimed he had shot the man while
rescuing Jared from prison.
No
matter, Jared thought. He knew he was being obsessive about the situation, but
he still needed to make certain of the man's death and consequently awaited a
confirming letter from Whitehall.
Avoiding
his aunt's penetrating gaze, Jared turned his head and whistled for Nigel. The
dog immediately pounced from behind the curtains, coming to sit at his feet. He
gave the dog some scraps from the table and glanced across the silver teapot
resting on the table in front of his aunt. Heaven save him from interfering females.
Agatha's determined gray eyes were fixed on his face as if he were a prize to
be raffled.