A Woman Scorned (34 page)

“The guilt?” Cole lifted his gaze to meet Donaldson’s.

“Aye, for having married off his daughter to Lord Mercer. No one knew better what sort of man the marquis was than did Kildermore.” Donaldson gave a bitter grin. “Birds of a feather, they were.”

Reluctantly, Cole drew the watch from his waistcoat and stared at it. It would soon be time for dinner. “Look, Donaldson,” he said abruptly, “it grows late. I daresay we’d best return. Might we continue this discussion later tonight?”

The street was almost empty when they stepped out of the Drum and Feather. Cole paused for a moment on the footpath to look down the lane into Carnaby Market. In the fading light, the cobblestones glistened with rain, as the last of the day’s heat rose up from the street, bringing with it the odor of damp horse manure and old soot. Grateful to have at least escaped the smoke and noise of the public house, he walked quietly beside Donaldson as they set off toward Mayfair.

Donaldson’s stride was long and straight, and Cole wondered yet again if the man was as drunk as he wanted Cole to believe. He had carefully led Cole to reveal more than he had meant to say. Admittedly, Cole’s relationship to James gave Jonet’s staff cause to be suspicious. But if it had been the butler’s way of measuring Cole’s character, Cole was certain he had passed.

 10 

Lady Mercer seizes Command

L
ate that evening, Jonet sat alone in the book-room, staring through the thick glass as rain descended over Mayfair yet again. The normally comforting smells of beeswax, old books, and well-burnished leather went all but unnoticed. Tonight, there was no fire, and none should have been necessary. She should not have been cold. But she was. The insidious damp felt pervasive, as if it had crept into her soul. With quick, jerking motions, Jonet dragged her damask shawl tighter, then drifted toward the window.

Behind, in a distant corner, a mahogany longcase clock dolefully tocked off the minutes, each slower than the one before. As the clock struck half past the hour, a watchman appeared in the street below, his call lost in the clatter of a passing carriage and four. In the aftermath, an oppressive silence fell over the house like a heavy blanket. Jonet dropped her forehead to the cool glass.
Oh
,
God
!

She was lonely. The knowledge fisted hard in her stomach like a driving blow.

“
But why now?
” she whispered into the heavy darkness. Why now—after all the years of being alone and empty—why had it begun to torment her almost past bearing? Tonight was a dark sheet of emptiness, like the rain which slicked the cobbles and ran down the windowpanes, sliding silently into another empty tomorrow. There was no one—nothing save her own black thoughts—left to bear her company tonight. Now the emptiness, like the fear that so often haunted her, was a tangible thing.

Jonet had sent David away immediately after dinner, and the children had been long since tucked into their beds. She wanted
Cole
. She had
willed
him to come to her. But he had not. He was avoiding her. And now she was left to acknowledge the almost girlish naïvetée that had brought her to this empty room alone. She had hoped to meet him here.

Jonet had often seen Cole linger in the book-room at odd hours of the day, his head bent to some thick, musty tome, his long, elegant fingers splayed carelessly at his temple, and his gold wire spectacles slipping, unnoticed, down his nose. She could almost see his quick hand sliding the quill across the page, then darting toward the inkhorn and back again. As with all his motions, his reading and writing were possessed of a smooth, economic grace which never seemed hurried; merely certain and solid. And so, after dinner she had made her not-so-subtle excuses to David and she had come here to wait, hoping against hope that Cole might seek her out—or at least stumble upon her unawares. She would take what she could get, it seemed.

All through dinner she had watched him, yet he had guardedly avoided her eyes. No doubt there was something in his gold-brown gaze he did not wish her to see. With every unspoken word, every subtle gesture, it had felt as if Cole was emotionally distancing himself from her tonight. And as she had stared at him across a chasm of white linen and glittering crystal, Jonet had been left to wonder if it had anything to do with the woman who had called for him earlier this afternoon.

That classic face and shock of red-gold hair were indelibly imprinted on her mind. The lady’s air of youthful innocence had utterly disarmed Jonet. Indeed, in her confusion, she hardly remembered Ellen explaining who the woman was. Exactly what had Ellen said? And what had she called her?
Louisa . . . Lauderwood
. Yes, that was it. And undoubtedly, Cole had found it no great sacrifice to spend the afternoon reading to her and her father. She had seemed just the sort of woman who would appeal to him—in something more than just the baser physical sense.

Jealousy, an emotion Jonet had virtually no experience with, had begun to claw at her gut as soon as the woman had swept past Ellen and out the door to her waiting carriage. Jonet had wanted to confide in her elder cousin, to cry on her shoulder as she used to do as a girl, but she had been too ashamed to let even Ellen see her humiliation. And in that moment, she had found herself blindly and bitterly
hating
the lovely Miss Lauderwood.

For pity’s sake, when had she become so acrimonious? With such a childish attitude, it was no wonder she had found tonight’s dinner interminable. Not even Ellen’s cheerfully sustained efforts at conversation could have concealed the fact that Cole and David had been looking daggers at one another again. Jonet had no idea what they could possibly find to quarrel over. David was a little arrogant, yes, but it was a part of his attraction. And as for Cole, his normally steady disposition seemed a degree less so today. No doubt she had driven him to exasperation with her behavior last night. Perhaps he had even been repulsed by her.

No!
Damn it, that was
not
it. Heat suffused Jonet’s face and throat, and spread lower still. She knew that Cole had found her more than attractive. The evidence—the heat of his stare, the desperation in his touch, and yes, the urgent quickening of his body—had been all too apparent. And if he had desired her once, albeit briefly, could he not be made to do so again?

At breakfast this morning, she had been convinced that he would never be so persuaded, and she had been willing to accept that, and settle for something less. Now, all Jonet’s noble thoughts of compromise—of grasping Cole’s tentative gestures toward friendship instead of tempting him to something more passionate—had all but vanished in the aftermath of Miss Lauderwood’s visit. Dear heaven! She could not bear the thought of another woman having him.

Jonet lifted her head from the glass. It had been so long since she had thought about anything other than her children’s welfare that she found it hard to believe lust could have seized her with such a stranglehold. But it had, and most inopportunely, too, for she’d wanted Cole Amherst the first day she’d seen him. Raw, unslaked desire had knifed through her shield of fear and rage, and nothing had been the same since. Perhaps she ought to seduce the man and get him out of her system? Could it be just that simple? Could she do it? And more importantly, would
he?

Was it not said that men found her a sorceress? Jonet had never understood it, but enough of them had thrown themselves at her feet to make her realize that she must possess some superficial quality that engendered the inane devotion of men. Indeed, there had been a time not so long ago when it had been wildly fashionable to court her. With a persistence that bordered on the farcical, the bucks and beaus of town had desperately vied for nothing more than a waltz, or the opportunity to see her safely home. Wagers had been lost, swords unsheathed, and ill words spoken amongst men who had accounted themselves friends mere moments earlier. And all the while, Jonet had looked on, confused.

Young, inexperienced, and bored to distraction, she had not done enough to sharply discourage them. Her actions, she now knew, had been born of some foolish hope that her husband would regret his shabby treatment of her; that through the eyes of her many suitors, he would come to see her as someone worthy—and not just of his bed, but of his devotion. Jonet laughed aloud at her own naïveté.

Cole wasn’t fool enough to imagine her a sorceress. And there was no manipulating him, for from the very first, Cole had proven impervious to her greatest weapons. Her initial line of defense—to outsmart him—was hopeless, since the man had a brilliant mind. Flirtation was of no use; his disdain could chill blood. And her attempts at condescension left her feeling shallow and unworthy, as if he had won every encounter by virtue of rising above her mean behavior.

Indeed, it often seemed Cole had a way of picking out her every human shortcoming and gently holding it up for her inspection. One could never persuade such a man to do anything that was against his nature. Nonetheless, he was a
man
—every golden, rock-hard inch of him. Which only begged the question again.
Could she seduce him?
There was only one way to find out.

With one boot propped high on the brass fender, Cole stretched out in his chair and listened to the rain with the satisfaction of an old soldier who is snug and dry, and knows too well the value of being so. Across the narrow surface that served Charles Donaldson as both table and desk, Cole and the butler eyed one another smugly as the second wave of rain began to spill from the downspouts and gush past the foundations of Mercer House.

Belowstairs, the damp could not reach them, for the butler’s abode was strategically placed on a wall which abutted the huge kitchen hearth. Tonight, Cole found it an exceedingly comfortable haven. After suffering through another miserable dinner with Jonet, Ellen, and Delacourt, Cole had accepted with alacrity Donaldson’s invitation to resume their discussion over a “wee dram of whisky.” The wee dram had quickly become the better part of a bottle, and Donaldson’s hospitality showed no sign of abating.

“Will ye have anither, Cap’n?” asked Donaldson, his voice cutting through the haze of Cole’s thoughts. The butler tipped the bottle unsteadily forward. Smoothly, Cole shoved his glass in place just in the nick of time, then raised it high as Donaldson topped his own.

“And to whom shall we drink this time, sir?” Cole asked, cheerfully striking the rim of Donaldson’s glass with his.

“Ah—! I have it!” proclaimed Donaldson. “To the River Zadorra! May it e’er run red with Frenchie blood!”

*     *     *

By midnight, Jonet still had seen nothing of Cole. No light burned beneath his bedchamber door, the schoolroom lay dark and empty, and both boys were still sound asleep in their beds. As so often was the case, Jonet had found herself roaming the empty corridors of Mercer House like a restless spirit. It was the sound of loud, argumentative voices that caught her attention belowstairs. Carefully, Jonet made to her way through the darkened kitchen. The sound, she quickly realized, was coming from Charlie’s sitting room. Just as she made her way past the hearth, her fears were subdued by a burst of loud laughter.

“No, no! I must beg to differ, Donaldson!” she heard Cole loudly assert. “I claim that honor on behalf of the cavalry! Had they not smashed the French rear guard, the battle might have dragged on interminably.”

Relief coursed through Jonet.
War stories
. They were not arguing at all, and it was no longer a secret just where Cole had hidden himself for the evening.

“Aye, weel,” she heard Donaldson growl, “the last thing I remember was taking a Frenchie bayonette in the arse, so I canna argue w’what I didna see, but it was the infantry that carried the day, and no mistake, Cap’n! I wish I hadna missed the sight of those Frogs bolting for Pamplona, tha’ I do!”

Swiftly, before her courage could fail, Jonet knocked loudly on the door of the butler’s pantry. Immediately, a hush fell over the room, much as it did when one caught Stuart and Robert making mischief in the attic. “Come!” Donaldson finally barked.