My Enchanting Hoyden (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel, #3) (25 page)

She cocked her head. “What do you mean you’re a rake in training?”

“Never mind.” He sighed.

She shook her head. “I see I’m going to get nothing personal out of you.”

He reached out and tweaked her nose as he used to do when they were children. “Then you see perfectly, oh sister dear.”

She huffed. “Very well. Keep the secrets of your heart to yourself. I do hope they don’t make the thing stop beating.”

“Beat on, oh dreary heart.” Thoughts of Jemma certainly did make the poetry come in astoundingly prolific, depressing measures.

Amelia’s eyebrows knitted together. “I would almost think by your moodiness that a woman is troubling you.”

“Yes, two,” he responded. “Mother and Eustice. Actually, three, if I count
you
at this moment.”

“Very well, you fiend. As I was saying, Mother is leaving for Bath tomorrow to take the restorative waters, and Eustice is coming to stay with Colin and me so I can take Mother’s place in watching over her for the Season. Is this acceptable to you?”

Was that
acceptable
to him? It was as if an enormous weight was being lifted from his shoulders for now. One fewer mouth to feed for the Season would help him come up with the money to pay for his mother’s stay at Bath, clothe Eustice for the Season, and start to pull together a dowry. Hopefully, he would be married by next Season, so clothing Eustice and feeding everyone would no longer be a problem.

“That will be acceptable,” he managed to say without showing the relief he felt.

Amelia nodded. “Oh, I almost forgot...”

He should have known it was too good to be true. “Yes?” he asked as the carriage rumbled to a stop in front of his sister’s home.

She turned to him as his driver opened the carriage door to help her out. “Colin insists that we pay the bill at the dress shop for Eustice’s gowns since she’s under our care now. He says to tell you it’s a matter of pride. You know Colin and his pride.”

Philip nodded. He wanted to damn the man and saint him all at once. Aversley had effectively found a way to give Philip money that he could not refuse without raising Amelia’s suspicions.

“Oh, by the by,” Amelia said, “I’m having another dinner tomorrow night, and I’d like you to come in support of Eustice.”

A sure sign Amelia was lying was the fact that she refused to look at him.

“Who is going to be there?” he asked, positive she would say Jemma.

Amelia rattled off a long list of people he knew, then ended with Lady Constance, whom he did not know but who happened to be one of the eligible debutantes on his list. “I wasn’t aware you knew Lady Constance.”

“I don’t,” Amelia replied. “Sophia helped me make the list, and she actually suggested her.”

Philip tensed. Had Sophia told Amelia? He held his breath, waiting for her to say something more. Instead, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you tonight, brother dear.”

She marched away, her green skirts swaying back and forth with the force of her departing steps. He heaved in a breath as he sat there, surrounded by air heavy with an impending rain, with a throbbing head and an aching heart. An image of Jemma danced before his eyes. With a groan, he squeezed his eyes shut. He could not think of her. He wasn’t free of his responsibilities just because the problem of Eustice was temporarily solved. Eustice would undoubtedly not find a husband this Season and Mother still needed his care and protection, and with the debts he already had, he could not offer those things without a wealthy wife.

T
he morning after Amelia and Aversley’s dinner party, Philip arose to an empty house. His mother and Eustice were not at home, for which he was grateful. His list of eligible debutantes was dwindling as fast as the time he had to make a match, leaving him in a sour mood. He dressed, went to his study, took the now-wrinkled piece of foolscap out of his desk drawer, and crossed out Lady Constance’s name. One dinner beside the woman was all he needed to know that they would never suit. She detested children and animals, and he detested
her
. That did not bode well for a happy marriage.

Sophia must’ve agreed as she had leaned close to him during Lady Constance’s painful singing performance last night and whispered,
“Meet me in Hyde Park tomorrow at noon. I’ll be walking with Lady Beatrice and the two of you can meet.”

Lady Beatrice was also on his list. He stared down at the page and tapped his quill against it. He had the urge to rip up the damned list, but he stayed his hands and pushed away from his desk, stood, and went straight to the stables. He took a ride to clear his mind and then retrieved his curricle and headed to Hyde Park at the appointed time.

True to her word, Sophia was there with Lady Beatrice, strolling by the rose bushes in the exact spot she’d said they would be. Philip pulled his conveyance to a stop, secured the horses, and made his way to the ladies at a slow pace.

He studied Lady Beatrice as he walked toward her. She was a classic beauty with her fair hair and flawless skin, but he much preferred fiery redheads with freckles. Jemma had character and imperfections, and that is what made her perfect. Lady Beatrice, from first glance, appeared to be everything a well-brought-up English beauty should be, and that didn’t inspire a single poetic word in his head. Still, he refused to be so judgmental.

Sophia, who kept gazing at him in a strange, intent way, introduced him and Lady Beatrice, and after several moments of inane talk on the obviously hot weather, Sophia claimed a sudden megrim and asked if he would be so kind as to give Lady Beatrice a ride home after a bout around Hyde Park so that Sophia could take her leave. He agreed, naturally, as did Lady Beatrice, and he found himself, seated beside her—rather snugly, too—in his curricle not ten minutes after he met the lady, riding around Hyde Park with all the other people out and about for the day.

For a man whose head was normally swimming with thoughts, he could think of only one thing: he wished it were Jemma beside him. Damn being poor. He forced himself to concentrate on Lady Beatrice. Maybe she liked Wordsworth and Coleridge. It would be a start, anyway.

“Do you like poetry, Lady Beatrice?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry to say I’m far too practical to waste my time reading such nonsense.”

Philip could not have stopped his reaction even if he’d wanted to. He flinched, and Lady Beatrice’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry, Lord Harthorne. Do you like poetry?”

Philip nodded. “I’m afraid to say it’s as much a part of my life as eating.”

She nibbled her lip. “Well, poetry is not the only thing in the world,” she said in a hopeful voice.

He tapped his foot against the floorboard as he maneuvered his curricle around a gold carriage in front of them that was going at a snail’s pace. Poetry was not the only thing in the world, it was true, but it was a very important part of
his
world. Was that too constricting?

He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you tell me what you do like?”

She beamed at him and laid her hand on his arm. He might have listened to her, but in that moment, they passed the golden curricle, and his eyes locked on Jemma, who was driving the thing, seated beside her sister. Jemma’s eyes grew wide, and then she jerked her gaze away from him and looked straight ahead. His heart twisted painfully, and he wanted to release his horses’ reins to grab his chest and hold the blasted thing in.

“Lord Harthorne!” Miss Anne exclaimed. “It’s good to see you,” she said while nudging Jemma in the side.

Philip winced. How had it come to this?

Jemma sluggishly, and rather reluctantly by the mutinous set of her jaw, pulled the reins back to slow the horses even more and turned her head toward Philip and Lady Beatrice. “It’s nice to see you, Lord Harthorne,” Jemma said in a wooden tone.

As he stared at her, words of poetry flooded his mind. Everything around him—the trees, the noise of the horses’ hooves, the turning wheels of the other carriages, the lingering scents of blooming roses in the air, the breeze, the heat of the sun warming his skin—faded, and all that remained was Jemma. He could live a thousand years and never tire of gazing at her, talking with her, laughing with her, simply being with her.

The cruelty of his situation was not a mere cut with a blade; it was a hack that severed his heart in two.

A loud huff came from beside him, and the world came crashing back in, noisy and unwanted. He cleared his throat and inclined his head toward Lady Beatrice. “Lady Beatrice, may I present Miss Adair and her sister Miss Anne.”

The ladies exchanged small talk for a moment, and then Jemma said they had to be departing as they were running late, which was odd since she’d been driving so slowly before. Philip stared after Jemma for as long as he could see the curricle on the path, and he could have sworn her unbound red hair had been blowing out of the side of the conveyance as it rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight.

Lady Beatrice wiggled on the seat beside him. “Where were we?”

“Pardon?” He couldn’t recall a word he’d said to the woman. It wasn’t her fault. She just wasn’t Jemma.

She screwed her mouth up. “In our conversation. You asked me what I was interested in.”

“Ah, yes.” He wanted to care. He needed to care. He simply
did not
care. Damnation. He inhaled a long breath. “I need to take you home.”

“But I don’t have to depart yet,” she protested.

No, but he did. He was losing his mind. All he wanted was to race after Jemma, take her in his arms, and kiss her senseless. It was impossible, yet his veins throbbed to do it. He needed to go home and have a stiff drink. “I’ve business to attend to. I’m sorry.”

“What sort of business?”

The business of forgetting.

“Er, the Duke of Scarsdale wants to show me his new shipping office.” He hadn’t even known he was going to say it until the words came out. Then an idea came to him. What if Scarsdale needed a partner? Albeit one with no money right now. That would be acceptable; ownership was different than mere employment. Philip would work like a dog to learn the business and make enough money to pay off his debts, and—

“I’m surprised you would go to see his
business
office. I know he’s a friend and I adore his wife, but to go down to the
office
?” Lady Beatrice’s voice dripped disapproval and interrupted his mounting excitement. “It’s so
common
what he’s doing owning a business.” She shook her head.

Lady Beatrice was exactly the sort of woman he feared would make his mother’s and Eustice’s lives intolerable if he took employment. Mentally, he scratched Lady Beatrice off his list. Hell, he might as well throw the damned thing away at the rate he was going.

J
emma beat the enormous lump of dough before her and imagined Philip’s face. Baking had not helped her forget him, so she’d decided she could at least take her frustrations out as she worked. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the cook preparing for the midday meal. The woman was giving Jemma strange looks.

Jemma bit her lip. The cook likely wanted her out of the kitchen since she had invaded it for the last several days. She pressed the gooey dough against the wood of the counter, her fingers flexing and kneading. She may not know much, such as how Philip had entered her heart and head without her fully realizing it, but she certainly knew how to bake. Lemon tarts and warm breads were much safer than men. Though, she begrudgingly had to admit they were not near as good company.

She prepared each tart and then set the full baking sheet in the oven. When she turned back around to wipe her hands, her sister strode through the kitchen door, her gait seeming more uneven than usual. She eyed Jemma with a look of pity that made her feel even worse that Anne, whose heart and pride had been crushed, appeared to be worried about
her
.

Anne rolled up the sleeves of her simple pink-and-green day gown as she came to stand in front of Jemma. “You have listened to me wail and carry on nonstop about Ian for almost two whole days. It occurred to me only this morning, when I awoke to find you gone before the sun had even risen, that I’d missed seeing something was troubling you.”