One Whisper Away (5 page)

“I didn’t wish to discuss this in front of Betsy and Carole.”

“That was made clear enough.”

She visibly squared her shoulders. “What has Cousin James told you?”

“About what?” Quizzically, he regarded his sister.

She swallowed. He saw the convulsive ripple of the muscles in her slim throat. Her voice had an audible tremor. “Are you being deliberately obtuse? Or are you trying to spare my feelings by pretending you don’t know?”

That was a tricky question if he’d ever heard one.

“Lily,” he said, feeling his way through it because if there was one thing he wasn’t talented at, it was reassuring uncertain young women. Well, he could do fairly well with five-year-olds, but this wasn’t the same thing at all. “Perhaps you should just tell me what it is you are afraid James might have revealed.”

“It is mortifying.” She glanced away.

Mortifying. Yes, it was. He saw it in her posture, in the rigidity of her slender body in the blue gown that even he recognized was not in the latest fashion, in the tense set of her features.

For the first time since setting foot on English soil and realizing he was responsible for his siblings, he actually
understood
it.

This trouble does not just belong to her. It also belongs to me
.

His aunt—who had raised him upon the death of his mother—would have called it a “serene sign,” that phrase encompassing all the situations in which a person was guided—gently—in a direction they didn’t wish to go.

Like this one.

“Enlighten me.” He crossed to a small side table, poured another snifter of brandy, and after a moment, took the decanter of sherry and poured his sister a measure of it. At first he thought she would refuse the goblet, but then she accepted it with trembling fingers.

“Thank you.” She didn’t drink but just stared at her glass, her face slightly averted.

“In return tell me why we are here.”

“They don’t need to hear it.”

“I assume you mean Carole and Betsy. . . . Why?”

Lily glanced up, her pallor noticeable. “You must be discreet because I have not been. My scandal was bad enough. They will not fare well in society if our family endures another one. If you haven’t heard of it already, you will. They know some of it, of course, because everyone knows, but I am not sure if they understand how my notoriety will affect them.”

What was so poignant, he discovered, was that she meant it. She was all of two and twenty. Did she not realize that at her age, all matters seemed catastrophic when in truth few were? Life went on. He might only be seven years older, but he’d learned that lesson.

“I am perishing from curiosity to discover,” he said in lazy contemplation, “what a proper English lady like yourself might have done to supposedly humiliate her family.”

There was only a minute’s hesitation. “I spent the night with Viscount Sebring.” Lily glanced up, her blue eyes dark but her gaze direct. Her chin lifted. “He refused to marry me.”

Perhaps the most peculiar part of this conversation was that Jonathan experienced a murderous urge to make this heretofore unknown nobleman—though the man’s nobility was questionable, considering the content of the current conversation—accountable for apparently ruining his sister’s life. It wasn’t pathos on her part either, for he’d been subjected to that before by emotional females and he could tell from the way Lily held herself that his help would not be welcomed. It was more just a curious sense of duty over what he’d previously thought would not engage him.

He was, he found, quite engaged. Involved. The look in her eyes alone would move any person with even a modicum of compassion, and he was her brother.

Good God, he was her
brother
. For his whole life that had been an abstract concept, but at this moment, with her trembling body sitting on the edge of the chair in the room that used to belong to their father, the impact of his position was real. Lily had no one to protect her except him.

“He refused to marry the daughter of an earl? That is hard to believe. Tell me what happened.” Jonathan sat down. His height was imposing and he knew it and he very much wanted his answer.

“It was an accident.” Her voice was low.

“What you mean is he planned it and you accidentally fell into the trap. Go on.”

“You don’t know him.” That brought her head up and her gaze was defiant. “Besides, as I understand it, you might have something in common with him. At least in our case there was no child.”

She still defended this man. That was interesting. Jonathan ignored the jibe about the circumstances of his daughter’s birth. He was aware of the rumor that he had not played the gentleman and had declined to marry Adela’s mother. “He ruined you, and then refused to follow an honorable course. Is there something else I need to know?” His inquiry was polite but to the point. He was surprised to a certain extent that James hadn’t told him, but his potentially lethal reaction might be just exactly why. It
did
anger him. “Introduce us so he and I can discuss this in person.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“It seems to me there is.”

“How do you know it was his fault?”

The question silenced him. She was right; he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t know her well enough to judge.

She went on coolly, “We are not talking about me, but about our sisters’ upcoming season. All I wanted to say was that in light of my indiscretion, I feel it would be best if you didn’t go beyond the pale in any way.”

Considering her obvious dismay over his new role in her life, it certainly must have cost her to put it so plainly. Jonathan regarded her with ironic humor. “In short, I should keep my good intentions to myself and stay clear of champagne-soaked young ladies, is that it?”

She nodded. “People are watching you because you are . . .”

He waited, brows lifted.

“. . . different,” she finished, but had the grace to flush even though she’d managed to stay pale and resolute during her damning confession.

“Ah, yes, Earl Savage.”

The color in her cheeks deepened. “I would never have said that.”

His shrug was genuine. Even in his native country his mixed heritage was not without its drawbacks. Here in England, he was even more of an anomaly—only half the exalted earl and the other half a mix of the hated French and his mother’s tribe. It was no wonder, he thought with philosophical contemplation, that he was viewed with dubious interest. “It doesn’t concern me.”

“But we
should
be concerned for Betsy and Carole.”

He drank some brandy, but his casual pose was a bit deceptive. He wanted to return to America as soon as possible. The only way to do that was to marry his sisters off.

All three of them. As they were pretty and from a prestigious family and had good dowries, it had hardly seemed a difficult task before now, but even though Lily was probably the prettiest of the three, it seemed there was an obstacle he hadn’t foreseen.

Damn Viscount Sebring. Damn one very enchanting duke’s daughter who had gotten him into trouble, and most of all damn the paradigm of the aristocracy that condemned a young woman to social ruin should she find herself compromised in the company of a male—who, since he was held to different standards, could just walk away.

This needed sorting out, and the sooner the better.

Lily’s expression was stiff, but she managed to say evenly, “You have a child of your own. What of her?”

Jonathan inclined his head. “Yes, I have a daughter. She is very excited to meet her aunts.”

“You must want to protect her from all the whispers.”

“I am fairly sure she is young enough that she will not understand, and besides, I think she is going to have to become accustomed to whispers anyway.” A truth that disturbed him, but it was what it was. “The circumstances of her birth aside, she looks very much like me.”

“Yes.” Lily’s spoke slowly. “I suppose she will have much to overcome. Maybe you should have left her in America.”

“That was something I considered but decided against.” He said it coolly, because it was the perfect truth. “I’m her only parent and she needs me.”

Just as I am your guardian and you need me also, whether you like the situation or not
.

“I think,” he said evenly, “you should tell me exactly what happened between you and Lord Sebring.”

Lily stood and set aside her wine with a decisive click on the closest table. “Never,” she said without equivocation.

And she meant it.

Interesting.

“Papa!”

The door opening without ceremony wasn’t that much of a surprise, as since their arrival Adela had been given free rein of the house. His daughter came dashing in, her dark hair in disarray, the ribbon that had neatly tied it back earlier long gone. In his admittedly biased opinion she was a beautiful child, with huge dark eyes and what was at times an almost exhausting vitality.

“You forgot to knock, Addie,” he said mildly.

She stopped, momentarily arrested. “Oh, yes . . . sorry. Truly.”

He smiled. Maybe it was a failing, but he rarely scolded her. He’d never looked upon it as being indulgent as much as that her infractions were usually the product of her ebullient personality and not actual misbehavior. “Before you tell me what is so important that you had to burst through the door, let me introduce you to your aunt Lillian.”

Adela sketched a credible curtsy, her pink lace-trimmed dress showing suspicious smudges that told him she’d been out in the gardens again. “Pleased, ma’am.”

To her credit, Lily, who had not yet done so in his presence, smiled. “I am also pleased to meet you, Adela.”

“Papa calls me Addie.” His daughter then whirled around, the formalities apparently dismissed, and said with all the earnest enthusiasm of a five-year-old, “In the stables there are
puppies
.”

“What a miracle,” he said dryly. “I take it you have already selected one.”

She nodded, her dark eyes pleading. “Please. Oh . . .
please
.”

What was one more complication in his already disordered life? And he’d certainly uprooted her and brought her to this foreign place. Jonathan said, “I have no objection, but it is not going to sleep in your room, so you must ask Cook if it can spend time in her kitchen. If she agrees, I—”

He stopped, for a small whirlwind exited the room at the same speed she’d entered it.

Then a remarkable thing happened. Lillian actually laughed.

“I
t has been brought to my attention that perhaps I owe you an apology for my
outré
behavior.”

Drat. No, double drat.

It was
him
.

Cecily pasted on her most gracious smile and plotted how to escape as soon as possible before turning around. That voice. She’d know it anywhere. The vowels were too rounded, the consonants not hollowed but somehow richer, and she caught a whiff of his cologne, which was also unfamiliar but intriguingly masculine.

Earl Savage.

She turned, looked up into velvet dark eyes, conscious of the crowded salon, the musicians on the dais tuning their instruments. The room was large, but it suddenly seemed very small, as if he was much, much too close, when in truth he was an appropriate distance away, standing by the chair next to hers.

Dissembling about the current furor wasn’t a viable option. She wasn’t very good at it anyway, and for moral reasons was opposed to lying, but she also found that even if you were able to convincingly submit a falsehood and have it accepted, more than half the time you were tripped up later, so what the point of it?

She opted for saying coolly, “There’s no need for an apology, my lord.”

“I’m told there is.” He didn’t precisely grin, but his mouth twitched suspiciously and he definitely did not look repentant as, to her chagrin, he chose the vacant seat next to her and sank into it in a graceful athletic movement, stretching out his long legs.

To her right, Eleanor gave what could only be interpreted as a gasp of dismay. Joining them without an invitation was hardly what a polite gentleman would do, but it appeared that didn’t concern him.

Instead of apologetic, he looked quite . . . deliciously male. His dark coat was perfectly cut, and the contrast of his snowy cravat with his bronze skin dramatic. He would no doubt be that color all over, Cecily imagined involuntarily. Every inch of him, and . . .

That supremely unladylike thought came from nowhere. Never had she imagined any of the gentlemen of her acquaintance without their clothing. That she’d done so now was mortifying.

His regard was almost unsettlingly direct. “You haven’t repeated what I said to you, which I suppose is just as well, but it has caused a great deal of speculation. I’ve heard there is actual wagering over what it might have been. Are all you aristocrats that bored and shallow?”

The insult stung, especially since he’d caused the problem in the first place. Though, if she admitted it, she secretly agreed with him. People were starving in the streets and wealthy young men were tossing money away on a single whispered sentence in a society ballroom. The frivolous waste bothered her more than the gossip.

“Lord Augustine, I hate to state the obvious, but
you
are a member of the class you just disparaged.”

His teeth flashed dazzling white in a swift smile. “Am I? Oddly enough, I don’t seem to quite fit in. At best I only half belong and I am perceptive enough to realize that the difference between myself and the lofty
ton
is not based on the color of my skin alone.”

Since she had just been thinking the same thing—but with a different slant—to her chagrin, she blushed. She could feel the warm blood rise through her neck and heat her cheeks. She was rarely at a loss for words, but his bluntness robbed her of the ability to fling back a swift retort.