Tempted by a Lady’s Smile (12 page)

Richard stared at her with a triumphant glimmer in eyes so gray they could rival a tempestuous summer storm. “Then please do continue.” What a hopelessly disloyal creature she’d proven—and all because of Richard’s roguish half-grin. And his teasing. And his compliment that surely hadn’t been intended as a compliment.

Think of all the ways in which Richard was
not
perfect. Her eyes snagged upon the front of his jacket. She stared damningly at it. “Well, he assuredly does not carry a flask in his pocket and drink with a staggering frequency.”

He bristled. “I do not drink with a staggering frequency.” Richard followed her stare. “Most gentleman do carry a flask,” he mumbled under his breath.

Warming to all those needed reminders, Gemma went on. “Nor in all the years I’ve known him has he mocked his sister for her romantic tendencies and he certainly believes they exist.”

A muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth. “I believe in love.”

“You?” She rolled her eyes. “A gentleman who’d mock me for my words? Who in our handful of meetings has expressed cynicism for that sentiment? You don’t believe in love, Richard, but it is real. It is…” Gemma trained her gaze on him, her words momentarily fleeing at his nearness. Heat poured from his thickly muscled chest and warmed her more than any summer sun could or ever would.

In a touch as fleeting as a butterfly’s kiss, Richard ran his knuckles over her jaw. “For your opinions on me, Gemma, and your perceived thoughts on how I view love, you would be wrong.”

She bit her lip and his eyes took in that slight movement, and for a heartbeat she thought he’d again kiss her. Thought it. Wanted it. Needed it—Then his words registered.

He spoke with a solemnity, devoid of cynicism that she’d not known of him these past days at the duke’s summer party. “You speak as one who has known those sentiments,” she ventured hesitantly, not knowing why it should matter if Richard Jonas had entrusted his heart to another.

“I have,” he quietly confirmed.

And yet, it did. It mattered a great deal. A quiet silence fell between them with the revelry from the duke’s arranged games forgotten.

“You have,” she repeated blankly. He’d been in love. Or he still was.

Richard shifted his gaze and looked overhead and that slight distancing pulled at her heart. With that move away from her, he’d been drawn back to the lady who’d earned his love. She bit the inside of her lower lip, torn between asking questions that sought answers about who had hurt him and never wanting to know that there had been another…mayhap a woman who’d also known his kiss first. “I was in love.”

Her heart missed a beat.
Was
. Not—am. “Is she the reason you carry that flask?” Hers was a bid to infuse levity back to their easier exchange, bringing them ’round to the safer discussion on those decorous traits one would expect of a gentleman.

He nodded. “I was not always cynical. I was very much in love.”

Very much in love was so greatly different than just “in love”. The regret in his tone spoke of a man who still cared deeply and Gemma ached to take that hurt away. For she knew what it was to care for another and to be very nearly invisible to that person. Abandoning all hint of hesitancy, Gemma flipped onto her side. “Why did you love her?”

He cocked his head.

Making a clearing noise with her throat, Gemma pushed herself up onto her elbow and looked at him. “Well, you see, I loved Lord Westfield because he so gallantly danced with me when no others would.”
Or will.
She opened her mouth to continue but her breath caught as he rolled onto his side.

He brushed his thumb over her lower lip in a fleeting, too quickly ended caress. “Love.”

Her mouth parted under his tender ministrations. “What?”

“Not you ‘loved’ him. Rather, you
love
him.”

She formed a circle with her mouth. “Did I say ‘loved’?” Surely she’d not make such a mistake. Surely, she’d at the very least recall making such a mistake?

His lips twitched. “You did.”

“Humph,” Bristling at his obvious amusement, Gemma frowned. “If I did say that, which—”

“You certainly did.”

“Then, it was said in error,” she spoke over him. “Regardless,” she gave a flounce of her hair, never wishing more for a set of perfectly coiled ringlets than this very instant. “Why are you in love with…” She didn’t want the lady’s name, for it would make her real in ways that Gemma rather preferred her not to be. “Your lady,” she finished. The muscles of her stomach knotted. Why should she care either way who Richard Jonas loved? Why, unless…?

“Why?”

For all the consternation in that one-word utterance, she may as well have asked him to deliver a lecture on the origins of life before the Royal Academy.

She stared expectantly at him.

“There is no one like her.” That gruff reply came almost grudgingly. “She can fish and swim better than most gentlemen I know.”

Again, Richard proved himself a man who desired more, wanted more, than the empty-headed debutantes flitting about London. Unlike the lords who craved a Diamond, he with his words proved himself one capable of appreciating a flawed, cracked, and more than slightly dulled diamond. It was on the tip of her tongue to add that she herself could no doubt best Richard himself in any lap across a lake. Not that she was competing with the nameless young woman he spoke of. She wasn’t. Gemma chewed her lower lip. Well, mayhap a bit in her unspoken thoughts she was.

“Who was she?” The bald question slipped from her lips.

“She…
Eloise
, was a childhood friend.”

Only, one would never be invisible with a childhood friend. Rather, that person he spoke of was a lady who’d know all the secrets he carried, and stories of his family, and all of him, really.

And Gemma really didn’t wish to know anything more than that. For that lifelong connection spoke to more than a fleeting love that had come from a perfectly timed waltz, then quadrille, and pleasant exchanges at
ton
functions. Yet, he spoke in the past tense. “Was a—?”

“Is,” he swiftly amended and hopped to his feet.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Gemma took in his restless movements. He flicked his gaze about the copse, his stare lingering in the direction of the distant amusements being enjoyed, concealed by the thick brush.

A private smile formed on his lips and it was as though he recalled memories only he knew of the lady. Envy snaked through Gemma. “She taught me to bait a fishing pole when I was a squeamish boy.” He chuckled. “And she could curse and spit with an ease that would have impressed a hardened soldier.”

Only one purpose had driven her efforts for this summer party; one man—Lord Westfield. That same gentleman now forgotten, Gemma climbed to her feet.

Tension dripped from Richard’s tautly held frame. The hard glint in Richard’s eyes spoke of a man who didn’t care to discuss those parts of his past.

Selfishly, she wanted to know anyway. “What is she like now?”

He pierced her with his questioning gaze.

Gemma ran her palms down the front of her skirts. “Well, it is just the memories you speak of…” she picked her words cautiously, a near impossible feat given one so wholly inept when it came to Social discourse. “They are memories of your childhood. Who did she become as a woman?”

With a furious restlessness to his movements, Richard moved toward her. “Are you questioning whether or not my love for the lady is real?”

Unease raced along her spine at the volatile anger lighting his eyes. The gentleman was really not much more than a stranger and yet…she forcibly relaxed her shoulders. He’d not hurt her. “I am merely pointing out the memories you’ve shared, your reasons for loving her, they are borne from moments long ago. Who is she as a woman?”

He folded his arms in a defensive manner. “She is loyal, dedicated, devoted to her fam…” His words trailed to an abrupt end and a flush marred his harsh, angular cheeks.

Did he recognize the hypocrisy in spouting nearly the same words Gemma had so recently about Lord Westfield? “Forgive me,” she said quietly. “It was not my reason to question your devotion to the young woman.” She spoke in truth. Rather, her inquiries had been borne on an inherent need to know about what had shaped this man into the person he’d become. By his accounts, a man he’d only recently become. “What happened to her?”

Silence ticked on and she expected he’d not honor her with any additional answers about his past—and his love.

But then…

Richard lifted his shoulders up and down in a casual shrug. “She married another.” A mirthless chuckle rumbled past his lips. “Two different someones, rather.”

Two different…? Gemma creased her brow.

“Eloise left for London when she was eighteen and had her first Season.” He gave his head a slight, sad shake. “I was too much a coward to confess my feelings for her.”

“What happened to her?” she asked, the question tumbling out.

“She married an earl.” A muscle leapt at the corner of his mouth. “A good man who left her a young widow.”

That telltale tic gave her pause. Did Richard judge his own self-worth against those distinguished titles afforded a man for nothing more than his birthright? In truth, Gemma had never given a jot if a man was a duke or a driver; she judged their worth in the quality of their character. “And she remarried again after her husband’s passing?” she put forward based on his earlier statement.

The foolish woman. Whoever she’d chosen could never be more devoted, more capable of melting a woman with his forbidden kiss than—

“My brother, Lucien,” he finished.

She stared unblinking, while the birds chirped cheerfully from the branches overhead. His brother. The woman who won Richard’s heart had wedded his brother. Emotion stuck in her throat. What must it be like to love a person, only to have them wed your sibling? The pain of that loss would be there forever; a reminder you could not escape. Just then, even with the inexplicable niggling of jealousy clawing at her, she was filled with something more—fury for the brother who’d so betrayed Richard. “I am sorry,” she said lamely, shamed by her earlier flippancy. How futile those words must be to someone who’d loved so devotedly, only to be thrown over…for his brother.

Richard returned his gaze to her. A wry half-grin pulled at the right corner of his lips. “It would be easier if I hated them.”

“But you do not,” she said, taking a step closer. Gemma peered at him for a hint of all the emotion he kept beneath the surface of his roguish veneer.

“My brother is a good man,” he said, a faintly defensive quality to his response. “He was forced into a commission by our father and went off to fight Boney’s forces. He left behind a wife expecting their first child and returned only to lose his arm to infection and find his wife and son dead in his absence.” The earlier fury burning through Gemma ebbed, leaving in its stead a wake of sadness for the brother he spoke of; a man who’d lost so very much and for that loss, was surely deserving of happiness.

Yet, that joy had come to him at Richard’s expense.

Crossing over to him, Gemma came to a stop and hovered before him. Then, she quickly collected his hands in hers.

He started and dropped his gaze to their connected fingers. How greatly she’d judged the stranger with a flask in his pocket, hovering on the fringe of the duke’s festivities. She’d looked upon the surface and prejudged him for supposed crimes against propriety and decorum. Humbled and shamed by that truth, Gemma gave his hand a slight squeeze. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. Most other gentlemen would lash out at her, taking her words of the pitying sort.

His piercing, gray-eyed gaze remained locked on their joined hands. With the kisses shared between them, this touch was innocent in ways, and yet there was an intimacy to the connection that terrified. Gemma quickly pulled away.

Richard jammed his hands into his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “I can regret that Eloise never loved me in the way I wished,” he spoke with such a casualness of that lady’s love that an odd wrenching pulled at her. “But I cannot begrudge her and Lucien their deserved happiness.” With that, he proved the strength of his character and the goodness in his heart. When most would rail at the woman who’d chosen another, Richard spoke with a stoic acceptance and sad understanding for her decision. “To some, love finds its way. And to others…” Like him. “Well, the heart cannot help whom it loves,” he said and nudged his chin in her direction. “Then, you know that, don’t you, Gemma?”

Yes, she did. Or for three years, she’d thought she did. Now she no longer knew up from down. Drawn inextricably closer, Gemma drifted over to him so only a hairsbreadth of space separated them. The masculine sandalwood scent that clung to him floated about her senses, intoxicating. She trudged through the potent hold he’d cast over her and forced words out from a thick throat. “Do you believe yourself incapable of loving again?”

He hooded his lashes and brought a hand up to her cheek. His gentle caress set a wild fluttering inside her belly. “I believe love finds its way to those fortunate enough to desire it,” he said gruffly.

Her lashes fluttered and she leaned up on tiptoe, needing to know his kiss again.

He dipped his gaze to her mouth. “Just as you found Westfield.”

Those casual words spoken by Richard shattered her thick haze like a discordant violin in a silent ballroom. He stepped away from her and cast a deliberate look beyond her shoulder. Gemma whipped around.

Her heart started.

“It appears the day’s entertainments are at an end,” Richard murmured.

The afternoon’s archery event now dissolved, Lord Westfield strode purposefully through the grass, to the sanctuary she’d stolen. A sanctuary she’d secured and shattered with one deliberate arrow.

Folding her arms at her waist, Gemma looked about the thick copse. There should be a sense of panic at being discovered with Richard, but there was a rightness, a comfortable ease between her and this man she’d known for but a handful of days. In his presence she felt none of the pressure to be something other than what she was. And there was a beauty to that and a need for the moment to stretch on to forever…