Barbara Metzger (6 page)

What could Leigh say to this fine old gentleman in his library, surrounded by precious volumes and works of art when he, Claibourne, was stealing the most cherished treasure of all? The man was far from well, obviously, his blue-veined hands trembling. Was Trevaine’s anguish to be laid in Claibourne’s dish too? He had so little to offer in trade….

“My lord, I swear to you on my mother’s grave that I’ll make Jacelyn a good husband, and have as much care for her happiness as you do. You have my word and my hand on it, if you’ll accept.”

Trevaine did, and shook the younger man’s hand with a measure of relief. “I’ll not force her, you know,” he cautioned the earl, lest Claibourne think the deed was done. “If she won’t have it, we’ll weather through, no matter what the tabbies say. Some new scandal will come along to set their tongues wagging.”

“Aye, sir, but your daughter’s just as apt to cause that one, too, from all I hear.”

They smiled in shared understanding, removing the last tension from the room.

“I wonder what they’ll find to natter on about when Jacelyn’s in London?” Trevaine mused, only to be caught up by the earl’s laugh.

“Do you think they won’t find her name in the newspapers’ gossip columns? Your daughter, sir, will likely set London on its ear. Rake Claibourne’s betrothed?” At Trevaine’s look of consternation, he held up his hands. “No need to worry, my lord, I’ll keep her safe from overstepping the line, but I’ll not bridle her,” he said, finishing with a doubt-tinged “if any man could.”

It was Trevaine’s turn to be amused. “Not any easy task you’ve set yourself, my boy, but you’ll do, you’ll do. Tell me,” he asked in a more thoughtful tone of voice, “do you think my girl is pretty?”

Claibourne considered for a moment, straightening the cuff of his shirtsleeve. “Pretty? No, I wouldn’t call Miss Trevaine that. I’ve only seen her in boys’ clothes, recall, with her hair undone, nothing anyone could label pretty. Yet there was a glow about her, a vibrant, entrancing appeal. A man would never grow tired of watching her face change with her thoughts. No, I think she’ll be beautiful in time.”

“Good,” Trevaine said, rising slowly from his chair. “You’ve still got your wits about you. Hang on to them, lad. I’ll be sending Jacelyn in to you.”

After Trevaine left, the earl wiped his forehead. Gads, he’d rather face Boney’s whole army than another such interview—and the battle hadn’t even begun!

*

“I shan’t marry you, my lord, and that’s the end of it. All this fuss over one silly little kiss.” When he cleared his throat she paused in her angry pacing, but he seemed merely to be examining his gold signet ring. Jacelyn had the grace to blush. “Well, one kiss, at any rate. It’s not as though we were caught out at some inn, having an assignation or something. I see no reason why I should have to wed anybody.”

“Will you stop moving about, sweetheart, you’re looking like a disgruntled chicken.”

“I look like a
what
?” This was too much! To be likened to some idiotic poultry after a harrowing morning watching her father grow paler and weaker. Even Mrs. Phipps, the housekeeper, had added her tuppence, practically scalping Miss Trevaine under the excuse of putting miss’s hair up, as befitted a young lady “who wouldn’t want to embarrass her poor, sweet mother’s memory.” The look on Mrs. Phipps’s face added the unnecessary “more than you already have.”

Jacelyn even had to change out of her plain round gown and into a sprigged muslin, “like a young lady receiving a gentleman caller,” according to Mrs. Phipps. To Jacelyn it was more like dressing the sacrificial lamb! The whole thing was beyond reason, and she wasn’t having any of it, nor any of his fine lordship, leaning so nonchalantly against the edge of her father’s desk, looking superbly elegant and supremely relaxed for a condemned man.

“You should be gratified then, my lord, that this…this chicken refuses to marry you.”

“More like a hornet now, poppet, but that’s irrelevant,” he told her, delighting in the sparks in her eyes, “for I haven’t asked you to marry me.”

Jacelyn’s hand flew to her mouth. What a fool she must look now! “But Papa said, and Squire said, and—”

“Squire says a great deal too much and your father has rightfully left it to us to work out.” He held up his hand. “No, that does not mean you can forget all about last night’s ah, events, and go onto your next hey-go-mad scheme. I do have some honour, you know. I don’t go around strewing the countryside with soiled doves.” Her innocent confusion made him amend that: “I don’t ruin a young lady’s reputation and then leave her to face the censure of her friends and neighbours. So what I
am
proposing is that you come to London with me and my great-aunt, if I can arrange it. You’ll like her, I know. Very much of the
Ancien Regime
, but a complete hand for all that, if you don’t let her intimidate you. You cannot stay in my bachelor’s quarters, of course, but your father spoke of an aunt of yours…?”

“Papa knows Aunt Amabel won’t have me.”

“He thought he could bring her ’round if she only had to give you house-room and an occasional introduction, if my great-aunt and I could act as chaperone and escort. Think of all the wonderful times we could have, just for a few months. You’d be home before Christmas. The theaters and bookstores, the parties and balls, all the sights and all the shops.
Belle-tante
’s been longing to visit her old friends in London, fellow emigrés, you know, so she’ll be thrilled to look after you. And it would get you away from Treverly, which might be uncomfortable right now, and out of Squire’s sight, before he throttles you.”

Jacelyn had to laugh at that, before reminding the earl that Lady Ponsonby and Priscilla would be in London, and Lady Ponsonby and Aunt Amabel were bosom bows. “If I am ruined here in Cambridgeshire, where everyone knows I’m always in some scrape or other, it will be a hundred times worse in London, where no one knows me. I won’t be invited anywhere, and poor Aunt Amabel will have to go to Bath again.”

Claibourne smiled at the girl’s candour, and at all the shifting thoughts he could read on her so expressive face. You’d make a terrible cardplayer, Miss Trevaine, he thought. Right now he was pleased to see disappointment mixed with the restored good humour. “That’s the other half of my proposal,” he told her. “I’m suggesting we put it about that we have an understanding, a prebetrothal agreement, if you will. That way we can travel together, and no one can comment that I am too much in your company. Most important, your good name will be preserved.”

Jacelyn shook her head. “I don’t understand, Lord Claibourne. Squire said I was compromised and had to marry. How can a mere ‘understanding’ uncompromise me?”

“Ah, that’s the glory of idle gossip. As I see it, the reason for protecting a maiden’s name so well is that no man wants a wife who will, ah, kiss other men. And the wives don’t want a woman in their midst who might kiss their husbands. So they have decided that a girl who kisses two men is no better than she should be and not acceptable. But if she kisses one man and appears to be close to marrying him, then that is love, and safe.”

“What a bag of moonshine, my lord.”

“Leigh.”

“Leigh?”

“Or Claibourne, or Merrill, if you’d rather. Anything but Arthur. Then I can call you…Jacelyn?”

“Or Jacey. Anything but chicken!”

And they both laughed, the earl feeling they’d gotten over the heaviest ground, Jacelyn in delight that she seemed to have made a friend of this paragon.

“But, my lo—Leigh, if it is just a private, unannounced engagement, who is to know? I mean, how will that stop all the rumours?”

“Oh, I might drop a hint or two to Lady Ponsonby,
entre nous
of course. That should take care of Cambridgeshire, London, and all of the counties in between, if not the Outer Hebrides.”

Jacelyn’s dimples appeared. “What happens then? We can’t just keep on having an understanding, can we?”

“Not forever, no. But we can say it’s for your first Little Season. That way if young Lochinvar rides up and sweeps you off your feet, I can bow out gracefully, a wounded but wiser man. If there is no one you’d rather have who will put up with you, brat, and you still don’t want me, well then, I’ll parade a few opera dancers in front of your aunt’s house, so you can throw me over because of my rakehell ways. No one will blame you, I’m sure.”

“And if… if…” she began shyly.

“If we should decide we’d suit after we get to know each other better? Then I will get down on one knee and ask if you would do me the great honour, and you, you minx, will reply that the honour and pleasure are all yours.”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied with a chuckle.

“Unless, of course, you’ve reconsidered and wish to marry me now,” he teased. “Then if we didn’t suit, I could always find a war somewhere.”

“That is not funny, Leigh.” Nor was the idea of marrying a man—albeit he was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a husband—who offered simply to save her reputation.

He touched her suddenly serious mouth with one finger. “No, sweetheart, it isn’t funny. Besides, it would just give the scandal brewers more broth if we married now, as if we were rushing to consecrate the union before the confinement. So shall we agree on our ‘gentlemen’s agreement’?”

Jacelyn knew she’d gone too far this time, abducting a gentleman, and she knew how upset her father was. She also knew how her heart yearned for her to say yes, because her body knew he would kiss her, to seal the bargain. How she wished to be held in his arms again! For once, however, possibly because her last calamity was so recent, Miss Trevaine was determined to think before she acted. Her father would be pleased to see her reputation intact, and Squire of course would be delighted to see her gone, even if just for the fall hunt season. And there was an undeniable, unnameable something within her that was dancing right now, at the thought of even those few months with this man. But what about Leigh?

If he didn’t see to her name, his own reputation would be tarnished, yet from what Squire’d told her father, a rake did not worry overmuch about honour or what others thought. So why should this hero, this Nonesuch, wish to be saddled with a ragmannered brat like herself? Self-confidence? Jacelyn didn’t even have enough self-awareness to think for a moment that his lordship could find her attractive. So, “Why, my lord? Why would you do all this for me?” she asked.

Now it was Leigh’s turn for self-doubts. Would she believe him that it was because he found her adorable? That it was the only way he could think of not to frighten her or put her back up like an angry kitten’s? Would she laugh if he proposed love-in-a-cottage to her, all he had to offer? He picked one of Baron’s grey hairs from his jacket’s sleeve, not looking at her face, at the hurt he might see there. “There is the money, you know,” he drawled.

“Oh, that’s all right, then.” Jacelyn was surprisingly content. This made sense, and satisfied her own sense of honour. After all, the whole escapade was entirely her fault—except for the kiss she tried not to remember—so why should the earl have to suffer? It was only fair he gain something in exchange for his freedom. Besides, the story Bottwick had told of Leigh’s struggles to bring his estates back from ruin had touched her with the same instinct that made her heart go out to motherless kittens. If her dowry could ease his way, it should be his, unless…

“Leigh, you didn’t kiss me to ensure I’d be compromised, did you?”

He raised one thick golden eyebrow. “Do you mean did I know Squire and his house party were coming, or do you mean did I know you were wealthy? The former was obvious, I suppose, that sooner or later someone would come after you. As for the latter, an easy deduction. Any fool could recognise you for an heiress by your elegant dress, your fine manners, the table you set. On the other hand, perhaps I just kiss every pretty girl who holds me at pistol-point. You’ll never know.” He raised one of her hands to his mouth and gently kissed the palm. “Poppet, you’ll just have to trust me. You’ll hear many stories about me—some of them will be true—but I swear I won’t do anything to shame you, or cause you upset. Do you believe that?” At her nod he softly kissed each finger before saying, “Good, because if this doesn’t look like a love match, we’ll never pull it off. Settled, then?” he asked, ready to pull her into his arms for the kiss he’d been long awaiting and felt he richly deserved for not simply throwing the chit over his shoulder and riding off to Gretna Green with her.

Jacelyn still had some reservations, despite the tingle in the hand he was nuzzling. She withdrew it and stood looking down, fiddling with the folds of her dress. “My lord,” she said awkwardly, “I need a…a promise from you.”

Claibourne groaned inwardly. Here it comes, he thought. She’ll ask me to swear off ladybirds. He’d do it, of course, but it would be a dashed short engagement, no matter what he’d said before. “Anything, my love.”

“Please, Leigh, swear you won’t ever go hunting with Squire Bottwick? I couldn’t bear him thinking he won, after all.”

Claibourne laughed out loud and agreed, “But only if you promise to have a care for your reputation in return, if not for my sake, then at least for my poor aunt’s, and your unborn children.”

“My children?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t want all those freckle-faced darlings to come crying home because Priscilla Ponsonby wouldn’t let them play with her brats, would you?”

How wonderful a kiss felt, when you were already smiling!

*

Lord Trevaine invited Leigh to stay for dinner, but the earl refused, citing all he had to accomplish in the fortnight he’d be gone. He mentioned seeing Lady Parkhurst and fetching his great-aunt; he didn’t mention trying to regain his sanity. He wished to be on the road to London well before dark, if Trevaine’s letter to his sister was ready, since he was sure that Lady Ponsonby would not approve of travel on the morrow, a Sunday.

“And I am sure the good Lord sleeps better at night, knowing Clothilda Ponsonby is doing His work,” Lord Trevaine added. “Godspeed, son.”

Jacelyn only whispered: “’Ware of highwaymen.”