Jonathan and Amy (3 page)

Amy kept her gaze on the child and the spaniel frolicking in the grass outside. Something about Mr. Dolan's brusque use of the word “love” made Amy regard him yet still more highly.

“Not all fathers can say the same. Are you done stalling?”

His lips quirked up in the fleeting, devilish smile Amy enjoyed so much. The only one she liked better was the one he saved for his daughter, which was so full of affection and approval, it took Amy's breath away.

“I do not stall, Miss Ingraham. I consider my options, I develop strategy, I choose my moment.”

“You miss her mother.”

The words slipped out, completely inappropriate to the moment, and to Amy's position in the household. Mr. Dolan's smile became wistful, then sad.

“I miss her terribly. But as much as I miss what I had with her, I miss as well what was taken from us when she died.”

An inappropriately honest reply to a wholly misguided observation, but Amy couldn't leave it alone. “What was taken from you?”

“We were just becoming friends. She was always my ally, even when I thought she was only carping and correcting to keep me in my place. A man overly endowed with pride doesn't always make a good husband when he marries so far above himself.”

He
had
regrets.
That he would carry such sentiments without ever giving a hint of them ought to have occurred to her.

“We all have regrets, Mr. Dolan. One makes choices without being able to guess their consequences, and one can't always choose wisely.”

He turned from the window, his gaze betraying a lurking amusement. “Can't
one
? Are you stalling now, Miss Amy?”

Oh, how she liked the sound of her name in his rumbling baritone. How she liked that he looked at her when he teased her and baited her.

“Mr. Dolan—”

He touched her mouth as she had touched his at the breakfast table, with a single, gentle finger. “A gentleman may address a woman familiar to him as Miss Christian Name in informal circumstances if the lady does not object.”

His recitation of the rule was word-perfect. Amy removed his finger from her lips and set her hand on his muscular shoulder. “The time has come to dance.”

“The time has come to marry.” Nigel Herodotus George Ingraham, ninth Viscount Wooster, infused his tone with as much indifference as he could muster—which was considerable.

“Done all the time.” His friend, Angel Bonham, the Baron Bonham of Hartley, poured them each a bumper of brandy and passed one to his guest. “Heartiest congratulations. When will you tell your cousin of her good fortune?”

“Second cousin, please.” Nigel took a savoring sip of much better libation than he'd been able to stock at Wooster House for some time. “She'll turn twenty-eight on the fifteenth of next month, so my courtship will be precipitous.”

Bonham's blond brows drew down. “Because of your violent passion for her, after what, twelve years of not laying eyes on the girl?”

“Nobody is a girl at twenty-eight, Bonny, particularly not after governessing Mayfair's pampered brats for seven years.”

Bonham's handsome face screwed up with consternation. “You're to marry a governess? Maria will laugh you to scorn, old man, to say nothing of what the fellows at the clubs will think.”

“Maria…” Nigel peered at his drink and pictured his mistress in all her voluptuous Mediterranean beauty. “Maria is a substantial part of the reason this desperate measure must be taken.”

Maria and her appetite for pretty tokens played a role, as did the many, many obligations a man of title and taste must meet if he were to have any consequence among his peers. Then, too, Mama's consequence weighed in the balance and drove Nigel to the otherwise unthinkable step of making Amy Ingraham the next Viscountess Wooster.

Bonham lowered his lanky frame onto a leather ottoman. “The solicitors have given up all hope?”

“They've been nattering at me since she turned twenty-five. They have no objection to keeping wealth in the family, lest their own bottomless pockets go untended, but they're nervous and making noises of the wrong sort.”

Bonham was a pretty man, all blond good looks and hail-fellow-well-met, but he wasn't stupid. “You're a peer. You can't be tossed into the Fleet for bad debts.”

“I can be blackballed from the clubs.”

A silence befell them, one indicative of the unfathomable suffering involved in such a fate.

“Best be about your wooing,” Bonham said, staring at his drink morosely. “But if she's been governessing for seven years, an Irish tinker on a lame donkey would probably look like a knight in shining armor to her.”

“Which does nothing to enhance the lady's charms in my own eyes. A peer of the realm has certain standards.”

Bonham got up to fetch the decanter. “Think of Maria, Wooster, and do what must be done. At least your brother has some sons, so it isn't as if you have to get brats on the gi—on your second cousin.”

“I will take my consolation from that signal fact while you, dear Bonny, see that for the nonce I get roaring, stinking, knee-crawling drunk, if you please.”

Bonham didn't even glance at the clock, which was chiming an obscenely early hour. “What are friends for?”

***

Waltzing was not difficult. Jonathan's late wife had taught him well, and he'd delighted in being her equal in that, at least.

Relearning the waltz with Amy while arousal tried to blossom in Jonathan's breeches was difficult in the extreme. From some fluffy white cloud, Jonathan's late wife was no doubt laughing her pretty, aristocratic arse off.

“I need music,” he muttered. Something to focus on besides the occasional lemony whiff of Amy, the brush of her skirts against his legs, the way she moved his body around, her hands on his torso and shoulder, pushing him this way and that.

“Soon. Do you want your housekeeper to see you step on my feet, sir?”

“I'll not step on your bl—blessed feet, Amy Ingraham.”

“Again.” She got a solid hold of him, and one-two-three'd him down the room and up the other side. He liked the corners the best, when she pulled him in close and then forgot to turn loose of him for a few steps.

But enough was enough.

“My turn to lead, Miss Amy. You're too good at it for a fellow's peace of mind.”

“I am not too good—” She fell silent, the slight, self-mocking smile lurking at her lips. “Oh, very well. You lead, but please don't toss me about like a sack of grain. Take it slowly at first and trust me to follow.”

“Right. You'll follow as long as you're giving all the directions.”

He danced her in a slow triple meter along the same path she'd taken him, but this time was different. She
did
let him lead. She moved with him, not quite in anticipation of his maneuvers, but in complicity with them.

He could feel her humming softly under her breath, feel her lithe body surrender to his guidance. The lesson became torturous when he pulled her close on the first twirling turn and her breasts fleetingly brushed his chest.

She smiled up at him. “There's hope for you, Mr. Dolan.”

Another turn, and he was doomed. “Generous of you to say so, Miss Amy.”

“Try to let the rhythm of the dance keep you relaxed. You're stiffening up on me.”

Mother
of
God.
He dropped his arms and stepped back. “We need music if we're to accomplish my objective.”

Her expression turned mulish. “Do you always accomplish your objectives, Mr. Dolan?”

“No.” He ran a hand through hair made a good deal shorter and peculiarly
fluffy
by her damned little scissors. “No, I do not, though that usually only increases my determination. For example, you would not call me Jonathan, no matter how politely I asked it of you.”

“It would not be proper. You're my—”

He was glad for the tiff, glad for the distraction of it, but when she pinched up her mouth in that pruny, lecturing way, it made him want to kiss her all the more.

“Music, Miss Amy. Now.”

The housekeeper was summoned. She took her place at the piano, back to the room, and launched into a surprisingly competent triple-meter introduction without so much as glancing at the couple for whom she played.

Jonathan bowed, his partner curtsied, and after more than a week of waiting and anticipating, Jonathan had the pleasure of dancing down the room with the woman about whom he dreamed.

He had the odd thought that Amy Ingraham was
real
. Where his hand rested on her back, he felt the slight wrinkle of a chemise and stays beneath the fabric of her dress. When he drew her into his arms, the aroma of lemon verbena mingled with laundry starch and something else—a faint trace of ink, perhaps?—to bring the schoolroom to mind.

And Mother of God, the woman could dance. She'd been keeping her powder dry in the earlier drills, maintaining the fiction that she was a governess even in waltz position. With the music filling the room, she became lissome and buoyant, not a sylph, but a woman with a body a man could worship, given privacy and leave to do so.

So he prolonged the exercise by the few means at his disposal.

“Wrong way, Mr. Dolan.”

“Beg your pardon.”

Then, “You're a trifle ahead of the music, sir.”

“I do apologize.”

Several phrases later: “I think we'd best start from the beginning.”

On the third attempt he grew daring.

“Not so tight on the turns, Mr. Dolan.”

“Your pardon, of course…”

“Not so
many
turns, Mr. Dolan.”

Bless her, she was a very patient woman, and very determined to see her pupil succeed, too.

“I think we'd better start again, Miss Ingraham.”

Perhaps he was tiring her out, because the feel of her shifted, from competent and graceful to yielding and maybe even…submissive. To Jonathan, her following became instinctive.

This had such a salutary effect on his breeding organs that he finished the final tour of the room without a stumble, a wrong turn, or any other diversion to mar his pure enjoyment of the waltz. When the music came to a close, Jonathan realized that he'd just danced himself out of further instruction.

And maybe his teacher realized it too, for she leaned in a little, as if winded.

“I think you've acquired the knack, sir.”

He'd acquired a cockstand, most assuredly, and because a man in desperate straits needed some small token in recompense for his forbearance, he bent down and brushed his lips over her cheek.

She didn't pull immediately away. She sighed, the sound to Jonathan one of long-suffering, redolent of the trials of governessing a grown man on the dance floor.

“You're supposed to kiss the lady's hand, Mr. Dolan, or more precisely, to engage in gestures suggestive of that aim without actually putting your mouth to her person or her glove.”

“My mistake.” Except it wasn't a mistake. Kissing Amy was the best move he'd made all week. He followed up by raising her bare hand in his, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles, and pressing his lips softly to the back of her hand.

At which moment, the piano lid banged shut, and Miss Amy took a decisive step to the rear.

***

“Imagine my frustration when I find the damned woman has hared off to the country.” Nigel stormed into Bonham's study, tossed a bouquet of daisies aside, and helped himself to a glass of whiskey.

Bonham picked up the bunch of abused flowers. “I rather thought governesses were supposed to remain in the vicinity of their charges, not go ruralizing at will.”

“She's in the employ of Dolan, the quarry nabob. He's gone off to Surrey, taking the child with him, ergo, Amy is in Surrey as well.”

“Surrey's right across the river.” Bonham fished a penknife out of the desk drawer and began to trim the flower stems. “The Season's mostly over, and I for one am not enthusiastic about remaining in Town for the balance of the summer.”

Nigel paused in the contemplation of his drink—and his future—to peer at his friend. “What on earth are you doing?”

“The flowers last longer if you trim the ends up a bit. Nerissa was particular about her flowers.”

“You let that woman lead you around by a certain appendage, Bonny.” Nigel made this observation as much in commiseration as judgment, for the fair Nerissa was now enjoying the patronage of some duke. “I bloody hate the bloody countryside. Fresh air makes my nose run.”

“Well, cheer up.” Bonham gathered the flowers and rummaged through the sideboard's cabinets. “I've a little place out in Surrey, probably use it for a dower property for one of my sisters. If you need to track your prospective viscountess down, we can jaunt out there for a few weeks before I take the yacht North for the shooting.”

“Bonny, I should love you even if you didn't have such excellent cellars.”

Bonham stood back and surveyed the flowers he'd stuffed into a pitcher of water. “Doesn't look quite right.”

The daisies stood at various heights, pointing in all directions, with a couple poking up several inches above their confreres, and the whole thing listing badly to starboard.

“When I marry, my wife will busy herself with arranging all the bouquets just so,” Nigel said. “Why can I take no solace from this sanguine eventuality?”

Bonham ambled over to the sofa and plucked Nigel's drink from his hand. “Take solace from being able to spend your wife's fortune, Wooster. On Maria, at the tables, at Weston's and Hoby's establishments, at the races, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

He took a sip of the whiskey and passed the glass back to his guest. “Surrey signifies a deal of countryside. Where exactly has the quarry nabob dragged your affianced wife to?”

“You recall that match race a few weeks back that had all the fellows aflutter?”

Bonham came down on the sofa beside Nigel. “Fellows don't flutter, but yes. Supposedly a friendly wager, but nobody believed it, except that's apparently exactly what it was.”

“Dolan's country place is not far from where the race was held.”

Bonham appropriated the glass again and drained the contents. “Ergo, your cousin is off to Surrey, ergo, you are off to Surrey.”

“Ergo, you are off to Surrey as well.”

“Be still my beating heart. More whiskey?”

“Of course.”

***

“You look different.” Lucas Denning, the Marquess of Deene, scowled at his brother-in-law. “Evie will know what's changed.”

“We Irish only grow more handsome with time.” Jonathan sauntered into Deene's library, affecting a nonchalance he didn't feel. Deene had more books in one room of his country retreat than Jonathan had seen prior to leaving Ireland. Though the man was several years Jonathan's junior, he had centuries of aristocratic breeding to his name, and blond, blue-eyed good looks to go with them.

Deene wrinkled his patrician nose and made a circumnavigation of Jonathan's person. “You appear to be thriving. Is that jacket from Weston's?”

“It is, though I'll not patronize them again.”

Deene's glower eased. “They've grown too popular and thus charge too much and take too long to make a simple garment. Would you like a drink?”

That Jonathan would share even something as basic as an opinion regarding a tailor with the handsome marquess was vaguely disturbing. “What have you got?”

“My marchioness said you'd be a man of uncomplicated tastes, and thus the sideboard boasts only brandy, whiskey, chilled hock, and, um, cold lemonade.”

Deene's fair countenance colored slightly at the mention of this last beverage.

“Lemonade, Deene? Does your marchioness think I'm an eight-year-old man of uncomplicated tastes?”

The marquess swung away from the sideboard and spoke with cool civility. “What can I get you, Dolan?”

Insight struck with an unaccustomed shaft of compassion for Lord Deene. “Your marchioness is breeding, isn't she? She's avoiding spirits, and you're humoring her. I'll have the lemonade then, and so will you.”