Jem, a man of the world as these things went, was not a stranger to the feel of a woman’s body pressed against his, even if tall, well-formed women who fit him well were a rarity. So it was odd that holding Lucasta Lithwick should create an impression that lingered in his memory. There lingered, too, the imprint of her long, supple arm and slender fingers intertwined with his, seared like a burn on his skin.
“Your aunt desires you to step into the drawing room when you go down,” Church warned him in the same bland voice.
Jem winced as he held out his arms and Church snugged his coat into place. He’d moved into Arendale House after Cadmus’sdeath at the command of his grandfather, who wanted a man about the place, or so his letters intimated. Lady Payne, who had grown accustomed to thinking of Arendale House as her own, had not been pleased with the move, as she was not pleased with any part of Jem’s usurpation of his cousin’s rights and titles.
Even before she was Lady Payne, Martha Falstead had never deigned to acknowledge Jem’s mother or her children. Though she was allowed to remain Lady Payne by courtesy, and she held a life interest in the property her husband had been granted at their marriage, her son’s and husband’s deaths and Jem’s ascension as heir was to his aunt’s hopes the equivalent of a shipwreck in the Antipodes.
If she must lose all meaning to her life, Lady Payne had been heard to say, then she would very well do so in town, with the consolation of smart shops and pleasant company. But Jem rather suspected she remained at Arendale House, rather than renting a place of her own, so she might remind Jem of the duty he owed to her and their name.
His aunt was also counting the days until her half-mourning ended and she might go about in society again, since her daughter Lambertina, growing long in the tooth at the advanced age of twenty, could not afford to be kept from another Season.
“Aunt Payne. Bertie,” Jem greeted them, entering the vast parlor unannounced.
He would concede that the enormous chambers and spacious dressing rooms of Arendale House made it more accommodating to a man of fashion, and Jem could not conceive of Church making do in the apartments above the draper’s shop where Jem had been born and raised. But the remove made Jem feel more distant than ever from the life he had known.
Plain Jeremiah Falstead, draper, had been content to share space with his apprentices and bolts of fabric propped in every corner. Smart Jeremy, however, lived in a sprawling town housein Southampton Square and had a valet who put on more airs than he did, and dressed as exquisitely as Jem himself.
“Oh. Rudyard. Good morning.” His aunt pronounced his title as if it left a bitter taste in her mouth, and Jem still felt that prickle of unease. Cadmus had been, should still be, by courtesy the Viscount Rudyard, and Jem’s boisterous uncle the Earl Payne. But the first title now belonged to Jem’s father, the dissolute scoundrel passing his days in Barbados in the arms of his island mistress. And the second had passed to Jem.
“Lambertina and I were just speaking of you.” Aunt Payne stabbed a needle into an embroidery cloth. “Lady Cranbury sent me a note full of the most ridiculous nonsense about some vicar’s daughter she said had turned your head. I will tell her she must be mistaken, as you’ve never taken the least interest in any of the eligible young girls.”
Bertie sent him a furtive look from her place near the window, where she was attempting a still life of a clutch of fruit. To the outside eye, everything about the scene would have appeared correct: the stately proportions of the formal parlor, the hand-painted walls clustered with expensively framed paintings, the elegant mahogany furniture, the well-adorned women at their graceful tasks.
But Bertie’s artwork, rather than the bright apples and oranges of her model, looked like a sullen tomato brooding in a nest of hostile lemons. Bertie was miserable.
Jem hoped it was not on his account. Aunt Payne, as a last desperate gamble to keep her influence, felt Jem and Bertie ought to marry, though Jem harbored no such inclination, and Bertie had never given the least inkling that she fancied him. But who knew to what lengths desperation might drive a girl? Lucasta Lithwick had been reduced to making up pithy epigrams for amusement.
After he’d named her and her friends Gorgons. Jem pushed away the reminder. He’d been called much worse, before and after he’d been branded Smart Jeremy.
He folded himself onto a striped settee near Bertie’s easel. “I have not had my head turned. I did, however, remark a Miss Lucasta Lithwick at Lady Clara’s evening last night, where there was dancing. All of it a complete bore,” he assured Bertie. “You would have hated every moment.”
“Lucasta Lithwick?” His aunt lowered her tambour. “I am not familiar with the name.”
“It seems the Reverend Lithwick did little to distinguish himself,” Jem said, “but her maternal grandfather was the Viscount Frotheringale, and she is staying at present with the Pevenseys.” As Bertie tidied away her things, he leaned over and snatched the apple, giving her a wink. “I suppose you might call upon them to show you are ready to emerge from mourning.”
His aunt fixed him with a surprised stare. “Doyoumean to call on them?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.” Jem took a bite of the apple. It was past ripe and starting to shrivel.
Aunt Payne tugged her needle through the cloth. “Cecilia Pevensey has several young men dancing on a string, I have heard. The title is young—her father is only the second baron. His heir is yet unmarried, though a bit wild, they say, and abroad on the Continent to my knowledge. I do wish I could find a steady man for Lambertina. Someone older and well-established in his ways.”
Bertie wiped her brushes, making no protest, but Jem caught a flash of mutiny crossing her face. Bertie feared to be a wallflower like the Gorgons. If he made a success of Lucasta Lithwick, perhaps Jem could do the same for Bertie.
“Will you bring Judith to town, Jem?” Bertie asked. “I long to see her. It is so quiet here.”
“No,” Jem said.
Aunt exhaled. “I should hope not. I cannot think a debut would be of any benefit to Judith. She is better where she is.” She stole a glance at Jem over her embroidery frame. “You know what people would make of her. There’s no reason to torture the child.”
Jem munched his apple, tasting the overripe sweetness. He didn’t need his aunt to remind him how Judith would be received by society hostesses like Lady Clara. Pity was the least of his worries.
“Besides,” Aunt went on, tugging her thread taut, “you have put her in a compromising position. If anyone in town knew what else you are hiding out there?—”
“Who, Aunt Martha,” Jem bit out. “They are people. Not things.”
“It is a terrible idea, and I told you so from the start,” his aunt flared back. “You cannot possibly expect to keep them a secret. People will talk.”
“About what? My servants are loyal and run a respectable house.” Jem set the apple aside. “There is nothing to talk about.”
