Page 17
Incapable of speech, her heart teeming with happiness, Jemmah nodded again and quit the parlor. She could yet taste and feel Jules’s mouth on hers, and an odd heat throbbed at her wrist as if branded by his lips.
Glancing down, she half expected to see his mouth’s imprint there.
A few moments later, having brought her exuberant smile under control, she edged into the ballroom, as unnoticed as a fly upon the corniced ceiling. No one paid her any mind as she wove between guests, headed toward the empty seat beside the Dowager Lady Lockhart.
Jemmah’s silly legs still hadn’t returned to their normal strength after Jules’s bone-melting kisses, and feeling slightly off-balance, she gratefully claimed the seat.
Her ladyship bestowed a beaming smile on her. “Where’ve you been, child? I saw you arrive and hoped to have a coze with you. It’s been some time since we chatted, and you always brighten this old woman’s day with your wit and intelligence.”
“How kind of you to say so, my lady. I enjoy your company as well. Aunt tells me you have a cat now.”
From the corner of her eye, Jemmah caught site of Miss Milbourne prowling the dance floor’s perimeter, a half-pout upon her lips while her miffed gaze roved the ballroom. They narrowed for an instant upon sighting Adelinda dancing with the exceedingly tall, raven-haired Duke of Sutcliffe.
Miss Milbourne wouldn’t find what she sought.
He’d already left.
“I do indeed,” Lady Lockhart agreed. “A darling little calico I named Callie. I thought the name quite clever.”
Miss Milbourne’s attention swept over Jemmah without pause, the way one dismissed a potted plant or a piece of furniture.
After all, who’d suspect the nondescript Miss Jemmah Dament had just spent the most wonderful twenty minutes in the embrace of the distinguished and oh, so alluring Duke of Dandridge—the very man the Milbourne beauty wanted for herself?
Unaccustomed confidence squared Jemmah’s shoulders and notched her chin higher. She’d never felt more attractive or worthy than she did at this moment, and she had Jules to thank for the new self-assurance.
The dowager gently tapped Jemmah’s forearm with her fan. “You’re pale as a lily, but your cheeks are berry bright. Are you feeling quite the thing?”
“Yes, my lady. I’m quite well.” Very well, indeed. Better than she had been in a great while. “I confess to falling asleep in the parlor, which may contribute to my flushed appearance.”
Not nearly as much a duke’s ravishing kisses had.
“Your mother has paraded past here thrice searching for you. A ripped hem or some such twaddle. Doesn’t she know how to mend a simple tear? Don’t know why she or your sister can’t see to the task.”
Disapproval pinched the dowager’s mouth for an instant.
Jemmah was used to urgent summons at all hours of the day and night for whatever trifling needs Mama or Adelinda might have.
Two months ago, she’d walked four miles in the pouring rain to purchase barbel blue embroidery thread for Mama—not azure or cerulean, her mother had insisted, but barbel.
“This is mazurine blue, Jemmah,” Mama had scolded when Jemmah returned home sopping wet and shivering. “Fortunate for you, I decided lavender better suited, else you’d turn yourself around and fetch me the color I need.”
Never mind the prodigious cold Jemmah contracted as a result of her soggy trek, which left her sneezing and with a reddened nose and eyes for a full week.
On another occasion, she’d been awoken in the wee morning hours when her sister couldn’t sleep and deemed a cup of hot chocolate the perfect insomnia cure.
Jemmah had dutifully gone through the time-consuming task of making the beverage only to find Adelinda slumbering soundly when she brought her the required pot and cup.
Snuggled on her window seat, a tattered quilt about her shoulders while she gazed at the stars flickering between moonlit clouds over the rooftops, Jemmah had drunk every last drop herself.
A rare treat indeed.
Oh, and she couldn’t possibly forget last month when the family had been invited to the Silverton’s soirée.
Jemmah couldn’t attend, of course.
After all, since Papa died, they’d been required to economize and naturally there were only funds for one remade gown.
For the eldest daughter.
