Jonathan and Amy (10 page)

“My dearest Amy!” Nigel rose from the sofa and approached Amy with outstretched hands the moment she crossed the threshold. “How lovely you look. Come join me.”

He towed her over to the sofa by keeping her hand gripped in his own—and what soft hands Nigel had. Amy sat and accepted a cup of tea from the marchioness, whose green eyes bore as much mischief as sympathy.

“Lord Wooster was telling me that his dear mama has been dying to renew her acquaintance with you, Miss Ingraham, and with your sisters too. One wonders why the woman isn't this minute in her traveling coach, preparing to journey from Hampshire to your sisters' doorstep.”

Amy took a sip of her tea while the marchioness pinned Nigel with an unblinking stare.

“I've already invited my cousins for a visit,” he replied. “In the heat, one can't expect a woman of advanced years to be gadding about. Excellent cakes, Lady Deene.”

After the bad start Nigel had made with his hostess, her ladyship had slipped into the role of chaperone with unholy glee. The situation would be hilarious, except—Amy lost her train of thought as Jonathan Dolan came strolling into the room, followed by the Marquess of Deene.

“Your ladyship, Miss Ingraham, good day.”

This wasn't any version of Jonathan she'd seen before. He was dressed to the nines, sporting an abundance of subtle indicators of wealth and sophistication. Bond Street tailoring was only the start, followed by gold cuff links, and a cravat pin topped by a small, cheery emerald winking from amid his lace-edged jabot. His waistcoat was embroidered silk, and his boots positively gleamed.

Jonathan Dolan was turned out as a pink of the
ton
, every inch a gentleman, a wealthy aristocrat, even. Amy took another fortifying sip of her tea, lest Nigel notice how desperately glad she was to see Jonathan.

“Mr. Dolan, please have seat,” the marchioness said, then turned her beaming smile on her husband. “Deene, you must join us as well. Lord Wooster is
such
an amusing guest. My Lord Wooster, may I make known to you our brother-in-law, Mr. Jonathan Dolan. He's brought our niece to visit us, and, Jonathan, may I present to you Lord Wooster, Miss Ingraham's second cousin.”

The men exchanged nods, and Jonathan bowed to his social superior, a gesture Amy could not recall seeing him make in any other situation. Such deference did not bode well for her future, but then she caught a sly wink from Lady Deene.

The marquess took a seat next to his wife and accepted a cup of tea from her. “I understand you aspire to be more than a second cousin to Miss Ingraham, Wooster. May I offer you my congratulations?”

Jonathan fussed with the lace at his wrists. “That would be premature, would it not?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Beside Amy, Nigel sat forward, closer to the edge of the seat. “I don't believe the matter concerns you.”

“Concerns me? Not directly, of course not.” His gaze traveled over Amy in an alarmingly dispassionate fashion. “But if Miss Ingraham allows you to sweep her off her feet, then my daughter will have to give up her governess, will she not?”

“She most certainly shall! My viscountess will not be kept in service—of all the ridiculous notions.” Nigel reached for Amy's hand, as if he had every right. Amy picked up her cup and saucer, dodging Nigel's attempted grab and wondering what in creation Jonathan was about.

“Deene, you will have to explain this to me.” Jonathan waved away a proffered cup of tea in a gesture Amy was sure would have done the Regent proud. “Miss Ingraham is free to toil away in my nursery as long as she's Wooster's cousin, but forbidden such activity when she's his wife. I do not understand the aristocracy's convoluted notions of family, and probably never shall.”

“All quite puzzling,” Lady Deene murmured.

“Well, be that as it may,” Jonathan said, “if you're to marry the woman, then I'll expect you to assume responsibility for her debts.”

What?
“Mr. Dolan,” Amy said slowly, “I have no debts.”

He shot her a pitying glance. “If you seek to leave my household, Miss Ingraham, you will have at least one very substantial debt to me.”

His expression told her nothing, leaving Amy to think she'd been given a part in a melodrama but never shown her lines.

“I do not see how I can be in your debt, sir.”

Nigel patted her hand. “Neither do I, and in any case, I am most assuredly unwilling to allow some pin money to stand between me and my intended. State your business, Dolan, and then perhaps you all will allow Miss Ingraham and me some privacy.”

Jonathan extracted a gold watch from a pocket, flipped it open, studied it for a moment, then closed it with a snap.

“I'll wish you both happy then, but prior to the nuptials, I'll expect payment in full of the liquidated damages sum named in Miss Ingraham's employment contract.”

Nigel was on his feet. “That is absurd. Amy is not your bond servant.”

Jonathan rose slowly, shooting his cuffs before he flicked an impassive gaze over Nigel.

“My daughter is precious to me, Wooster,
as
is
my
entire
family
. At the time Miss Ingraham joined our household, Georgina was half-orphaned, withdrawn, and a shadow of the happy child who'd graced my nursery for nearly three years. I was grieving and at a loss as to how to help my daughter, but I knew Georgina's governess had to be an extraordinary person.”

He fell silent, but Amy was too busy swallowing back the lump in her throat to meet his gaze.
What
was he about?

“I knew, in Miss Ingraham, I had found a treasure, and so I added a liquidated damages clause to her contract. If she quit before I was ready to dismiss her, she'd have to repay all her wages and then some.”

“That cannot be legal,” Nigel said, hands clenched into fists. “Deene, disabuse this glorified shopkeeper of his confused thinking.”

“It's legal,” Deene said between bites of chocolate cake. “If Dolan cuts Miss Ingraham loose, he's obligated to pay substantial severance. I read the document myself and thought it quite ingenious. Tell him how much, Dolan.”

Jonathan named a staggeringly high figure, one Amy vaguely recalled seeing in her contract. At the time, she'd been more concerned about keeping her sisters fed than any peculiar legal language, though Jonathan had explained to her exactly what the words meant.

Nigel dropped like a brick onto the sofa beside her. “
That
much?” His normally pale countenance became ashen. “Amy, did you sign this document freely?”

“I did. I could have sold the cottage instead, I suppose.”

Or she could have presented herself and her sisters on Nigel's doorstep as charity cases. She'd heard Jonathan Dolan worrying for his daughter, and signed the contract the same day, the best decision she'd ever made.

Nigel's chin came up. “Then I'll pay the debt. I will pay it, by God, and you will find some other woman to take orders from you and deal with your daughter.”

“Careful,” Deene said softly around another mouthful of cake. “I am pleased to count Dolan among my family, Wooster.”

“I will
not
be careful. This…this bog-trotting cit thinks he can buy Amy's service, and she a lady to the bone. Dolan, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am.” Jonathan resumed his seat. “Frequently, but at least I don't run up gambling debts I can't pay off. They have a way of coming back to bite a man at the worst times.”

Nigel went absolutely still, like a rabbit busily munching clover, who too late hears the pack over the very next hill.

“Gambling debts,” Jonathan drawled. He took a sheaf of papers out of his pocket and put them on the coffee table before Nigel. “Excessive gambling debts, belonging to you—and to your darling mother.”

Nigel opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap. He reached out toward the little pile of papers, but drew his hand back without touching them, as if they might indeed bite him.

“My love,” the marquess purred, “perhaps you'd order more cakes?”

Her ladyship rose and clamped a small, surprisingly strong hand around Amy's wrist.

“Come along, Miss Ingraham, we must see what the kitchen has to offer.”

As Amy let herself be removed from the parlor, she heard Jonathan speaking again.

“I am not a man who would interfere with the course of true love, Wooster, but tell me, can you pay these debts
and
the sum owed me by Miss Ingraham?”

And then the door clicked shut.

***

The food was probably marvelous, but Amy could hardly taste it.

“What did Nigel say then?” Drusilla asked from across the table.

“He said he was going to kill his mother,” Deene replied. “A touching display of filial devotion, absolutely in keeping with his high regard for family generally. But enough said on that unfortunate subject. I propose a toast.”

Under the table, Jonathan kept Amy's hand in his, while in view of the company, he reached for his wineglass.

“To family.” The marquess's gaze fell on his wife at the opposite end of the table. “And to true love.”

Glasses were raised all around, though her ladyship's held barely a sip. Drusilla and Hecate, along with Deene and Lady Deene, carried the conversation through dessert, while Amy could focus only on the pleasure of Jonathan's presence beside her.

The men had been closeted in the parlor for almost two hours, while Amy had been hard put not to pace a hole in the carpet of her ladyship's private sitting room. Then Nigel had left, begging Amy's pardon but informing her that he could not consider them engaged, though he hoped she “understood.”

She did
not
understand, not entirely, but she grasped that Jonathan had indeed slain her dragons.

The marchioness gave a signal to the footman at the sideboard, then exchanged a glance with her husband. “Deene has suggested we might withdraw to the billiards room, ladies. I'm sure this will inspire the gentlemen to make haste over their port.”

Billiards? With her sisters?
Amy rose, which necessitated that Jonathan stand to hold her chair.

“If the company will pardon me,” she said, “the day has left me fatigued. I'll pass on the billiards and thank both his lordship and her ladyship for all their kindnesses.”

Beside her, Jonathan might have expelled a sigh of relief as he winged his arm at her. “I'll light you up to your room.”

She left the dining parlor with him, almost needing the support of his arm, so drained did she feel.

“Jonathan, the stairs are that way.”

“The stars, my dear, are this way.”

***

The day had been long and fraught, with Amy's sisters arriving just as Jonathan had sought to find his lady and some privacy. Perhaps what he had to say ought to wait until morning, but from the way Amy shifted her grip on him, she'd been as anxious for a moment alone as he had.

The instant they gained the back terrace, Amy stepped into his embrace. “I was so worried.”

“I'm sorry. I thought it best not to warn you, and there wasn't—”

She put her hand over his mouth. “Now is not a moment for thinking, Mr. Dolan.”

Never
argue
with
a
lady.

He gently took her hand in his and settled his lips over hers. “Missed you, my love.”

“Mm.”

She let him have more of her weight, and Jonathan spent the next five minutes reacquainting himself with every lovely, warm, curvaceous blessing Amy possessed.

“You even taste like lemons,” he whispered.

“Lemon tarts for dessert will…oh,
Jonathan
.”

Jonathan drew back and, with the part of his brain still capable of functioning, made a note that Amy Ingraham—soon to be Amy Dolan—had sensitive earlobes.

“My most adored love, if we do not desist immediately, then I will soon have you against the nearest wall, saying my name repeatedly in that exact tone.”

Bless her, she looked more than tempted, but then the governess asserted herself. “I have some questions for you, Jonathan.”

“I'm sure you do.” He could not possibly let go of her hand, so he led her through fragrant moon shadows to a bench among the roses. “Ask me anything.”

She folded her hand around his once they'd sat. “Why didn't you warn me you'd be confronting Nigel with that contract clause?”

“Two reasons. First, I did not want you talking me out of my strategy. The only means I could think of to keep you out of his lily-white hands were financial, and that was hardly gentleman—”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “You were brilliant. I almost felt sorry for him. What was the other reason?”

“I did not want you to appear to be colluding with me. If Nigel got wind that my interest was personal, then he might have threatened to start rumors regarding your conduct with me when you resided under my roof, and that would not do.”

She turned a thoughtful gaze to him. “He might have done exactly that. You are very shrewd.”

“Your cousin had other terms for it.”
Conniving, sneaking, underhanded.
Deene had approved of Jonathan's tactics as appropriate to the party they dealt with, and had turned up righteous over Nigel's sneering condescension, too, almost as if Jonathan were…family. He set that startling possibility aside for further consideration.

“Jonathan, how did you leave things with Nigel?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. He's still my cousin, and from some things Hecate said, I gather she rather pities him.”

Jonathan shifted, putting an arm around Amy's shoulders, but keeping his hand in hers too. “Hecate might be willing to take him on, which would make him your brother-in-law as well as your second cousin, but it's you who stood to inherit the largest sum, my dear.”