Jonathan and Amy (8 page)

“Won't you have a seat, Nigel? I can't stay long. Georgina has her heart set on a picnic this afternoon, and I disappoint her at my peril.”

Nigel affixed a look of sympathy to his features, took a seat on the sofa, and patted the place beside him. “Is your charge a spoiled little beast? I am grieved to hear it.”

Amy took a ladder-backed chair near the hearth, and sat so her spine did not touch the chair. Perhaps she hadn't understood the proximity he'd offered; more likely she could not afford to act familiarly with a caller.

But no, she was smiling. “Georgina is a treasure, the day is gorgeous, and the marchioness has declared that we will abandon the house and go wading. How does the summer find you, Nigel, and what brings you this way?”

Boldness
, he reminded himself. “I am in good health, but as for what brings me to Surrey, you do. Surely you must know that.”

Her brows drew down. “I'm glad to see you, of course, but my circumstances are very comfortable. You need have no concern for me.”

The tea tray arrived, and Nigel was pleased to see Amy could navigate it without fumbling. He accepted a cup and set it aside after a single sip. “Amy, your birthday approaches.”

“In a few weeks. You will not tease me into revealing which one it is, either. I've had rather a lot of them.” Her rueful smile was fleeting.

Boldness.
“My dear, I can wait no longer. The issue of our betrothal has become urgent.”

Her head came up, and she set her cup on its saucer with a little clatter. “Our
what
?”

“Our betrothal. Might I have a few of those cakes?” They looked delicious, draped in frosting and arranged just so.

“Nigel, you can't blithely announce—” She fell silent, which was wise of her. She'd been on the verge of raising her voice, something Mama would not approve of at all. Nigel accepted a plate with three cakes on it.

“You're not having any?”

She got up to pace. “For God's sake, Nigel. We are not now, nor have we ever been, engaged.”

“Well, this makes one thing clear.” He popped a cake in his mouth, letting chocolate sweetness spread over his palate. “I'm reassured you weren't being coy, or—heaven forbid!—trying to avoid your duty. You really didn't know?”

She whirled toward him from across the room and stopped, her arms crossed over her middle. “Didn't know
what
?”

“Didn't know of our engagement. Surely somebody…” He pretended to assess her heightened color, her tense posture. “But I can see they did not. Finish your tea, Amy, and contemplate how many women enjoy exchanging a governess's lot for that of a titled lady. Consider it my early birthday present to you.”

She did not do exactly as he bid. She went to the window and stood for a long moment with her back to him, which allowed Nigel to consume two more tea cakes. He waited, expecting she'd soon start weeping with gratitude and demanding that he promise he was not jesting.

If only.

Amy was a pretty enough woman that Nigel would manage to do his marital duty by her, but she wasn't…
warm
, not like her sister Hecate. Her eyes held no laughter, no light of devilment. She wasn't…approachable, and she didn't look at all like she'd become the sort of viscountess to meekly pacify Mama day after day.

“I brought you a ring, though I can't vouch for its size. Shall I put it on your finger?”

She turned, her features remarkably composed considering the good fortune befalling her. “That would be rather hasty, wouldn't it? You might consider us engaged, but I have heard no proposal, and you haven't heard an acceptance.”

He hadn't seen her for twelve years, but even as an adolescent, she'd had a sort of sternness about her. When Nigel had heard Cousin Amy was at work in the schoolroom, he'd considered it a natural fit for her and pitied any unruly children in her care.

Nonetheless, boldness meant he should slap an indulgent smile on his face and jolly her past her incredulity.

“Come, Cousin, are we to descend into dramatics? Shall I go down on one knee? The documents require that we are to marry by your twenty-eighth birthday if Grandpapa's provisions aren't to be largely lost to you.”

“Our
grandfathers
set this up? I cannot believe such a thing.”

Mulish woman. She'd likely inherited that from their great-grandfather, whose stubbornness was legendary.

“You are in shock.” He rose and moved closer to her, and caught a whiff of lemons from her. She would wear lemon, though a hint of brimstone wouldn't have surprised him. “I have had years to accustom myself to these terms, and years to hope you were merely indulging in an independent nature when you went into service—”

“An independent nature? For God's sake, Nigel, I wanted to eat. I wanted to provide for my sisters. I wanted to survive. I wrote to your mother repeatedly, begging for her assistance and guidance, and I even wrote to you.”

“I never saw your letter.” His mother had burned it unread, saying it couldn't include anything other than all its predecessors had. “I am sorry, and the post is notorious for being unreliable.”

“It is not.” Her voice cracked like a whip.

Would he have to
argue
her into accepting a title? Nigel's gaze fell on Amy's prim mouth, and he felt a sinking sensation regarding his marital future.

“So you thought yourself abandoned? Why didn't you come to us, Amy? We're your family, and you must have known we'd be in Town during the Season? A post chaise out to Hampshire shouldn't have been beyond you, and Mama would never turn away family.”

Nigel was congratulating himself on the concern and hint of reproach in his voice—as well as the smoothness of his lying—when the petite blond came barging into the room.

“Miss Ingraham, I'm sorry to interrupt your little tête-à-tête with his lordship, but Georgina is growing inpatient. Your duties call.”

The little idiot beamed encouragingly at Amy, which was the outside of too much.

“My good woman, you are rag-mannered indeed to interrupt a gentleman when he's calling on a lady, much less on a relation, much, much less when he's calling on his intended for the purpose of solemnizing their engagement. You will take yourself off immediately. Tell the dratted child to go copy some prayers, and be very certain that I will inform Lord Deene of the rudeness countenanced among his help.”

Amy's jaw snapped closed with an audible click, though if she were to become a viscountess, then she'd need to know how to deliver a proper dressing down. God knew Mama had the knack of it.

“Why don't I fetch Lord Deene?” the blond volunteered. She had a gleam in her eye Nigel did not in the least approve of. “And Amy Ingraham, you are coming with me.” She grabbed Amy by the wrist and towed Nigel's cousin from the room.

Clearly, Amy was oppressed in her present circumstances, even by so dubious an authority as her host's housekeeper. But of course, the woman was likely Deene's leman, which put a different light on the situation.

Deene was to be admired, really, if he could keep wife and mistress both content under the same roof. Nigel resumed his seat before the tea tray and popped another cake into his mouth.

A wife, a mistress, and a jolly good cook, too. Perhaps married life might not be so bad after all.

***

“Get the hell in here.” Jonathan's brother-in-law grabbed him by the elbow and all but dragged him into the library.

“Deene, is this how you treat guests now? I'll have a word with mine hostess that your disposition is in want of—”

Deene closed the door behind them with a kick of his boot. “Shut up and listen, Dolan.”

“I do not respond well to the imperative voice, Deene.” Jonathan shrugged out of his lordship's grasp. “I'm to join Georgina and her governess for a picnic down by the stream, where I will no doubt be splashed without mercy and consoled for the abuse I suffer by being pelted with strawberries and—”

“Drink this.” Deene shoved a glass of whiskey at Jonathan. “You've trouble brewing, unless I much mistake the situation.”

Jonathan peered at his drink. “Even for you, Deene, this is odd behavior. Explain yourself.”

“Evie came across a Lord Wooster lurking in our foyer, a pink of the
ton
idling about in high fashion without an invitation from me. He said he came to call upon your Miss Ingraham, and when Evie couldn't find me to alert me to his presence, she took it upon herself to chaperone his call.”

“Lord Wooster.” The name rang a bell, not a pleasant one. “Where is Amy right now?”

Deene nodded, as if Jonathan's response confirmed something in the marquess's mind. “Evie dragooned Miss Ingraham into joining Georgie on their planned outing.”

“
Our
planned outing. I gather you were not invited?” Jonathan took a fortifying drink of excellent potation, but it did little to ease his distress at the thought of a titled gentleman calling upon Amy.

“What would be the point of my joining the picnic? Evie was going to distract the child, while you…”

“While I what?

“Wooed your child's governess.”

This sip was necessary to give Jonathan time to think. “I was under the impression, Deene, that you regard me as the presuming Irish cit who kidnapped your sister into holy matrimony by taking advantage of both her and your mercenary father. You hate me, and you tolerate me under your roof only because you do not want to offend your niece.”

“I do not hate you.” Deene muttered this, and turned away to pour himself a drink. When he'd tossed back two fingers—and not of lemonade—he rounded on Jonathan with a determined expression. “I resented you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I resent you.”

Jonathan saluted with his drink. “Present tense, duly noted. I resent you, too. Marie thought you could do no wrong, while I was a constant source of shame to her.”

“Ashamed of
you
?”

“Certainly.” Even with Deene's best libation on hand, the admission wasn't easy. “I all but bought her, Deene, or so she believed, and no matter that she was mistaken, I was not her choice. I was her duty.”

Deene poured himself another half glass. “She bloody loved you, you fool. She was ashamed of her family, of the way her own father sold her off to pay his gambling debts—and my tuition bills. That's what she resented.”

The marquess glowered at his drink while insight warmed Jonathan's insides more than the best whiskey ever would.

“Looking after Georgina is the only way you can absolve yourself of the sacrifice your sister made for her family—for you.”

Deene's glower intensified. “I'm Georgina's uncle, her only adult male relation on her mother's side worth the name. I will not neglect my responsibility, but we can argue that point some other day. I'd say at present we have a more pressing concern.”

“Lord Wooster.” And wasn't it interesting, that Wooster was
our
problem?

“He announced to Evie that he's some relation of Miss Ingraham's and he's come to seal their betrothal. Georgina won't like this development at all, and I can't say I approve of it either.”

As a boy, Jonathan had experienced the shock on a hot summer day of leaping from the broiling sun into the still, frigid depths of the water filling an abandoned quarry. The same sensations went through him then settled in a leaden ball in his guts.

Among the upper-class English, there was no such thing as an informal betrothal.

“To hell with your approval,” Jonathan spat. “I loathe the very notion of Amy marrying another.”

“Thought you might.” Deene looked marginally relieved. “I've run Wooster off for now, but he'll be back tomorrow. He told me in confidence that their grandfathers set it up, so the marriage has to take place in the next few weeks or Amy's portion will be greatly reduced. What shall we do about him?”

Jonathan attributed the frisson of weakness in his knees to Deene's blasted whiskey.

“He's titled, Deene, and he's a gentleman. I'll bet he's such a damned gentleman he wears gloves to bed and has some fussy little maggot shine his boots with champagne.”

Deene set his drink down with a thump.

“So you'll cede the field? You'll withdraw from the lists, when you can't take your eyes off that woman? For God's sake, you
fought
for Marie when you hardly knew her. You bludgeoned, bribed, and brawled your way into the best clubs, tricked out your handsome Irish arse to perfection, courted her at every ball and breakfast in Mayfair… And you'll toss Miss Ingraham over at the first sign of competition?”

Deene in a tirade was an impressive sight. He was usually so much the English gentleman that his sheer size and brawn tended to fade from notice, but not when he was breathing fire and spitting indignation.

“Let me tell you something, Dolan. If you think I'll stand idly by while some prancing ninny makes off with my niece a few years hence on the strength of his papa's title or his mama's blue blood, you are sadly mistaken.
One
doesn't treat a female he loves in such an asinine fashion.
”

At some point in Deene's diatribe, Jonathan had taken up residence on a leather sofa. Deene came down beside him. “What will you do, Dolan?”

Jonathan passed Deene his glass. “I resent you, Deene, because I'm stubborn about these things, and you are too, but in the present instance—and in the present instance only—I must admit I find a particle of sense amid all your blustering.”

“You're saying I'm right.” Deene finished Jonathan's drink. “So what, for the love of God, shall you do about Lord Rooster?”

“I'm going wading.” Jonathan rose and headed for door, but paused with his hand on the latch. “And, Deene? I loved your sister. From the first time she made herself stand up with me, I loved her, though I took far too long to make this evident to the lady herself.”