Proof by Seduction (34 page)

“I don’t want to be kept.”

His brows scrunched together in puzzlement.

“I don’t want to feel obliged to you. And I certainly don’t want you to pay me to do something I’d prefer to give freely.”

Gareth switched the glove he carried to his other hand and slapped it rhythmically against his thigh. “Explain.”

“I mean, that what you are proposing—it feels like a coffin to me.”

The glove slapped once more and then stilled as black leather scrunched in his hand. “You, of all people, know I can never say things the right way. What I mean is—I can’t let you leave me. I need you.”

She wanted to take his hand and smooth out the tension in the muscles. She wanted to kiss his forehead and watch those furrowed lines sink back into comfort.

But.

There was always a but. And this one sank sharp needles deep in Jenny’s chest.

“And what,” she said slowly, “will I do with the other twenty-two hours of the day?”

“Pardon?”

“I assume you’ll devote no more time to Jenny Keeble than Gareth receives. Gareth gets his two hours of scientific work in the morning. What do I get at night?”

“Jenny. You know I can’t give more. It’s my responsibility, and I cannot give it up—”

Jenny shut her eyes. Deep down inside her, that strong stillness she’d found waited. And no matter how much her heart cried out to go to him, that quiet center of strength did not recede.

“I want,” she said, “my integrity. I don’t want to be bought.”

She stepped back. This marble tomb was just another form of abandonment—another way that a man could put her off in perpetuity. It reduced her longing for family and independence to a stark figure. The number of pounds it took to purchase a house in town. The number of minutes Gareth gave her. She would be nothing more than another column in his account books.

Account books could be closed, and entire columns could be set aside.

His mouth parted. He reached for her.

Jenny shut her eyes against stinging tears. “I don’t want you to buy me. I want you to live. I don’t want to be another one of your responsibilities. I want to be your—”

Your family.

She couldn’t say the word. But he took her meaning instantly. “I
can’t,
” he breathed.

Beneath wet lashes, she saw him turn away and grip the door frame.

“You want me to call you Gareth,” Jenny said. “But Lord Blakely will always be between us.
His
responsibility.
His
estate. And now you’re trying to make me
his
mistress. Do you really think—after all you’ve known of me—that you can buy me with money?”

“It’s all I have to give.”

Jenny opened her eyes fully. He was facing away from her, the muscles of his back taut.

“No.” Her words sounded thin and metallic in her ears. As if she stood at a great distance from herself. “It is all you are
willing
to give. You hide behind money and responsibility.”

He whipped around, his eyes flashing angrily. “I’m not hiding.”

“You are. And you want to hide me, too. Well, I’m not having it. You can’t purchase me with numbers or persuade me with logic.”

He inhaled fiercely, his nostrils flaring. “Ask for anything else. And don’t you tell me about hiding. You’re the one who cringes when I talk of adoration and need. You won’t even let yourself depend on me for this one little thing.”

“No. If you want me,” Jenny said desperately, “trade yourself.”

“Damn you, Jenny,” he snapped. “It’s not a fair trade.”

Jenny’s world turned to crystal, all cold sharp edges. Brittle, and teetering on the brink of some high precipice. He needed her. He wouldn’t give up his responsibility. But responsibility—that benevolent word encoded a malign sentiment.

Hire an estate manager,
she’d suggested. He’d responded with,
Who would I trust? I was born to this.
He’d been taught all his life he was better than everyone else. That careless assumption of superiority left him unable to relinquish either duty or dominance.

“Not a fair trade.” The words cut her lips as she repeated them.

He was angry. He felt betrayed. And he did never manage to say the right things. But only half of that could be attributed to underlying awkwardness. This time, he’d meant what he said.

“If I’m not a fair trade,” she forced herself to say, “it’s because you don’t think I am worth as much as you.”

And why would he? He’d been taught all his life she wasn’t.

“Really, Jenny,” he drawled. All emotion had washed from his voice—a sure sign, Jenny knew, that he was too caught up in hurt to dissemble. “Be rational. Who
would
think you my equal?”

“I can think of one person.” Jenny squared her shoulders. Her throat ached. She met his eyes, dead-on, without flinching. “Me.”

His eyes widened and he reached for her wrist, but he moved as if through honey. Jenny stepped back, evading his hand. His glove fell as he stretched for her. It hit the floor with a hollow thump.

“Don’t go.” His words resounded in the cavernous room. “I didn’t—”

He caught himself, and Jenny knew that same implacable honor prevented him from finishing that lie. Because he really had meant it. And without once saying goodbye, he’d managed to abandon her in every way that mattered.

Jenny backed away. When she judged there to be enough distance between them, she turned and walked swiftly to the door. Her footsteps echoed all the way out the foyer, but his did not sound in pursuit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

G
ARETH FELT
as if he had aged twenty-four years in the twenty-four hours since Jenny had left.

He stared listlessly out the window as White droned on. The man’s voice was almost soothing. It was difficult to focus on the concepts—farming improvements. Agriculture. Portraits.

Instead, he nodded his head and shut his eyes. He’d nothing to hold on to but this responsibility. It would eventually expand to fill the void.

But perhaps it only seemed so empty because White had stopped talking.

Gareth opened his eyes. “Any other business?”

“Yes. A letter. It’s from a ladies’ school in Bristol.”

Gareth paused. “Bristol? What the devil does a ladies’ school in Bristol want from me? Contributions?”

“It’s from a Mrs. Davenport, sir. It comes roundabout, by means of the inquiries you asked me to make about a Miss Jenny Keeble.”

Gareth fished in his pocket for his knife. His pocket was as empty as his life.

It did no good to find the information when he’d lost the woman. She wouldn’t take his money, wouldn’t take him. “Never say that name to me again. Send her ten pounds and burn the letter.”

White ignored this sally. “She writes a very sly letter, if you ask me. She says she knows of J—of the name I am not to mention. She was a pupil in her school, years ago.”

Gareth inhaled. The odor of wood smoke was faintly comforting. Jenny. Just thinking of her made his ribs ache.

It was madness, what she asked of him. He’d lost everything—his mother, his sister, his wistful desire for love—because of the obligation the title of Blakely imposed on him. If he were not, in truth, superior, that sacrifice would be meaningless.

“White, can I ask you a question?”

“Naturally, sir.”

“Do you consider me wealthy?”

White rubbed his head in puzzlement. “Yes.”

“And I have an ancient and honorable title?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And my looks—am I incorrigibly ugly?”

White looked wildly about the room. But there was no escape; Gareth was his employer, and that gave him the right to ask impertinent questions. “I can’t rightly say as how I’ve taken particular notice, but your features do seem put together in the proper order. If I may take the liberty of conjecturing as to your next question, my lord, your personal odor is inoffensive.”

Gareth nodded in grim acknowledgment. “That’s what I thought.”

White crossed to the fire and pulled the screen away with an ungodly clatter.

“What are you doing now?” Gareth asked crossly.

“I’m burning the letter.”

Gareth jumped to his feet. “No! Give it here. What are you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking at all, my lord.” White smiled, privately. “I’m just following your express orders.”

Gareth pointed a finger at his hapless man of business. “How the devil am I to find this woman in Bristol if you’ve burnt the address?”

“But you said—”

“Damn what I said.” Gareth snapped his fingers. “Hand it over.”

White smirked with satisfaction and placed that last precious connection to Jenny in Gareth’s waiting hands.

O
NCE IT BECAME OBVIOUS
Jenny could not stay in London, her life simplified. With no need to consider whether to stay or go, the question of money resolved itself. She’d kept only a few articles of clothing and one last, vain memento of the previous weeks. The vast majority of her household effects, she hawked for nine pounds.

But she sold the ungainly bed Gareth had sent her for thirty-two pounds.

When the last pot had been carted away, Jenny turned around in her front room. It was empty of everything except a lonely valise, packed with serviceable clothing. Her footsteps rang against the hard floor.

Her forty pounds was spoken for already. She’d purchased passage in steerage on the regular packet to New York. It left in a handful of days; she’d have just funds enough to reach her final destination and see herself settled. Until then, there were beds in lodging houses. She had half an hour to say goodbye to this empty hole. Thirty minutes was too much time to fill with melancholy, and too little in which to make her heart release its grip.

Twelve years later, she had nothing left. Nothing, that is, except herself. It was still there inside of her, that warm, still center. It had not vanished, and neither bank cashiers nor Blakely could threaten it.

Jenny stood up and reached for her valise. But before she had adjusted to its weight dangling from her arm, a sharp rat-tat-tat sounded at the door. After two years, she knew that knock all too well. Her heart leapt. Jenny dropped her burden, dashed to the door and threw it open.

“Mr. Carhart!”

Ned peered into her room. His expression changed from solemn to bemused. “You’re leaving?”

Jenny gave a nonchalant shrug. “There’s nothing to keep me here any longer.”

“Going back home?”

Jenny sighed wistfully.
Home.
She’d never had a home, or a family. She’d had lies and recriminations. Somewhere in the world, she hoped there still was a home for her. It just wasn’t here.

“Cincinnati,” she said.

Ned frowned.

“It’s in America. I picked the name out of an emigration pamphlet. I had never heard of it, and so I suppose
it
will never have heard of me. Which is just as well. I need…”

She trailed off. She needed stability. She yearned for it. She wanted a place where she could earn the respect and trust of those around her. And she needed to get away from this cage, where bloodlines and belongings trumped accomplishment. Here in London, the temptation of seeing Gareth again—of taking that easy path, accepting his offer, knowing what it would mean—was too great.

“You need,” Ned prompted.

“I need a fresh start,” she finished quietly.

Ned nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. He walked around the room, and Jenny wondered if he, too, was seeing echoes of his former entrapment.

Finally, he looked up at her. “I’m to be married in a week.”

“Congratulations, Mr. Carhart.” She looked down. They’d talked once before, about his antipathy for the state of matrimony. Marriage could not have been a hastily made decision on his part. But she did not know if they could fall back into the easy state of conversation they’d once enjoyed. She bit her lip, holding in the questions that bombarded her.

But she no longer had the right to pry into his affairs. “Gareth is pleased, I’m sure. I hope you are, too.”

Ned stepped back, a puzzled expression on his face. “So
Blakely
is Gareth and I am Mr. Carhart?”

There was no real way to respond to that. No way, except the truth. “Yes. I give you leave to call him by his Christian name, by the way. Someone must continue to do so once I am gone. He needs to be reminded, you see, that there’s more to him than Lord Blakely. He’ll forget otherwise. And he mustn’t forget.”

“Jenny,” Ned interrupted, “I came here to ask you to come to my wedding. It’s a small affair. Family only.”

A lump formed in Jenny’s throat. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not? I just asked you.”

“No, I really mean that I
can’t.
My packet leaves in five days.”

“Can’t you change to the week after?”

She could. But there was another reason. “G—I mean, Blakely will be there. And I’m not part of your family, Ned. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“You’ve faced my cousin before. Why can you not do so now?”

Because I cannot bear to see him again.
Jenny let out a sigh. “Must I really spell it out?”

Ned searched her face and must have found the answer. “Really?
Blakely?
”

She blushed, and bent to rummage in her valise for her one last memento. “That,” she said, straightening, prize in hand, “and he’ll likely set the law on me once he realizes I absconded with his penknife that night in the gaming hell.”

Ned stared at the elegant knife. The weapon was as much Jenny’s connection to Ned—loyal, trusting Ned—as it was to Gareth. Her memories of the knife were bound up with Ned. Ned stabbing the orange. Jenny piercing the cards in front of him.

Ned speaking up, telling Gareth that Jenny was more his family than anyone else he knew.

Jenny sighed wistfully.

But Ned did not speak of the knife. Instead he said, “When I was very young, I told my mother I wanted an older sister. She laughed at me and told me that nature didn’t work that way. But a younger sister was not forthcoming, either. There was always only me. I have had my problems—of my own devising, you understand. And at one point, I thought there was no hope for me. No encouragement. Then I met you.”