Strathmere's Bride (11 page)

She was alone, seated at the window seat. Head turned to look at the unhindered gray of this bleak winter’s day, she didn’t appear to have heard him enter. On her lap was a sheaf of papers, held in one limp hand while her other rested upon it.

“Miss Chloe?” he said softly.

She turned, but didn’t rise. Her eyes matched the sky behind her. Her hair was in its usual state of disarray, but for once he could make no complaint. The tousled look suited her. If all those carefully groomed young ladies of London could see Chloe now, like this, this wild, natural beauty would be all the rage within the week.

“Good afternoon, your grace.” Her voice was quiet and seemed a bit flat. “If you are looking to find the children, they are asleep. Tempers were short today, so I insisted on them taking a nap.”

He took another step forward. “Is anything amiss? You seem distraught. Is it bad news?” He swept a hand toward the letter.

“
Pardon?
Oh, no, no. There is nothing bad from home. A new letter just arrived, filled with nothing but good news.”

He sat with her on the window seat, turned so he faced her. His back rested against the worn paneling and his shoulder brushed the gauzy white voile curtains. “You look disturbed just the same.”

She was quiet for a moment, turning back to the window. “It brings on a melancholy, sometimes. I miss
him
so.”

There was an unpleasant pang somewhere inside his chest. “Him?”

“
Mon père.
Papa.”

“Your father—you miss your father?”

“Of course. And he hates being separated from me, as well. His letters are always loving, saying how he longs to see me again. He is not lonely, however. He has found a new lady love.”

“And that does not please you?”

“Oh, no,
monsieur,
it is not that at all. I am very
relieved to see him going on with his life, but it is sad not to be there with him, to share in his happiness.”

“Ah,” he said as if he understood. But he didn’t. He himself had never known that kind of closeness with his kin. “What else do you miss from home?” He paused, then asked, “Where exactly is your home, Miss Chloe?”

“It is a small village called Saint-Remy in the Loire Valley. It is an enchanted place. So green, with large open hills that look like a painting. All the time, people are friendly and will help you.”

“Has your family always lived there?”

“My father’s family has. My mother was, as you know, English, but she loved it there. She never regretted leaving England, not one day. It is a simple life, a good life.” She sighed, lost in fond remembrance.

He glanced out at the denuded garden below. “You must long for home. Perhaps one day you shall return.”

Her eyes snapped to his. “Perhaps.”

She must have thought he was hinting at her being dismissed in the future. “A week or two holiday should take the edge off your missing them,” he said by way of clarification.

Visibly relaxing, she shook her head. “I cannot leave the girls just now. If nothing else, who would be with Rebeccah at night when she begins to cry out?”

“Yes, of course.” They fell silent. He was struck with an idea. “Perhaps your father shall come to visit.”

She looked at him suddenly with an amazed look
on her face. “You are kind to worry over my homesickness.”

“I am not a complete ogre, Miss Chloe, despite what you may think of me.”

“I do not think you are an ogre.” Her voice lacked the edge of conviction.

He angled his head a little to the side, as if considering her. “You may have cause to. I have been harsh, though with reason, I will staunchly maintain. However, I have not been completely honest with you.”

“Oh?”

“I…well, I must confess it, Miss Chloe—I had a recent memory of myself and my brother playing in the dirt, and at an older age than the girls.”

Her look of concern changed into one of delight. “How horrid. And you weren’t flayed for it?”

“Not in the least. But that is not the worst of it, Miss Chloe. No…not by far.”

“Pray, do tell, your grace. Confession is good for the soul, they say. Bring it out, and by the telling you may find some relief for your troubled conscience.”

“True enough. If you believe you can bear what I am about to tell you, I will go ahead.”

Her lips trembled, warding off a delighted smile. “Please do. I have braced myself.”

“It was fun. Playing in the dirt, I mean. It used to make me deliriously happy. Charles, too.”

She shook her head as if in disappointment. “Now, that is difficult to imagine. The duke huddled in a dirt pile?”

“We would play soldiers. It was bliss.”

“Ah, your secret shall remain safe.” She cast him a glance full of mischief. “For a price.”

“Now I shall regret my honesty.”

“Not too steep a price, I promise.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

“Hmm.” She rubbed her chin, deep in thought. “You must tell the children an honest-to-goodness pirate story.”

“But I know no pirate stories!”

“Then you must make one up.”

“I am no good at telling stories,” he complained.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, your grace. I had noticed.”

“You must help me.”

“Very well. Shall we seal our bargain with a handshake? A gentleman’s agreement?”

“It shall be so, Miss Chloe,” he said, and held out his hand for hers. The touch of her skin as her fingers slid into his was like a jolt to his nerves. Her smile wavered—he thought he saw it, but then the moment was gone and he wondered if he had imagined her falter.

“A deal,” she pronounced.

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to let go. And, surprisingly, she didn’t pull away. Not at first. They gazed at each other for a moment, then she seemed to gather herself mentally and her hand slipped out of his.

What the devil had he been playing at? he wondered. Angry at himself, he came to his feet. “Thank you.” He felt a bit disoriented, not certain in which direction lay the door.

“Your grace, before you go…I have a question. Something that has been troubling me.”

He paused. “Yes?”

“I hope this doesn’t distress you. I fear it may. I do not wish to say anything that—”

“Miss Chloe, simply ask!”

“I only want to know—why do you keep staring at her? At Sarah? Is it because she cannot talk? Does it disturb you?”

Jareth smiled and shook his head. “You really are a trial, do you know that? Come, allow me to show you something.”

He held his hand out and she came to him, brushing so close as she passed him that he could smell her clean scent. No perfumes, but soft and sweet, like wildflowers on a moist spring night. He inhaled greedily as she walked with him into the children’s sleeping quarters, located on the opposite side of the nursery from her room.

From the doorway, he pointed to the blond child lying like a slumbering cherub in her bed. “See her?” he asked.

“Certainement.”

“Do you not notice it?”

“What?”

“The resemblance. She looks so like Charles. I remember him well, especially what he looked like as a child. Perhaps the resemblance is stronger when he was younger, but she is his image.”

Chloe looked up at him then. She must have caught something in his expression as he gazed down at his brother’s youngest child, for she said, “How difficult it must be for you with him gone.”

He would have answered that, yes, indeed it was, but his voice didn’t function properly, and no sound
came forth when he opened his mouth. He shut it and simply nodded.

Then she did the unthinkable. But, of course, Chloe, who cared nothing for convention and everything for humanity, would go beyond the bounds of propriety without a qualm. And do it in such a guileless, natural way that it was impossible to take offense.

She laid a hand on his arm. With empathy filling her eyes, she touched him in a way a woman has no business touching a man, not a man who is not her husband. Her fingers curled against the cloth of his coat, the soft pressure hot under the layers of lawn and wool.

“You must not turn away from the memories. I know it is not seemly to you English to dwell on the emotions you hold in your heart, but grief is like a wound—it must breathe and hurt to expel the poisons. If not, it only festers and grows worse.”

“Miss Chloe, I hardly think it appropriate for you to be advising me,” he said, but didn’t take his arm out from under her touch. He couldn’t. It was as if his body had lost the capacity to move. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to.

“Oh, your grace, you are correct, I know this. I am no one, and you are a duke.”

“Do not say that,” he said fiercely, surprising them both.

Her lips were so full, so facile. Each passing emotion played on them—a frown, a
moue
of confusion, a hint of a smile that entranced with the breathtaking suspense of whether she would grace the world with one of those fabulous smiles that stretched the generous
mouth wide and lit up her face to impossible fascination.

Dear God, he thought as he stared down at her, eyes fastened to that decadent mouth. He wanted desperately to kiss her.

C
hloe shivered at the way he was looking at her.

She felt suddenly self-conscious, aware of every aspect of his body, and hers.

“What is it I should not say?” she asked.

“That you are no one. I thought the French had dispensed with all this ridiculousness about titles and peerage. You emulate the Americans and their republic, where all are equal, don’t you?”

“Is that what you believe, that men are equal to one another, even here in England?”

“Being a duke doesn’t make me better,” he said with feeling. “It means more is expected of me. Certain things.”

She bowed her head and laughed. “Why do you persist in that ridiculous idea? The only thing expected of you is what you expect of yourself.”

“Miss…Chloe. It is not so simple.”

She looked up at him. His square jaw was set, betraying his tension. She reached up and laid a slender hand against it, feeling the power, the hardness there.

It was incredibly stupid. It went against everything
she knew of this man, to think he wouldn’t recoil from such boldness, such unseemly familiarity.

But he did not. He only closed his eyes for a moment and turned his face into her hand, grazing his rough-skinned cheek against her palm.

When he opened his eyes, she knew she was lost. Lost now, lost forever. His hands she felt on her, demanding and not at all gentle, slipping over her shoulders. She saw his lips part, his head angle to one side, and she stepped forward, just one step, in answer to the silent invitation, but it was a step that bridged leagues. Her breasts brushed up against his chest. His head bent lower, his mouth just before hers. Her eyes drifted closed.

In her mind, she refused to heed the alarmed voice inside her head that protested, telling her this was disaster, because all she could do was feel. His whole body was only inches from hers, held taut with leashed masculine power. She wanted him so intensely that it was an actual ache, and when his lips touched hers, she answered hungrily.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was greedy, illicit, frantic. Almost as if they both knew they would come to their senses and had only these precious moments of abandon to indulge their desire, so they gave themselves over to it with fervor.

He wrapped her up in his arms, tight and secure, and she pressed closer, savoring the forbidden feel of his whole body up against hers, the scent of his shaving soap and
him
filling her, making her dizzy.

Yielding to a slight shift in the pressure from his lips, she opened her mouth and felt the bold invasion of his tongue. Her stomach dropped to her knees, her
heart melted into a puddle, and electric jolts of pleasure thrummed through every nerve.

Her brain ceased to function and she was spinning away, sinking, floating, some undeniable sensation that was deliriously joyous and exciting and—

He broke contact, pulling her away as he raised his head and gulped in air. Dazed, she curled her hands about the collar of his tailcoat, seeking stability, needing strength.

“Dear God,” he muttered and shoved her away. He turned his back on her and walked toward the door, stopping in the middle of the room, not looking at her and thrusting his hand furiously into his tousled hair.

He stayed like that, back to her, head bent as he collected himself. It felt as if each second took an hour to pass, yet even with this slowed perception, her mind was having a difficult time comprehending what was happening. Her heart did, though, for it immediately began to burn with an exquisite blend of loss and humiliation.

She waited for what came next. He was rather predictable. There would be a polite apology, she supposed. The promise it would never happen again. The rebuke, the rejection.

“Do not dare tell me that was a mistake!” she blurted.

To her utter amazement, he shook his head and began to laugh. After a moment, he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

With his hair disheveled from his frustrated maulings and his brown eyes warmed by his laughter, he was devastating. “Do you never quit,
mademoiselle?
”

She smiled, relieved. Her spirits tweaked to the challenge. “The war between the French and the English is centuries old,
monsieur.
What gives you cause to think it shall be put to rest now?”

He returned to her, gently touching her chin as if toying with the idea of kissing her again. “It
was
a mistake, Chloe. You and I know it. I don’t want it to be that way, I will admit that. And bless you for your erstwhile honesty, I can see clearly in your eyes that you don’t, either. But there it is.”

Her eyes misted. What a fool he was!

His hand dropped and he said in a different voice,
The Duke’s
voice, “I do not see why this should disturb the professional relationship we have established. It was, after all, only a kiss.”

She heard him leave. She didn’t see it, for her eyes saw nothing.

Only a kiss.

Her body still trembled and her heart was beating so quickly she was panting from it. Her lips burned. Her hands burned. Everywhere he had touched her was on fire.

Only a kiss?

“Strathmere, you are too quiet tonight.”

His mother’s voice cut into his thoughts, rousing him from his deep contemplation of the utterly despicable nature of his character.

“It is rude to our guests,” the duchess continued starchly.

Jareth looked up and mustered a smile for Helena. “Forgive me,” was all he said.

She came to stand by his side, looking with him in the direction of the garden. “Perhaps the burdens
of your new position wear on you. It must get tiresome.”

Pretty words, spoken in that velveteen voice that should have, by rights, banished his miserable mindset, but they sounded hollow somehow.

Ah, it was his mood tonight, he told himself, and said, “All I need is to hear your voice, and I know it will bring me out of this dreadful ill humor. Would you sing for me, please?”

Helena flashed a glimpse of a smile. With her turned-up nose, she looked a bit mischievous. It was the only unconventional thing about her.

“If it would ease you tonight, your grace,” she said with a humble incline of her head. To her mother, who was deep in conversation with his, she said, “Mama, will you accompany me, please? The duke has asked me to sing.”

Lady Rathford immediately leaped to her feet with as much alacrity as if a full regiment of redcoats had filed into the room. “Oh, of course, your grace!” She hurried to the pianoforte.

Jareth’s mother was no less pleased, folding her hands on her lap and giving her son a nod of approval. “Gerald!” she called sharply. “Please attend! Lady Helena is to sing.”

Gerald had been huddled with Lord Rathford all evening, both having discovered a kindred spirit in their similar love of hunting. They had been talking by themselves for more than an hour.

Obediently, Gerald nodded to his aunt, but Lord Rathford, who had been implicated in the admonishment to Gerald, chose to ignore the directive until his wife hissed a loud, “Christopher!” Rolling his
eyes, he flounced back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest in an elaborate pout.

“Sing the aria from
La Traviata,
darling,” the duchess requested.

“Very well, your grace,” Helena answered, and bowed her head.

The song was magic.

Jareth let it pour into him, her passion touching all the raw places inside himself. He watched her, so beautiful and so brilliant.

He liked Helena, very much. Of her accomplishments, he was in awe. She was a kind person, if a bit bland.

She was a good woman. He could not ask for better in a wife. He must stop thinking her wan and spiritless just because she didn’t act like a hoyden and say startlingly intuitive things…Didn’t she have such passion, such sensitivity that her voice could stir a jaded heart?

The tension began to ease in him. It had been there since that abominable loss of control in the nursery…He had been foolish, putting too much stock in a moment’s aberration. After all, he had said it himself. It was only a kiss.

The aria built, and with it his sense of well-being. It nearly eclipsed the earlier unrest that had him so undone until his gaze wandered to the garden once again.

She was there.

Chloe.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as he realized he had been waiting for her all night.

The children were excited to be visiting the stable, mostly because Rebeccah was besotted by all manner
of felines and one of the resident cats had just had a litter of kittens. Sarah emulated anything and everything her elder sister did, so she was equally jubilant as the three of them headed toward the barn.

“Now, you cannot pick them up,” Rebeccah was saying in a bossy voice to her little sister, “because the mama cat might not like it and she’ll scratch your eyes out.”

“Rebeccah,” Chloe warned without breaking stride. Such moments of intimidation were expected with Rebeccah.

“It’s true,” Rebeccah retorted, needing to have the last word. Chloe looked at Sarah, saw that she seemed not the least bit intimidated by Rebeccah’s dire warnings, and let the matter go.

Rebeccah resumed the lecture. “You must wait until I hold the kittens first. Each one, because I have to make certain that it is safe. You are littler, you see, and if the mama cat got angry, me being bigger, I could push her away. So wait until I give you a kitten and don’t grab.”

Chloe looked at the smaller child again, observed her unperturbed expression and smiled. For all of Rebeccah’s lordly imperiousness, Sarah would most likely do as she pleased. Never had Chloe seen such an implacable child.

As they drew closer to the stable, the girls’ excitement built and they broke into a run. They disappeared into the open doorway, Rebeccah shouting directions to Sarah, trying desperately to take command.

How like her grandmother she was!

A short shriek sounded from inside the barn,
bringing Chloe instantly to attention. Breaking into a run, she almost collided in the doorway with a figure hurrying out.

“Oh, my dear, excuse me—Chloe!”

It was her friend, Mary, flushed and panting and looking exceedingly distressed…and decidedly guilty. Another figure came up from behind the pretty maid. Chloe recognized him as one of the grooms.

Chloe said quickly, “Where are the children?”

Mary’s mouth worked but nothing came forth. The groom stepped up and said respectfully, “They came in at full tilt, miss, and startled Miss Mary here. No harm done. It was Mary you heard give a shout, out of surprise, you see. The children paid it no mind and went on back into the stalls. I told them where the new kittens were.”

Mary finally recovered herself, bobbing her head once. It was such a childish gesture, done so emphatically it knocked her mobcap askew.

Or had it already been crooked?

Understanding dawned as Chloe took in Mary’s embarrassment, her reddened lips and slightly mussed appearance. Mary was a good girl, of that Chloe was certain, but she also knew the dangers of a man whose charms could seduce a woman into that realm beyond thought or care for the consequences.

“Well, thank you, then,” she said to the man. “What is your name?”

“Daniel,” the groom replied, touching his forelock and offering a jaunty grin. Oh, yes, this one had it in him to turn a girl’s head for sure.

“Well, thank you, Daniel. Can you possibly direct me in the same—”

A loud shriek interrupted her, and for the second time, Chloe was struck with mortal fear on behalf of her charges. Daniel was quicker to respond, however, and he had already spun about and was racing into the barn before Chloe unglued her feet.

She followed him down the narrow corridor, lined on both sides with stalls. She could see the girls up ahead, clutching each other as a beautiful chestnut mare leaned out of her berth, sniffing the tiny intruders with interest.

Rebeccah shrieked again. Little Sarah had her eyes and mouth squeezed shut against the terror of the horse’s curiosity.

Daniel skidded to a stop and chuckled. Chloe raced past him, collapsing to her knees in front of her charges.

“You ladies are afraid of Jess?” Daniel said, going directly to the horse and giving her a gentle nudge back into her stall, then shutting the upper half of the door to prevent her from returning, inquisitive thing that she was. “She’s just an old mare, can’t do you any harm.”

“Shh,” Chloe coaxed, peeling Sarah from her sister and taking both quaking children into her arms.

“I—I—I d-don’t 1-lıke horses-s,” Rebeccah stammered before dissolving into loud, wailing tears.

Mary arrived. “What was it? What happened?”

Daniel explained, “Jess was poking her head out to see if these young ladies had brought her a treat, and they kind of got a bit scared, ‘s all.”

“Oh, the poor dears,” Mary exclaimed. “Well, of course they did, the horse being so very large to them, being so tiny themselves.”

But Chloe knew it was not only the relative size
of the horse that had frightened the girls. Since the accident, they had been terrified of any kind of carriage or coach—anything, in fact, to do with horses.

Not for the first time, she wondered what those moments of catastrophic horror had been like for them. Worse, she
should
have known to avoid this, but her brain was in a fog these days, too consumed with her own worries.

She led them outdoors and continued to rock them until Sarah began to relax and Rebeccah’s hysterıcs resolved into hiccups. Mary and Daniel stood by awkwardly, evidently feeling responsible in part for the fright the girls had received.

In the end, it was Daniel who succeeded in calmıng them. He fetched one wriggling, tiny kitten from its mother and brought it out to them. The tuft of fur was so new its eyes were still shut, and the girls were instantly transfixed.

Eventually, they were persuaded to come into the barn again after repeated reassurances that Jess and all the other horses were secured in their stalls. Chloe applauded their courage, and they made it to the mother cat’s bed, where six newborn kittens dispelled the last of the children’s apprehensions.