The Savage Miss Saxon (36 page)

Virginia bit back an angry retort, knowing it would be senseless to tug caps with Myrtle, who was known to box an ear now and again to prove her point. “Yes, Myrtle. Ask again.”

“I will. What does the Earl think he’s about, dragging us all down here? If he intends to play matchmaker for the three of us in order to get to you, he’s in for a rude shock. Letty here won’t marry any save her Bad Bertie—which is the same as to say she’ll be putting on her caps any day now—I will marry no one at all, and there isn’t a man in all England who hates himself enough to take on our wilting Georgie. I wouldn’t have tagged along for this farce at all, except I’ve heard it bruited about that his lordship keeps a bruising stable of hunters.”

Myrtle’s suppositions (right on the mark) and her conclusions (also frighteningly true) served to rouse Georgette from her self-pitying sniffles. “Is it true, Ginny? Is his lordship going to try to marry us off so that you and he might—that you could possibly—”

“
Marry
, Georgie,” Lettice Ann broke in, her voice dripping venom. “Our youngest sister is out to sacrifice all our mortal bodies to be violated for her own ends. As if I would give my precious chastity to anyone but my dearest Bertram.”

“Save your precious chastity much longer, Letty,” Myrtle sniped, picking through a dish of sugarplums with her dirty fingers, “and only the worms will be crawling in and out of that aging body. Come to think of it, that might appeal to Bad Bertie, seeing as how he’s always digging about in the dirt. Ginny,” she went on as Lettice Ann glared daggers at her odiously foulmouthed sister, “do you perhaps care to share with us the names of the gentlemen his lordship will be serving up for our inspection?”

Out of the corners of her eyes Virginia spied Georgette leaning forward in her seat, eagerly awaiting her sister’s answer. For a moment, just for a moment, Virginia considered fibbing to her sisters yet again, denying any knowledge of this hastily put together gathering at Mayfield to be anything but what it had been purported to be—a small party meant to give some respite from the hectic rounds of a London season.

But then, knowing Myrtle would not swallow such a line, and would make her life a misery if she dared to attempt to hook them with an untruth, Virginia turned to Georgette, the least threatening of the trio, and recited, “Knox Bromley, Sir Wiley Hambleton, and Lord Pitney Fox. They will be arriving tomorrow morning, or so I believe.”

“I’m going home,” Lettice Ann announced flatly, rising. “Not back to London, where our scheming papa is probably already celebrating his release from his last four daughters, but home—to Bertram. I refuse to stay here and be paraded about for the salacious inspection of three men I do not know and am certain I will not like.”

Myrtle took up the dish of sugarplums and sat herself down on a white-on-white striped couch, immediately putting paid to its pristine beauty. “Oh, sit down, Letty. It’s not as if any of them will favor you in any case. So, Ginny, Sir Wiley Hambleton is to be one of our small group. I should have known. I hear he must marry or else be cut off from his eventual inheritance. Georgie—there’s a catch for you. Not only is he eager, but he has enough blunt to keep you in burnt feathers and restorative tonics all your days. He’ll be sure to take a dead set at you, seeing as how he’ll think you’ll drop stone cold at his feet within a year. Should I tell him you’re stouter than my best mare, and bound to live on, moaning and whimpering, into your eighties. Or wouldn’t that be sporting?”

“No one knows! No one cares!” Georgette cried piteously, her handkerchief to her mouth as she fled the room, nearly cannoning into the earl of Mayfield as she headed for her assigned chamber and the solace of Clara’s clucking, if grudging, commiseration.

Jonathan stood back, one expressive ebony eyebrow raised as he followed Georgette’s departing form with his amused gaze, then entered the drawing room, greeting each of the remaining ladies in turn and apologizing for having left them alone while he discussed the preparation of three more guest chambers (and the strategic placement of gentlemen prospects close by possible prospective brides).

Virginia looked toward her darkly handsome suitor, resplendent in casual hacking jacket and fawn-colored riding breeches, his Hessians polished to perfection, and was instantly soothed by his confident manner.

“Miss Noddenly,” he said pleasantly, bowing over Lettice Ann’s hand. “Miss Myrtle,” he continued, turning toward the grinning woman but not going so far as to grace the back of her dirty paw with his kiss.

“Miss Virginia,” he ended with another bow, a graceful move that was accompanied by a wicked grin and a wink he knew would go unobserved by the other two Noddenly women. “Will Miss Georgette be recovered by the dinner hour, do you suspect?”

Miss Noddenly, as Lettice Ann, as the eldest maiden Noddenly was called (a title that had been passed down the line of sisters far too many times for it to retain much in the way of specialty), sniffed and said, “Oh, Georgie’s always recovered in time to stuff her face. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but that girl can eat Papa under the table. Isn’t that so, Ginny?”

Virginia cringed inwardly at Lettice Ann’s frank speech in the company of her hopeful beloved, for they had enough on their plate trying to marry off the three elder Noddenly sisters without each of them taking turns tearing each other down within earshot of their prospective swains. “Georgette possesses a most becomingly healthy appetite,” she said politically, smiling at Jonathan.

“Are you importing Bad Bertie?” Myrtle asked preemptively from around a mouthful of sugarplums. “Ginny has told you about him, hasn’t she? Not that popping off Letty will do you much good, for I’ll be no man’s chattel. Better for the pair of you to marry over the anvil and be done with it, that’s my advice. Not that I mind being here. You’ve got yourself a prodigiously fine stable, my lord.”

Virginia felt herself melting into the cushions of her chair, so embarrassed was she for her sisters, who had never been known to make sterling first impressions on the opposite sex—or on anyone at all, for that matter.

“I believe, Miss Myrtle,” Jonathan began, inwardly wincing at the sound of “Miss Myrtle,” for it so easily rhymed with “Miss Turtle,” and the young woman did have a certain snappish way about her, “that, you are suffering under a misapprehension. As I told your father before we completed our arrangements for this small party, I have no intention of foisting marriageable gentlemen on any of his daughters. Save Virginia,” he added, smiling at his beloved.

Myrtle gave a horselike laugh that clearly stated her opinion of this statement.

“I,” Jonathan continued doggedly, “only wish for you to be agreeably entertained as I shamelessly use you as chaperons whilst I steal some precious time with Virginia. I live, you see, in constant hope of changing your father’s mind on his determination that you lovely ladies marry in order of your birth.”

“Oh, Ginny, he’s
wonderful!
” Lettice Ann exclaimed, her clasped hands pressed to her woefully undersized breast. “No wonder Clara says you moon and sigh all the day long. And how sad it is you will perish a spinster. My lord,” she said, her eyes bright, “if you are serious in your pursuit of my baby sister, might I have a word with you later, in private? I believe I can help speed your plan.”

“Don’t do it, Mayfield. Allow Letty to convince you to help her to marry Bertie and not only won’t you gain Ginny’s hand, my lord,” Myrtle said warningly, yawning widely as she scratched at an itch at her waist, “but your man will be digging bits of Papa’s horsewhip from your pretty hide for a fortnight.”

Virginia fought the insane urge to pick up two of the lovely lace runners from the mahogany side tables and stuff one in each of her sister’s mouths. “Jon—that is, my lord Mayfield, I have been admiring your gardens from the window. Would it be possible for you to give me a short tour of them before the dinner gong rings? Your roses are particularly attractive.”

“That’s it, Ginny,” Myrtle congratulated. “Get him up and out of here before we disgrace you even more. And take a look around for his head gardener while you’re about it. You never know, Letty here might be more enamored of the occupation than the man, and be willing to transfer her affections. An earl’s gardener might hold more sway in Papa’s mind, so that he might allow the match.”

“You’re rude, crude, and totally despicable, Myrtle Noddenly,” Lettice Ann accused as Jonathan took Virginia’s hand and led her to the French doors that opened onto the gardens. “Worst of all, you
enjoy
it!”

“Exactly, Letty! What looby was it said you never got the straight of anything in your life?” Myrtle asked as Jonathan gently closed the door on the female bickering, wondering if he should have searched for enemies rather than merely irritating acquaintances to match up with the three Noddenly sisters. After all, were Knox Bromley, Sir Wiley Hambleton, and Lord Pitney Fox really deserving of the fates he was wishing on them?

Jonathan and Virginia walked side by side in silence for some minutes, their fingers brushing together until Jonathan took her hand in his and lifted it, palm upwards, to his lips.

“How lovely you are, my sweet darling,” he said, gazing down into her liquid green eyes, still silently wondering how such a confirmed bachelor as he could be reduced to spouting such romantic nonsense, and
meaning
it.

“Will you still say so in twenty years, when my dear papa is gone to his reward and you are at last free to wed your aged beloved?” she asked, her bottom lip quivering under the strength of her emotions.

He cupped her chin in his hand and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. “How little you trust my determination, Ginny, my love. We’ll get your sisters bracketed, if I have to compromise the lot of them.”

Virginia’s toes curled in her white kid slippers and she laid her head against his broad chest. “I cannot believe you love me so much,” she said truthfully.

The rumble of his deep-throated chuckle tickled her ear as it laid against his chest. “Neither can I, my sweet,” he admitted, daring to tempt fate by slipping his arms around her back, stroking her comfortingly. “I feel as if someone has lugged me to the top of St. Paul’s spire and dropped me down on my head. But I’m not complaining. Besides, according to my friends—not the odd assortment of characters who will be arriving tomorrow, but my true friends—marriage will be the making of me.”

“We won’t put any such silly strictures on our daughters, will we, Jonathan?” Virginia asked, pulling slightly away from him to admire his handsome face, to drink in the affection that glowed in his dark eyes.

“Our daughters,” Jonathan repeated, smiling. “Gad, to think that I should be considering daughters. A single son fathered on a woman I married for convenience was all I had ever aspired to in this life. But daughters? We shall have an even dozen, my sweet, if they all could be as beautiful as you.”

This slightly silly, disjointed, and definitely sappy sort of conversation went on for several more minutes, little of it of concern to any save the two involved, until the proximities of their bodies and the dawning knowledge that they were safely ensconced behind a leafy, concealing tree came home to the two parties and the inane, rambling words slowly ceased, to be replaced by a telling, and decidedly more interesting, silence.

Virginia faced the intriguing knowledge that she wished for more from her beloved than sweet words and chaste kisses, while Jonathan, who was already well acquainted with the realm of earthly delights, knew himself to be entering onto a new, higher plane, where passion and love combined, rendering him nearly powerless to deny his desire to crush Virginia to him, and kiss her, and love her, and touch her, and—

“Ginny—” he groaned in real pain, his hands gently cupping her slim shoulders, his thumbs playing against the soft skin just above the modest scoop of her bodice. “Ginny, I know I promised. I swore to you, to myself, that I would wait, that I would be patient, but—”

She pressed her fingertips to his lips, silencing him, suddenly feeling the older, the wiser of the two. “My mother always told me it is not wise to make rash promises, especially when that sort of promise is almost always impossible to keep. I love you, Jonathan. You love me. It is only natural for us to wish to be together.”

He took hold of her hand, feverishly kissed her fingertips, then laid their clasped hands against his chest. “Brave words from such a daring innocent,” he told her, remembering their first meeting and his immediate attraction to her modesty, her youth, her beauty, and, mostly, her clearheaded intelligence.

But their desire for one another to one side, he knew he had to forget sweet seduction and concentrate on the matter at hand, even if he had to frighten Virginia with his confession of longing. “Dearest child,” he warned, turning his mind from the feel of her soft body pressed tightly against his own, “you can have no real idea of what I am so boorish as to want from you at this moment.”

Virginia smiled, wondering how such an otherwise brilliant man could be so silly. “I am the youngest of nine girls, Jonathan, and girls do talk. I have known the mechanics for ever so long, but until now I have never understood the desire for such intimacy. Until you, Jonathan. Now I know why my sister Marianne smiled so on her way down the aisle to her sea captain. I love you, Jonathan, and it is my greatest wish to show you just how much I love you. Is that very forward of me?”

“Slightly, my love,” Jonathan admitted, watching her full, pink lips, remembering how they had tasted the afternoon he had stolen that first, mind-destroying kiss. He really should step away from her, and he would, only not just yet. Not for another few moments. He was a strong man, but he was not bargaining to make himself into a martyr.

“Your candor is part of your charm, however,” he teased. “Do you remember telling me very matter-of-factly, when first we met, that I should seek elsewhere for feminine companionship as you were already destined never to marry? I immediately I took your words as a challenge, as if you had dared me not to fall in love with you. I’ve never so enjoyed losing at anything.”