Utterly Devoted (8 page)

“Then what is the truth?”

The desire to tell her was strong, but he knew it would be a mistake. For one, it was doubtful she would see anything as the truth if it came from him. For another, he did not wish to start fresh gossip. “Did you meet Lord Hendricks before his happy demise?” he asked instead.

“I did not have the pleasure.”

“It would not have been a pleasure, but that is not the point. Since you have not met any of the participants in that little drama except me, I suggest you talk with someone you trust who was about the ton at that time.

“Perhaps I shall,” she replied. The touch of defiance in her tone told him he had been right about whom she would believe.

As she lapsed into silence, he found himself watching her. That close, he could see feather-fine lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth. They made her look too serious for her age. Had he put them there? Or had something else troubled her since he’d known her? He had to keep his arm pressed against his side so as not reach out and stroke away the worry. How sweet it would be to press his lips against her temple, to inhale the fragrance of her hair and feel it slide like satin through his fingers. But he was reformed and even if he weren’t she would never forgive him if he trifled with her again.

But how tempting was that trifling. Some poet had once claimed that a man never forgot his first love. Jareth was more willing to quote poets than agree with them, but he found this sentiment to be true. He remembered more about Eloise than any other woman he had dallied with: the first time they’d met, the first time he’d touched her hand, their first kiss, the look of sweet yearning in her eyes when they’d parted. He did not think it had been love that motivated him five years ago, but he would not have been surprised had his feelings grown in that direction.

“You are staring at me,” she said, shifting in her seat. “Am I so changed?”

“In some ways,” he acknowledged. “In others, not at all. If I closed my eyes, we could easily be in the Darby chapel again.” She said nothing, but her reaction raised a chuckle from him. “Now you are staring.”

She collected herself with obvious difficulty. “I am merely shocked that you remember.”

“Of course I remember. Do you think me totally devoid of feeling?” When she did not answer, he shook his head. “I am not the monster you want to paint me, Eloise.”

“Yes, you claim to have changed as well.”

“In that, I have not changed. I’m no more a monster now than I was then.”

She stiffened in her seat. “Then why did you leave me?” she blurted out.

“Madam,” he replied, “I was driven off by a pitchfork.”

“By someone else,” she protested, leaning toward him as if intent on making her case. “Not by me. Were you so faint-hearted that you could not return to me later?”

The view down her bodice was enchanting, but he forced himself to sit back, cursing his role as gentleman. “May I remind you that I was wounded?” he replied. “It took some time and a great deal of fabrication to heal my posterior and my brother’s suspicions.” And even as he said it, he realized he had been only partially successful. If Adam hadn’t suspected, Eloise’s name would never have appeared among his effects.

Eloise was watching with equal suspicion. “Then your family knew about our assignations?”

“Not everything,” he assured her. “The Darbys have ever kept their own council. Father insisted on it. He had high expectations of all of us. Adam was to be the mighty earl, Justinian the lofty scholar, and Alex the stalwart soldier.”

“And what of you?” she asked softly.

He shrugged. “I’m the wastrel. Every family has to have one. You’ll find the rule in Debrett’s.”

She shook her head. “I sincerely doubt that any book of social etiquette covers that. But even if your family expected no better of you, how did you manage to explain your wound?”

He felt a grin forming. “I told them I fell from my horse and landed in a bramble patch. Adam was irritated that a Darby would be so ham fisted, Helena was embarrassed of what the other titled families in the area might think if the matter became known, and Mother was sympathetic that her baby had been injured.”

“Did no one question you?” she asked with a frown.

“Dr. Paxton pointed out how miraculous it was that none of my exposed skin had a scratch, but no one seemed to notice the discrepancy. I paid my valet to hide the fact that neither my trousers nor my small clothes had a mark on them.”

Her frown deepened. “So you escaped censure, unscathed.”

“Why does that disturb you? Neither of us would have wanted to be forced into marriage that young.”

“No,” she said, turning her gaze to the window. “Of course not.”

He frowned. “Is that what this is all about? Did you expect me to offer?”

Her laugh was bitter. “Oh, indeed, no. Not Jareth Darby. Everyone knew you were only after fun. Why would I be so foolish as to believe you cared?”

Her censure stung. “I cared. I admired you greatly.”

“Yet you simply left?”

He doubted she knew how young and vulnerable she sounded. In fact, her manner reminded him of the time they’d first met under the oak. He softened his tone. “I never promised to stay. I thought I made that clear.”

She sighed. “You may have said the words. I doubt I listened. Your actions made me feel as if I were different from the others I knew you must have wooed. I thought I was special to you. I thought you loved me.”

He could barely resist the urge to gather her in his arms. Speeches he had used to advantage in the past tumbled through his mind, but he rejected them all. She deserved better. She deserved the truth.

“I’m sorry, Eloise,” he said. “It was never my intent to hurt you.”

The carriage slowed then, and she seemed glad for the excuse to break his gaze and peer out. “We are nearing the Fenton Hotel,” she murmured, voice husky with emotion. “You are not staying with your brother?”

“My usual rooms are being remodeled,” he lied. “Besides, I shall be returning to Somerset shortly, when my business in London is accomplished.”

She made a noncommittal noise as the coachman climbed down to open the door and lower the step.

“When may I expect the second test?” he asked as he stiffly rose.

“Soon,” she said, still avoiding his gaze. “I need time to think.”

He hid a smile. It appeared his cooperation had been more effective than he had hoped. Perhaps gaining her forgiveness would not be so difficult after all. “Of course. I am at your disposal, Miss Watkin.”

He clambered down, leg protesting, then turned to bid her farewell. “Perhaps we will see each other about town.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, once more distant.

“I hope we can be civil?” he tried.

She nodded, but her look was far away. “Yes, civil. I think I can manage civil, Mr. Darby.”

He bowed, and the coachman set about his duties of raising the step and closing the door. Jareth raised a hand in salute as they drove off. Then he limped around the hotel for the seamier part of London.

His knee, he found once he reached the dark little room, was merely raw. A good cleansing and a compress made from one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs finished it up nicely. His trousers, however, were ruined. A shame, as that meant he had only three left—the dove gray, the blue velvet, and his chamois pair. He could only hope he could get the dirt out of his coat. It was one of four left to him.

He congratulated himself on being once more immaculate as he made his way back to Mayfair. He was pleased to find his brother at Darby House and enjoying a late luncheon.

“Ah, Jareth,” Justinian greeted. “Have Baines fill you a plate. I can wait.”

The footman hurried forward to comply. He piled up the bone china with shaved beef, lamb brisket, and poached salmon along with sundry breads and cheeses. The fellow had evidently noticed how Jareth had been eating, for the plate groaned under the weight. Did he truly appear so starved? The grim reminder of his circumstances nearly turned his stomach, but he allowed the footman to place the food before him and spread his damask napkin with every intention of doing the repast justice.

“What have you been up to all morning?” his brother asked.

“Entertaining Miss Watkin,” Jareth supplied between mouthfuls. “And if you hear rumors to the contrary, please deny that I have typhus.”

Justinian choked.

Hoping to forestall questions, Jareth went on to tell his brother of the morning’s escapades. Justinian shook his head as he finished.

“It must have been quite amusing,” his brother said. “But I fail to see how you convince the ton you are changed if you appear to be chasing after Miss Watkin.”

“I needn’t convince the ton,” Jareth replied. “I merely need to convince Miss Watkin. You wished me to gain her forgiveness, did you not? This was her price, at least in part.”

“I shudder to think what else she would have you do.”

“Only a few more such tests, the content of which are a strictly guarded secret. I begin to believe not even Miss Watkin knows what they are yet.”

Justinian frowned. “She seems intent on making you pay. I take it you have remembered when you wronged her. What exactly passed between the two of you?”

Jareth paused. “Do you know, Justinian, I ask myself the same thing?” He started to explain the situation to his brother, then remembered the footman standing silently at the sideboard. He doubted Justinian would hire jabbermouths, but Eloise seemed so intent on keeping their liaison secret that he could not trust speaking of it before anyone. She would never forgive him if she thought he’d spread gossip.

“I thought I was the only one injured,” he told his brother, purposely keeping the matter vague. “Yet she seems incensed by the memory.”

Justinian obviously had no concerns as to the silence of his staff on family matters. “Incensed? Why? I cannot imagine you would pressure a woman to accept your advances. God knows, you have precious little need with the numbers who throw themselves at you.”

Jareth frowned. Had he pressured Eloise into their ill-timed passion in the hayloft? He could remember the scene all too easily. Their courage in meeting had been growing; she had managed to slip away during the day this time, but insisted that she could only stay a moment. As had been happening frequently of late, he had found his time with her maddeningly short and had followed her back to the stable.

“Are you insane?” she’d hissed when she’d seen him in the breezeway between the stalls. “Do you have any idea what will happen if we are caught?”

He hadn’t cared. Coaxing and crooning, he’d lured her up into the loft. Sweet kisses melted in the fire of their embrace. Going beyond kissing had seemed natural, right, the culmination of his dreams.

When the deed was actually accomplished, however, the passion on her beautiful face had broken for a moment into fear. At the time he had put it down to a fear of getting caught and kissed the look away. But if in fact she had been too afraid of him to say no, it might explain the reactions she had to him now.

“Jareth?” his brother urged, setting down his nearly empty cup of tea. “Answer me. Do you have more to apologize to Miss Watkin for than you originally thought?”

He shook his head. “I am no longer certain.”

“What does Miss Watkin say?”

“She makes veiled hints but says very little.”

His brother looked thoughtful, reminding Jareth of the scholar Justinian had once been. “Perhaps you should attempt to speak with Lady Hastings. She knew Miss Watkin at school, did she not?”

Jareth nodded. But he made his brother no promises. The Marchioness of Hastings would have sooner spit in his eye as give him the time of day, and he knew it. It was a very good thing Justinian hadn’t added her to the list, or he’d be sunk.

But the idea of understanding what drove Eloise was a good one. He needed to know what she held against him, why their past seemed so painful to her. Surely that could help him persuade her to forgive him.

Yet something told him that, in wanting to learn more about Eloise, he had another motive entirely.

Chapter Nine

Eloise also considered her motivations. Teaching Jareth a lesson was harder than she had thought. He reacted unexpectedly. He had experienced the humiliation and turned it into a merry prank. He had discussed their past as if it meant as much to him as it did to her, only to turn around and deny the very things she’d thought they’d shared. How could she possibly understand such a man?

She was more concerned, however, that what she did not understand she found strangely appealing. He was as witty as always; she found it difficult to frown at his jests. There was no denying his sense of the ridiculous, and she envied him his ability to laugh at difficult circumstances.

She also could not deny his attractiveness. Even dirtied and bloodied, he’d been adorable. Sitting in the coach, it had been all she could do not to reach across and smooth down his pale hair. She had always thought a man’s hair would be somehow rougher than a woman’s, but Jareth’s had always felt like satin. Would it still feel so good to her senses?

She shook herself. She could not be so foolish as to fall under his spell again! She must remember why she had set herself on this path of righteousness. His betrayal was a fact. His dalliance with other women was legendary. Even if his reformation was the truth, he had a great deal for which to atone.

“One part of our conversation truly puzzles me,” she confided in Cleo the next afternoon as she visited her friend in the sunny sitting room of the Hastings’s townhouse. “He suggested that I ask someone else about his affair with Lady Hendricks. How could that help him?”

“I cannot see that it would,” Cleo replied, spreading her spring green gown to settle herself more comfortably on the rosewood settee. “Besides, you hardly have to ferret out the information. The gossip is so rampant now that he has returned that anyone could tell you the tale.”

“Too many would be happy to tell me,” Eloise confirmed. “How could I be certain what they say is the truth?”

Cleo nodded. “I have heard six versions of the story already. Lord Nathaniel told me one just before you called.”