Chivalrous Rake, Scandalous Lady

‘Spoken to me of what?’ Jemma implored whilst raising her expressive jade-green eyes heavenwards. She knew Lucy’s brother, Philip Duncan, of course, because the fellow had offered for her hand in marriage when she’d been a débutante. Jemma had always thought Philip had taken the rejection reasonably well at the time; she hadn’t imagined he’d brood on it for five years before retaliating and slandering her to his friends.

‘Philip Duncan has been boasting that you are trying to extract from him another marriage proposal.’

A hoot of genuine amusement escaped from Jemma and was swiftly smothered by a shapely, gloved hand. ‘I don’t for one minute believe that he would broadcast anything so utterly idiotic and false,’ she spluttered through muffling fingers.

‘I’m only repeating what Lucy said.’ Maura sounded quite miffed that her courage in divulging the grave news had been rewarded with hilarity.

‘I’m not disbelieving you,’ Jemma said gently as a few of her fingers lazily tested the quality of striped dimity. The other hand was busy wiping mirthful tears from her eyes. ‘Some misunderstanding has occurred. I haven’t clapped eyes on Philip in months, and last time I passed him in Pall Mall he was no more than polite. He was escorting Verity Smith and looking quite her lapdog too. Any hankering he had for me is very much in the past.’

‘Apparently that’s what he said to Graham Quick,’ Maura blurted. ‘Lucy heard Philip telling Mr Quick that you are the one hankering and chasing after him.’ Maura had noticed that a dangerous glint had replaced the humorous twinkle in Jemma’s eyes. Quickly she sought to defuse her cousin’s temper. ‘I don’t know what Lucy’s brother is thinking to invite such a fellow in to his lodgings. Mrs Duncan and Lucy often visit him there. Philip was furious when he discovered his landlady had let Lucy in alone and she’d been loitering in his hallway, listening to every word they’d said.’ Maura paused, added with an excited shiver, ‘Lucy nearly came face to face with Graham Quick! When she heard him coming she had to hide in a cloakroom till he’d gone. But Philip guessed she’d been eavesdropping all along.’

Jemma knew what had prompted such a thrill in her cousin. Graham Quick was an infamous reprobate and shunned in polite society. Most young women only knew of him by reputation and had never met him in the flesh. Their parents and brothers made sure of that. The fact that Philip Duncan had mentioned her name, let alone discussed her with such a blackguard, had stoked Jemma’s disgust to such a degree that she felt rather bilious.

‘Lucy said Philip mentioned having received a letter. It invited him to renew his proposal to you. By all accounts he thought it comical. He showed Mr Quick the letter and said he had no intention of rescuing you or any other…’ Maura’s fluid, whispered account came to a halt as her teeth sank in to her lower lip.

‘Or any other…?’ Jemma prompted, with a fierce frown, her eyes shining with suppressed temper. She was very aware of the group of women close by.

‘Or any other uppity chit destined to be an old maid abandoned on the shelf,’ Maura recited on a regretful sigh. She shot Jemma a sympathetic look. ‘As if you would be interested in Philip now! He’s going bald and he’s grown too fat to get his waistcoat buttons done up properly, whereas you are still as trim and lovely as ever you were at seventeen.’ Maura patted her cousin’s slender arm in a show of solidarity. ‘Why, you’re not yet twenty-three and could outshine any of the girls out this year.’

Her cousin’s extravagant compliment did nothing to ease Jemma’s sense of outrage. Her fingers had stiffened on the crisp fabric beneath them. The healthy bloom in her cheeks had reduced to two high spots of wrathful colour on a complexion that resembled parchment. ‘He said what? He did what? How dare he talk about me! How dare he even mention my name to a vile libertine such as Graham Quick!’

‘You might not like Mr Quick, but he seems to admire you,’ Lucy blurted thoughtlessly. ‘By all accounts Lucy heard him praising your figure and its…best points.’

‘Did he, indeed!’ Jemma’s soft mouth thrust in to a rosy knot. ‘I have to tell you I don’t regard that as a compliment.’

‘You didn’t send Philip Duncan a letter, did you?’

Such an audacious act was outside the role of any gently bred young lady, yet a shade of doubt had tinged Maura’s tone and drawn a wintry look from Jemma. Maura’s timid hazel eyes flinched away from her cousin’s stormy stare.

‘I did not,’ Jemma enunciated through perfect pearly teeth perilously set on edge. ‘Send him a letter?’ she scoffed. ‘Propose to him? The man must be addled in his wits.’

‘He had a letter. Lucy saw it being waved about. I don’t think he is lying about that. Someone is being very mean, aren’t they?’ Maura chewed anxiously at her lip. ‘Who would do such a vile thing?’

‘I don’t know, but unfortunately now I must find out.’

Maura knew that her cousin Jemma had a formidable temper once she was roused to action by a sense of injustice. She cast an anxious glance back at the ladies she’d recently been with. Thankfully, the older women had decamped, probably to regroup in the shop across the street where they might continue to savour this latest tale unobserved by its central character. Only Lucy Duncan and Deborah Cleveland remained and now seemed more interested in shopping than gossiping as they unravelled shimmering sapphire satin to cascade over the counter.

The two young ladies also drew Jemma’s ferocious feline gaze. As she frowned in their direction it was Deborah Cleveland who raised her flaxen head and met her stare. She could tell that the young woman was attempting to signal with her eyes that she was sorry for what had gone on.

Tension tightened Jemma’s stomach. She had always thought Deborah very pretty and had no reason not to like her. In fact, on the rare occasions they’d met in the past they’d exchanged a few cordial words that had hinted at a fledgling friendship, but Deborah was several years younger than she was. At eighteen, an heiress, and one of this season’s top débutantes, Deborah inhabited a different world to Jemma. Deborah had just become engaged to a handsome and most eligible bachelor. She was accordingly very popular and much fêted by the beau monde despite the fact that many of the young ladies striving to be her friend were envious that she’d netted such a catch. The most eligible bachelor, now spoken for, was another reason why Jemma and Deborah might elect to keep at a polite distance.

Jemma had received several proposals during the Season she’d made her come out. Philip Duncan had been just one of several gentlemen who’d offered for her and been rejected. Few of her suitors had made any lasting impression on her; in fact now, just five years later, Jemma struggled to recall all of their names.

But one had intrigued and very much attracted her. When a novice socialite of just seventeen, he had drawn her in to a glittering, sophisticated world now denied to her. He’d taught her to dance properly, given her the confidence to converse with his aristocratic friends and relatives. Her little inexperienced gaffes were never mocked, but gently corrected or smoothed over. When she’d nervously enquired if he’d heard the scandalous talk about her family, he’d mildly replied that her parents’ problems were not hers. Utterly relieved that he knew, but had elected to dismiss the Bailey stigma as irrelevant, she’d abandoned herself to enjoying being with him, aware that other débutantes watched, green-eyed, whilst he lavished on her his amusing, charismatic company. He’d made her laugh…and sigh when he’d taken her out to the garden during Lady Cranleigh’s ball. There had been other occasions too when he’d managed to manoeuvre her, quite willingly, into a seductive setting, but she’d remained faithful to Robert, her faithless sweetheart.

So she’d rejected Marcus Speer’s proposal too and gone home to Essex unattached with her father’s disapproval growling in her ears. Now Marcus was betrothed to Deborah Cleveland. No doubt later today he would be told by his fiancée of an amusing bit of gossip she’d heard whilst out shopping with her friends. Jemma swallowed the painful indignation that threatened to close her throat and eject water from her hot eyes. She had done nothing shameful and didn’t deserve to be laughed at by anyone. She could not bear that he, of all people, might find her risible. Would he believe her so desperate now to get a husband that she’d stoop to sending a letter to a fat, balding fellow, known to keep company with the worst kind of people, to beg him to renew his proposal? Shaking off Maura’s restraining fingers, she marched towards the young women, determined to impress on them both that there was no truth in any of it, no matter what Lucy had overheard her brother telling his repulsive friend.

* * *

‘Sir…please, sir…you must attend to some of your pressing affairs. It will take but a quarter of an hour of your time. If you will only join me in the library, we can clear the worst of it.’

Marcus Speer strode on into the house, his handsome features tautened in preoccupation. Adroitly he relieved himself of his coat and hat without slowing his pace. The butler fielded those garments wordlessly and made off towards the cloakroom with them.

Marcus’s secretary, Hepworth, was less easily dispatched than Perkins had been. He doggedly bore being ignored and skipped behind his master, trying to keep up with his long stride whilst repeating his pleas to make him deal with his correspondence. ‘Some social invitations for this very evening must have urgent replies,’ he huffed.

Marcus came to a halt and pivoted about with a frown. ‘What?’ His thick dark brows were knit together in a mix of irritation and concentration. He had just arrived home from visiting the Earl of Gresham, his uncle, who, having relapsed overnight, was now deemed by his physician to be on his deathbed. The Earl had been called an old fraud before when he’d clawed his way back to health from a lung infection virulent enough to see off a man half his age. But on this occasion his nephew, and Dr Robertson, had offered no gentle banter to encourage the septuagenarian to stop coughing and take a spoon of gruel. It was plain to see that the Earl of Gresham had taken his last meal and was close to taking his final breath. He was mortally ill and drifting in and out of consciousness. Dr Robertson had sent Marcus home to rest. In his professional opinion he estimated that his patient might battle on for a day or two yet, for his pulse was still quite strong. He’d advised Marcus to return to Grosvenor Square in the morning, and if he were needed sooner at his uncle’s bedside to be with him at the end, he’d swiftly summon him.

So it was a deep and sombre melancholy rather than bad manners that had made Marcus ignore his secretary’s pleas to go with him to dictate some correspondence. Marcus cast a look down on Hepworth’s sparse pate. The man pushed his spectacles up over the bridge of his nose and myopically returned his gaze.

‘Just fifteen minutes of your time, sir, and we can at least deal with those matters pertaining to the next few days.’ Hepworth’s tone was wheedling.

Marcus gave a brisk nod and, turning on his heel headed towards the library. Whilst they walked he started on the business in hand the quicker to get it over with. ‘With regard to any social invitations that fall within the next fortnight, you may decline all on my behalf.’ He stooped to retrieve a document that had fluttered to the floor despite Hepworth’s contortions to catch at it.

‘I have that, sir. All to be declined.’ A look of enlightenment suddenly crossed Hepworth’s features and his mouth drooped sadly. ‘Oh…your uncle, sir…beg pardon, I omitted to ask how he is,’ Hepworth whispered, aghast. ‘He has rallied before and I’ve always believed the Earl to be indestructible, you know.’

A half-smile softened Marcus’s thin lips at the genuine distress in Hepworth’s tone. As the Earl of Gresham’s rightful heir, Marcus understood that he now had important matters to attend to. He’d been quick to slip away from the sick-room in order to begin the inevitable business with undertakers and lawyers. It wasn’t his inheritance or the ambition of having a title that had hastened his departure from Grosvenor Square, but the need to escape the distressing truth that he was soon to lose someone who’d treated him as a son. He’d been unashamed to love the Earl in return. No man ever had a better guardian and mentor.

A combination of Marcus’s innate pride and ambition and his uncle’s guidance and excellent connections meant that by the time he was twenty-five he’d achieved wealth, status, and popularity. With his thirty-second birthday only a few months away all he’d lacked until now was a title and a wife. Soon both would be his, yet he desired neither. Slowly he became aware that his secretary’s bleak gaze was still fixed on his face. ‘There is no hope this time,’ he told Hepworth gruffly. ‘He is dying.’ He cleared his throat to continue. ‘Dr Robertson has sent me away for the Earl is slipping in to a coma. He thinks that I should return in the morning, although he cannot say for sure how long he has.’

Hepworth bowed his head, shook it, and murmured his regrets. He had clung to the hope that the old boy might surprise them all by springing back to life as the weather became more clement. It was early April and outside gloriously mild and bright for so early in the year. The daffodils had been showy for weeks beneath radiant light and cloudless skies. In contrast the atmosphere within this grand mansion on Beaufort Place was depressingly gloomy and grave.

Having entered the library, they headed for the large table and took their customary seats: Marcus at the head of the table and Hepworth positioned to one side of him. Briskly Hepworth spread out papers on tooled leather. He sorted them into piles. ‘Those I have an answer for,’ he muttered to himself, putting a stack of gilt-edged invitation cards to one side and flattening them with a pat.

He came to one letter and unfolded it. ‘Ah…this one…’ He coughed and a finger worked inside his cravat to ease it from his flushing neck. He did not relish broaching this subject. ‘Umm…it seems a delicate matter, sir, and I would have left it to you to open had I known the nature of its content.’ He pushed the paper over leather towards his employer. ‘It had nothing on the outside to mark it as personal, I’m afraid.’

Marcus idly picked up the paper, quickly scanned it, let it drop, and for a moment made no comment. His expression remained inscrutable, yet, as though in disbelief at what he’d seen, he stared into space before snatching it up again and rereading it. Aware that Hepworth was discreetly regarding him over the rims of his spectacles, he let the paper fall back to the table. ‘I think it must be a joke in very poor taste. You may ignore that one. I will personally deal with the matter.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ Hepworth agreed with a sage nod whilst diplomatically keeping his eyes on the documents he was shuffling.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, and true to his word to be expedient, Hepworth had all the instructions he needed for the time being and told his employer so. Politely he took his leave and exited the room, quite aware that once he had gone his newly betrothed master would remain a while and again study the shocking note from Theodore Wyndham that invited Mr Speer a renewal of a marriage proposal to his cousin and ward, Miss Jemma Bailey.

Chapter Two

A rustle of skirts disturbed the quiet in the hallway. Marcus turned his head to glimpse a shimmering banner of chestnut hair waving behind a willowy figure dressed in blue. His harsh dark features became cruelly sardonic. He might not have seen Jemma Bailey in some while, but he’d immediately recognised her before she’d slipped out of sight. So the shameless chit was here, too, and so eager to discover if she’d hooked him that she’d been patrolling the hallway to spy on his arrival. Moments after she’d disappeared from view Marcus heard a door click softly shut as she concealed herself. His eyes remained riveted to the far end of the empty corridor as he battled with an urge to go after her, drag her from her hiding place and demand to know what in damnation she thought she was playing at. She’d turned his life upside down once before, and he wasn’t about to let her do so again.

‘Mr Wyndham will see you now, sir.’ The butler had returned and, by repeating himself, drew Mr Speer’s narrowed silver eyes from glaring into the distance. Manwell led the way to a room adjacent to the bottom of the stairs and, conscious of the hostility crackling in the atmosphere, promptly withdrew. A moment later he crept back, putting his head to the mahogany panels. After a moment of intense concentration, as he strained to listen with his good ear, he realised he was being observed by one of the parlourmaids. Shooting upright, he stalked off.

* * *

‘Please, sit down, you will feel calmer in a moment.’ Maura tried to gently ease Jemma down into the chair by the window in her bedchamber.

Her cousin resisted any such attempt to be seated or to be calm and continued to stamp a channel in the rug’s pile as back and forth across its width she went. Her face and manner betrayed her anguish, but failed to fully describe the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that kept her fists curling and uncurling at her sides. Her eyes were tightly closed to prevent tears of rage and mortification from again dribbling on to her cheeks.

‘How could he do this to me!’ Jemma gritted out for what seemed to be the hundredth time. ‘That my own kin should humiliate me in such a way is…is insufferable! Abominable!’

Maura’s hands were agitatedly twisting in front of her. Up until a short while ago she had maintained that there must be some mistake or misunderstanding. Her brother surely could not be guilty of such underhand behaviour. Of course, Theo had made no secret of the fact he wished to see his cousin Jemma wed before she got much older, or much poorer. But to go to such lengths as to try to arrange a match behind her back was indeed outrageous, as was his choice of prospective bridegrooms. Contacting spurned suitors from Jemma’s past was undeniably embarrassing for her.