Drops of Gold (15 page)

Mr. Jonquil smiled vaguely but didn’t speak. His gaze wandered around the room but inevitably slid back to her. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday, Mary?” he asked quietly, his eyes once again avoiding hers. “I would have liked to . . .” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Did you have a good birthday? All things considered?”

“I did, sir.” She wanted to reach out and take his hand but held herself in check.

“No, Mary.” He turned back to her in an instant. “Not ‘sir.’ Not when it’s just me here.”

“But it wouldn’t be—”

“I just . . . I need . . . I need you to be a . . . friend, Mary. Someone I can . . . Someone to talk to.” Mr. Jonquil paced in a tight circle, obviously uncomfortable and noticeably in earnest. “Not ‘Mr. Jonquil.’ Not ‘sir.’”

“Should I call you ‘guv’nuh,’ then?”

Mr. Jonquil smiled again, precisely as she’d hoped he would. “‘Layton’ would be fine, would be
splendid
, actually.”

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Just for now,” he quickly explained. “I . . . I’ll . . . I’ll understand if you can’t . . . I mean, if you don’t want to . . . or don’t think . . .”

Marion rose from her chair and crossed to where he stood running his fingers through his hair. She laid a hand on his arm and smiled up at him. They stood there, eyes locked for a moment, and the lines on his face softened.

“Layton does fit you much better than ‘guv’nuh.’”

“I should hope so. Though—and I know I’ll probably regret this—‘Mary’ somehow doesn’t suit you.”

He looked so suddenly apprehensive that Marion had to laugh. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound.

“I take it, then, I haven’t offended you.” His smile was almost boyish.

“My given name is Marion,” she explained.

“Marion,” he repeated on a whisper. He brushed his fingers along her cheek, which, of course, made her heart race even more and her cheeks heat. Half in love? Marion wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t all the way there. “Marion.” He smiled gently. “Yes. That suits you much better.”

“I was named for my grandparents: Mary and Ian. And why I just told you that, I have no idea.” Marion felt her flush deepen.

“Probably because I told you all the minute details of my life.” Layton shrugged, his hand dropping back to his side again. “Paying me back in kind, I suppose.”

“You want all the sordid details of my past, then?” Marion retraced her steps, retaking her seat and her sewing. She was not particularly anxious to sew, but her heart had begun throbbing almost painfully at Layton’s closeness, and she needed a moment’s reprieve.

“Yes.” Layton sat with an air of authority. “I believe I do want all the sordid details.”

Double dungers!
This could get sticky. Marion thought of the forged references she had given to Mrs. Sanders, of the various white lies she’d uttered since her arrival, a handful of facts she’d conveniently left out the few times she’d been compelled to speak of her history.

“There is not much to tell, I’m afraid.”

“Which county did you call home as a child?” Layton—she liked having leave to think of him that way—obviously didn’t mean to let her off so easily.

“Derbyshire.” Marion wondered if he heard her longing. She missed home. “I’ve left that county only once in all my life. Before now, that is.”

“I have been to Derbyshire many times. Whereabouts in that county?”

“Near Swarkestone,” Marion replied. That was true enough. She prayed he didn’t ask for any details.

“You’ve lived there all your life?” He watched her with obvious curiosity. Could he sense her reluctance to continue this line of conversation? Would he wonder why?

Marion nodded. “My father took me to London once when I was very young, younger than Caroline, in fact. That was the last time I left the area I still think of as home, until I was grown and needed employment.”

“Why did you need employment, Marion?” Then, almost under his breath, Layton added, “That name is so much better.”

Marion had to smile. She agreed with him on
that
point. “Why does anyone need employment?” Marion philosophized. “My financial situation quite suddenly reversed. It was either work or starve. I felt working the preferable course of action.”

“Your family is genteel, then?”

“Quite.” She had no intention of divulging more than that. “I once had dreams of putting servants in their places rather than being the humble recipient of such censure myself.” She smiled, probably a little wistfully. She had had so many dreams once upon a time.

“Haven’t you any siblings who might have looked after you?” Layton looked concerned, watching her with a level of scrutiny that made her nervous. There was only so much she could tell him without risking everything she’d worked for. “Surely your father must object to your seeking employment.”

Lud, wouldn’t he! “My father’s objections have been rendered quite moot,” Marion said.

“Ignoring his wishes—”

“My father is dead.” She quickly got to her feet, suddenly very tired of the interrogation. “I do not wear gray because I am fond of it, nor because of my lowly station, which I assure you I do not need to be reminded of.”

“Forgive me, Marion.” The next moment, he stood beside her, taking the half-finished dress from her clenched hands and laying it carefully along an arm of the nearest chair. He looked at her, his embarrassment obvious. “I didn’t realize . . . I hadn’t intended to be unfeeling.”

Now what had brought on the tears? Marion turned away from him, blinking furiously in an attempt to keep her emotions hidden.

“This is a recent loss, then?” Layton asked gently.

Marion nodded and brushed a fingertip across her cheek. She hadn’t actually cried over her father’s death in several months. What wretched timing!

“Did he leave you nothing, my dear?” She felt his light touch on her arms, just below the shoulder, as he spoke behind her. “Nothing for you to live on? Some kind of dowry?”

“He was a good man.” Marion fought the urge to lean back against him, to share the burden of all she’d lost in the past twelvemonth. He seemed to care about her, seemed genuinely concerned for her. Would he object if she sought support? If she laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed out all the pain she’d buried inside herself during those, the worst three months of her life and the nearly nine that had followed since? She sighed at the uncertainty of it all and felt his fingers close a little more tightly around her arms. “My father was not one for planning ahead, I am afraid. He most likely assumed there would be ample time to provide for my future.”

“I can be a procrastinator, Marion.” Layton’s breath ruffled the hair on the back of her head. “But I have already seen to Caroline’s affairs, should something happen to me. It was arranged before she was born, signed the day of her birth. As her father, I could do no less. It would have been inexcusable.”

Marion turned to face him, careful to step back a little to put some much-needed distance between them. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since he’d interrupted her sewing some several minutes earlier. “Tell me, Layton. If you’d been faced with adjusting your will and arranging for future guardians and trustees for Caroline shortly after your late wife had died, could you have done it?”

She saw his face pale significantly and wondered if she’d erred in bringing up such a difficult subject. He seemed to struggle with an answer but finally managed.

“I would like to say I could have, would have done so somehow. Perhaps after a little time had passed.” He shifted awkwardly. “I suppose I’m not entirely certain I would have been up to it. Her passing . . .
weighed
on me. Everything was hard after that, overwhelming.”

“Exactly,” Marion answered knowingly, her own thoughts filled with an “overwhelming” period in her own family’s life. “After my mother died”—a break in her voice gave away her uncharacteristically raw emotions—“my father felt that same way. His melancholy grew over the months and years. He began neglecting things no gentleman would—even his children. It was as if his entire world had collapsed when Mother died, and he hadn’t had the will to repair it. I believe he had always intended to make provisions for me when I was a little older, not wanting to think about death any sooner than he must. He hadn’t anticipated—”

She couldn’t finish. What a watering pot she had turned into! She offered a wet smile and a shrug of her shoulders at her own tumultuous emotions. He smiled a little shakily at her as well.

“What of your siblings?”

“A brother, three years older than myself. Robert. His future was written into Father’s will when he left for Harrow. Mother died only a few months after he began there.”

“Yes, you told me your father had gone to fetch him back when . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He seemed to recover himself. “Robert couldn’t take you in? Provide for you from his inheritance?”

Marion shook her head.

“He would be only twenty-three,” Layton said. “Certainly he cannot have a large family to support already. Was his inheritance so paltry?”

She took a breath before forcing her answer. “Robert was buried the same day as Father.” She simply let the tears flow. “They were buried beside Mother. My entire family lies in the frozen ground in Derbyshire now. And I am here.”

She took a breath that came out as a sob.

“Oh, Marion.” There was no pity in his tone, only heartfelt understanding. This man who had lost so much as well. That made the tears fall faster.

Layton remained beside her, brushing back a strand of hair as he handed her a handkerchief.

“I hope Caroline really did scrape all her junk off,” Marion said with a tear-stained laugh.

Layton’s chuckle joined hers. “You are refreshing, Marion.” He smiled as she dabbed her eyes. “Bridget could never have laughed in the midst of her tears. At the end, there, the tears never stopped.”

“My mother always said, if given the choice between crying and laughing, she’d much rather laugh.”

“A philosophy I believe you embrace as well.”

“Religiously,” Marion admitted, her smile still watery but a little easier to conjure.

Layton’s face grew quite serious. “Teach me, Marion,” he said, hand cupping her jaw. “I need to laugh again.”

“I have heard you laugh,” she said, heart suddenly fluttering in her throat.

“That has been your doing.” His thumb lightly brushed her cheek. “You are changing us all, performing your miracles.”

His eyes fastened on hers, and his hand remained gently against her face. Not another word escaped him as he watched her, though she heard his breathing pick up pace. Hers followed suit. His gaze dropped for a moment to her lips before his jaw seemed to set and his eyes closed.

“I should go,” he said with something like a frustrated sigh.

“It is getting late,” Marion conceded, torn between wishing he would stay and feeling grateful that the tension he seemed to bring into the room would leave with him.

Layton nodded and stepped back. He took a long, deep breath. Marion did the same, but it didn’t help. Her heart still fluttered, her mind felt muddled.

“I will scrape my junk off your linen and return it to you,” she offered with a smile.

“Keep the handkerchief, Marion,” he said, his look still intense.

“Keep it?” Snippets of a conversation with Caroline about gentlemen and handkerchiefs echoed in her mind, and her heart began pounding harder. He wanted her to keep it? As a token of some sort?

A sort of strangled moan resonated from Layton’s throat. He crossed to her in two long strides, pulled her to him in a single fluid motion and kissed her, lips to lips, gentle, anxious, and far too short-lived.

“Keep it, Marion,” he whispered as he pulled away then spun on his heels and left.

The spicy scent of him lingered after he’d gone. Marion lightly brushed her fingers along her lips. He’d kissed her! Kissed her on the mouth! And had given her his handkerchief.

Marion wrapped her arms around her waist, letting the tiniest of squeals escape as she spun in a circle. As improbable as she might have thought it an hour earlier, it seemed Layton felt the same as she did. Maybe, just maybe, he loved her too!

Layton knew he was scowling. He hadn’t slept a single minute of the previous night, his mind too full of Marion.
Marion.
Though he’d tried to convince himself otherwise, Layton was in love with her. She made him smile and laugh, somehow managed to free him now and then from his usual despondency. And what had he done? He’d kissed her! Therefore, Layton was scowling.

He, who had always prided himself on being a gentleman, had kissed a gently bred young lady who resided under his roof and hadn’t a relative to her name to protect her. “If I ever hear you’ve mistreated a lady, young or otherwise, I’ll box your ears until you cry like a little girl,” Father had told each of his sons in turn before they’d left home for school at the start of each term. He’d always smiled as he said it, but they knew he meant it.

The only time Father had ever taken a switch to Layton had been after just such an occurrence. With Bridget, actually. When Layton was eight, Bridget had bested him quite soundly in a rock-skipping competition and had boasted of it for an overlong time, it had seemed to him. So he’d pushed her in the river. Father had tanned his hide after making him apologize to Bridget and Mr. and Mrs. Sarvol. It was one of the more humiliating encounters of his young life. But, to Father’s credit, Layton had never misused a female since. That is, until Marion and that kiss.

Ah, that kiss. It had been utterly earth-shattering. Any doubts he’d harbored about his feelings for Marion had disappeared in that moment, not simply because he’d enjoyed kissing her, which he certainly had, but because the impossibility of their story having a happy ending had hit him so forcefully, and the realization hurt more than he could have imagined. It still hurt. If he’d felt less for her than he did, the pain wouldn’t have been so intense.

She came from a genteel family, that much had been established. But genteel was hardly sufficient to overcome the unavoidable scandal that would arise from a marriage, for that was what he truly wished for with Marion. He had been out of society for so long that his own standing wasn’t enough. They’d be ostracized. Bridget’s untimely and somewhat suspicious passing would be brought up again. He’d gone to London briefly the autumn after she’d died to see to some business matters, and he’d more than once stumbled on a conversation speculating on what had led to Bridget’s death.