Fanning the Flame (37 page)

"I wish I didn't love him," Maggie said softly. "I tried not to. I don't know how it happened."

But Sophie knew. Garth Dutton was handsome, intelligent, and charming. And Sophie believed he was equally enamored of her niece. She glanced toward the small settee where Maggie sat with her feet curled beneath her, her lovely face streaked with tears. Setting her teacup aside, Sophie walked behind the settee and began to pull the pins from her niece's long black hair.

"Sometimes things work out," Sophie said. "You mustn't give up hope just yet." She spread Maggie's hair out over the arm of the settee. "Why don't you try to rest? Perhaps later, you will feel better."

And Sophie was going to make certain that she did. She was going to make sure that Adam didn't go through with his ridiculous notion of marrying a scandal-ridden woman like Jillian Whitney.

Adam meandered around the house, missing Jillian, feeling moody and out of sorts. Early hours spent at Tattersall's, bidding on a fresh crop of horses, had helped ease his restlessness, but now that he was home, he'd begun to feel edgy again. Jillian was gone and the house seemed empty without her.

He couldn't believe it had been only days since he'd discovered that he was in love with her. Until the heart-stopping moment he had thought he would lose her, he hadn't realized how deeply he cared. He was passionately, hopelessly in love with her but perhaps equally important, he trusted her. In Jillian, he had found a woman he admired and respected, one who could give him back his long ago dream of having a family.

He smiled as he thought of the shopping he meant to do that afternoon and the wedding ring he meant to purchase. As he walked out of the drawing room, his thoughts were so far away he almost ran into little Christopher Derry.

"Chris! I didn't see you." He smiled. "I guess my mind was somewhere else."

Christopher smiled back a little shyly. "Did you plant your new orchid yet? I was hoping . . . I thought maybe I could see it."

Adam had mentioned the arrival of an orchid he had been expecting from India. Now he studied the small, brown-haired boy, marveling at the fact a child Chris's age would have an interest in flowers. Oddly, at about the same age, Adam had already planted a small garden of his own.

"I suppose it wouldn't take long for you to have a look." Together they walked outside to the greenhouse and over to the newly repotted purple ruffled orchid.

"They're supposed to be kept cool and dry in the winter after they bloom. I guess we'll have to try it and see."

The boy looked up at him, his eyes big and solemn. "Will I still be living with you when winter comes?"

Adam didn't like the worry in the little boy's face. He knelt beside him. "We may be back at Blackwood Manor by then, but wherever we are, you'll have a home with us, Chris. You don't have to worry about that."

Chris's gaze still seemed troubled. "Will Miss Whitney be there, too?"

Something tightened in his chest. "I hope so, Chris." But he wasn't completely certain. He was in love with Jillian, but he wasn't exactly sure of Jillian’s feelings for him. She desired him, yes. But love? Adam had learned well enough that love and passion were two very different things.

"She isn't mad at us, is she?"

"No, son. She's just off visiting friends. With any luck at all, she'll be living with us again very soon."

Christopher Derry grinned and Adam blinked. For an instant, it was like looking at a reflection in the mirror. An uneasy feeling swept over him. What if Christopher were truly his son?

He imagined the years the boy had lived with a father who abused him, when Chris didn't have enough to eat. Adam reached down and took Christopher's hand. It felt small and warm, and something loosened inside him. Soon he would be married. In time, he would have a child of his own. Memories of Caroline and Robert no longer plagued him as they had for so many years.

Thinking of Jillian and the future he hoped lay ahead, somehow it seemed less important that Christopher Derry was Robert Hawthorne's son.

Jillian walked down the long marble corridor of Rathmore Hall toward the elegant Persian Salon. It was early afternoon. The sun was shining for the first time in days, and yet she felt uneasy, as she had since her arrival.

The wariness heightened as she continued along the hall toward the woman who awaited. Only a few minutes had passed since the butler, a bald, bushy eye-browed man named Henderson, had summoned her to the drawing room, informing her that Lady Sophia Hawthorne had arrived to see her. It was a matter, Henderson said, that appeared to be of some importance.

Jillian's heartbeat kicked into a faster rhythm, her intuition telling her something was wrong, yet she couldn't for the life of her imagine the reason the woman wished to see her.

Silently Jillian stepped into the beautiful Persian Salon, a high-ceilinged room with walls and columns of black-and-gold marble. "Lady Sophia?"

The silver-haired woman turned to face her. "Yes, dear. I know I should have sent word that I wished to see you, but one of the benefits of old age is being humored in small breaches of etiquette such as this."

"It's very nice to meet you. Henderson is bringing tea. Would you like to sit down?"

Spine-straight though she had probably shrunk several inches over the years, Lady Sophia sat down on the sofa and Jillian took a seat across from her. Tea arrived a few minutes later. Jillian poured each of them a cup, then sat back down in her chair.

"Henderson said the matter you wished to discuss was of some importance."

"And so it is." Lady Sophia took a sip of her tea. "I've come to speak to you about an affair of the heart." She set her porcelain cup and saucer down on the black lacquer table beside her chair. "You've met my niece, Lady Margaret?"

"Yes. I like her very much."

"She likes you, too. Margaret is a wonderful girl. Not merely beautiful and intelligent but also kind and thoughtful. Margaret is the sort of child who looks out for everyone's happiness but her own."

Jillian sipped her tea, hoping it would ease her nervousness. "I'm afraid I don't understand where all of this is leading."

"Then perhaps you aren't yet aware that my nephew is planning to ask you to marry him."

Jillian's knees trembled beneath her blue silk skirt, rattling her teacup against its saucer. It couldn't be true. But she couldn't stop a rush of hope so fierce it made her giddy.

"I can see by the look on your face that you hadn't considered the possibility."

"No. No, I hadn't."

"And rightly so. Because in your deepest heart you realize it cannot possibly happen."

Jillian said nothing.

"Surely you can see that it wouldn't be fair to Adam. Whether or not the gossip about you is true—and considering my nephew's infatuation I'm inclined to believe it is not—everyone in the
ton
is convinced that you are something of a scarlet woman. That impression is not going to change. Should you become the Countess of Blackwood, Adam's already tarnished reputation will fall into utter ruin. And that would be completely unfair to Margaret."

An ache lodged in Jillian's throat.

"You're a young, unmarried woman yourself," Lady Sophia continued. "Surely you can understand what such a union would mean. Adam is the Earl of Blackwood. As such, he is the head of our family and being so, his responsibilities extend to all those under his protection, particularly his younger sister."

Shrewd blue eyes, a far paler hue than Adam's, remained steady on Jillian's face. "Margaret has fallen in love with a man with whom you've recently become acquainted—a barrister named Garth Dutton. Garth comes from an old, aristocratic family that is extremely well-respected and Garth is now the heir. Neither Baron Schofield nor members of the Dutton family will ever approve a match between Margaret and Garth should a woman of your reputation become Margaret's sister-in-law."

Jillian just sat there. In less than two minutes her fondest dream had turned into her greatest despair. Her heart just simply shattered.

"What about Adam?" she said softly. "If he asks me to marry him and I refuse, he'll want to know why. He'll think I never really cared for him. He'll believe I betrayed him just like Caroline Harding."

Lady Sophia stood up from her chair. "I'll leave that to you, my dear. You're obviously an intelligent young woman or my nephew wouldn't be so enamored of you. I'm sure you can think of a way to let him down without hurting him."

Jillian swallowed past the ache in her throat and also rose to her feet. She tried to speak, but couldn't form the words.

"I shall take your silence as agreement. If you truly love my nephew, you will do what is best for him and his family."

Jillian steeled herself against the pain eating into her and made a faint nod of her head. Her despair must have shown on her face, for Lady Sophia paused at the door and cast her a sympathetic glance.

"I'm sorry, my dear. For your sake as well as my nephew's, I wish things could have been different." Turning, she continued out the door of the drawing room and wandered off down the hall.

As her footsteps faded, Jillian sank down into a chair beside the door. She felt drained and numb, sick to her very soul. Since her arrival at Rathmore Hall, she had been uneasy and uncertain. Kitt and Clay had tried to reassure her. They'd said that Adam cared for her greatly. That she shouldn't worry, that things would work out.

Now she knew things would never work out. Lady Sophia was right. She couldn't put her happiness before Maggie's. It simply wouldn't be fair. She had come to Adam a scarlet woman. The
ton
still viewed her that way. Madeleine's trial would make matters worse and even after it ended, Jillian's reputation wouldn't change.

Leaving the salon, she climbed the stairs to her room, her feet moving as if they were made of lead. She thought of Adam and how much she loved him. Though she had never imagined he might offer marriage, it was her most fervent dream.

Now if Adam asked to marry her, she would have to refuse him. She would have to pretend she didn't love him and do it in a way that wouldn't leave him even more embittered than he was before she met him.

Dear God, she loved him. She didn't want to hurt him.

Whatever it took, she vowed, she would have to find a way.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jillian received a note from Adam the following day requesting the pleasure of her company, along with that of Kitt and Clay, at a restaurant called the Golden Chalice. Though Jillian had never been there, she had heard of the place. It was considered one of London's finest establishments, very expensive and exclusive, with a chef whose reputation was renowned.

Jillian recognized immediately that Adam was planning something special and must have already received agreement from his friends.

Dear God, Lady Sophia was right—Adam was going to ask her to marry him!

Jillian's eyes slid closed against a shot of pain. She was in love with him. She wanted to marry him more than anything in the world.

Instead, she spent all the next day frantically trying to figure out how to refuse his offer without hurting him, hiding away most of the time upstairs in her room. Kitt had come up to see her, excited about the dinner Adam had invited them to and worried that something was wrong.

Instead of declining supper that night as Jillian had planned, she was forced to paste on a smile she didn't feel and join Kitt and her husband in the dining room.

"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" Kitt asked during a meal of roast partridge with oyster stuffing that Jillian barely tasted.

Her smile felt so brittle she feared her lips would crack. "I'm a little tired, is all. Probably just relief after all the excitement."

"If it's Adam," Clay said gently, "you needn't worry. I saw him at Tattersall's this morning. All he talked about was you and the evening he has planned." Clay didn't elaborate but it was obvious by the knowing glance that passed between him and his wife that they suspected Adam intended to offer marriage, probably in the garden after they returned to the house.

Lord, what would they think of her when she refused his offer? Kitt and the duke had surely guessed that they had been lovers. They would see her as the worst sort of ingrate and harlot. And Adam would think so, too. She had to stop him before he ever said the words.

Shoving away the pain of what she must do, Jillian finished the meal and returned upstairs to her room, declining a game of cards she simply could not endure.

The following day, she left the house to implement the first step in the desperate plan she had conceived. She had sent a note to Michael Aimes in the matter of his promise to help her find employment. Now she had a far graver favor to ask.

Jillian perched nervously on the carriage seat all the way to Bond Street, where the coachman dropped her off in front of Madame Joyce's Millinery Shop with a promise to return two hours hence. As soon as the conveyance rolled out of sight, she walked to the nearest hack stand and hired a vehicle to carry her to Michael's bachelor quarters in Roderick Lane.

Having received the message one of Rathmore's linkboys had carried, he was waiting when she got there. They spoke of Howard Telford, of the night he'd been killed, and Michael's relief that she had been cleared of the crime. He told her he had already started making inquiries into the matter of her employment.