My Enchanting Hoyden (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel, #3) (9 page)

His gaze immediately went to Jemma’s face. He couldn’t help it. She displayed her displeasure vividly. A dark scowl marred her lovely features, and her lips pressed into a thin, white line. Clearly, she was not nearly as pleased to be making her debut and partaking in the Season as her sister was. He could relate. The prospect of countless balls filled with nonsensical chatter and false smiles, not to mention his having to actively search for an heiress, did not entice him in the least, but it was necessary.

“I wish you both happy hunting,” he said, unsure what else to say. “I’m certain we will run into one another again very soon.”

Jemma snorted, and her sister elbowed her in the side. Jemma cut her eyes to her sister before focusing on him once again. Something mischievous stirred in the depths of her eyes that matched the wicked smile suddenly lighting her face. “Is that what you are doing, Lord Harthorne?
Hunting?
”

“Are you?” he parried to sidestep the need to lie.

“No. I’m running.”

“Jemma,” her sister groaned.

She shrugged. “I doubt Lord Harthorne is bothered by me speaking my mind. Are you, Lord Harthorne?”

He had to smile. He rather liked her bold nature. “As long as your words don’t sting me, I am not bothered a bit. In fact, I find I’m quite intrigued.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “My aim is
not
to intrigue.”

“Don’t you want a husband, Miss Adair?”

“About as much as I want the plague,” she replied cheekily.

He threw his head back and laughed, even as her sister grabbed her hand and started tugging on her. “I’m terribly sorry, Lord Harthorne. My sister is not herself tonight.”

“I’m myself,” Jemma called over her shoulder as her sister dragged her up the few steps to the front door.

As the door opened, Philip remembered the money in his coat. He’d forgotten to give it to his sister. “Miss Adair!”

Jemma swung around to face him and quirked her brows up. “Miss me already?”

By God, she was an outspoken lady. He itched to get home and create a poem worthy of her. He pulled the paper out from his coat. “I believe I owe you this.”

Her eyes widened, and she scurried down the three steps and took it. As she read what he had scrawled on the outside of the note she laughed, and he smiled. He’d written the name
Katherina
across it. “Thank you, Petruchio,” she said, performed a perfect curtsy, and then swiveled away and disappeared within the house.

Philip was left standing in the growing twilight, staring at his carriage and thinking of Jemma and her sister. Jemma was beautiful and Anne was lovely, but most men of the
ton
would place a good dowry over appearances, with disposition coming in last. Disgust filled him, and he jerked. Now
he
had to put himself in the classification of those he had long held in contempt, those who considered a dowry the most important thing on the list of qualities to be had in a wife.

A sweat broke out on his forehead as he trudged toward his awaiting carriage. He was looking forward to the start of the Season about as much as one looked forward to the prospect of death.

T
wo Days Later

Jemma sat as still as she could while her lady’s maid, Eliza, carefully arranged her hair into a coil atop her head and placed a circle of white flowers in her hair. She’d told Eliza that she’d planned to wear it down, but Eliza, her face turning fiery red, had stuttered and stammered and finally spit out that Grandfather had given her specific orders to make sure Jemma’s hair was up and tamed. If she didn’t make it so, Eliza would likely hold the record for the shortest-employed lady’s maid to ever work in this home. Jemma had relented at once. She may want to shock and dismay Lord Glenmore when she met him at the ball tonight, but not at the expense Eliza’s job.

“I’m finished,” Eliza pronounced, handing Jemma the looking glass. Despite herself, Jemma smiled. Eliza had indeed tamed her hair and made it look quite lovely. Jemma complimented her profusely while Eliza helped her get into one of the ridiculous white, frothy gowns her grandfather had ordered made for her and Anne some time ago. The only thing good she could say about the gown was that the color white did not flatter her one bit. In fact, it made her freckles contrast vividly.

Anne, who was naturally resplendent in white, breezed through the door looking like a delicate flower as Jemma tried to bat Eliza’s hands away when she attempted to powder her face to hide the freckles.

“No powder,” she said.

“But, Miss Adair, your grandfather—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jemma huffed. “Don’t tell me you’ll lose your position if my freckles are showing.”

The maid nodded. Jemma let out a disgruntled sigh but turned to face Eliza so the woman could powder her. When she was done, Jemma looked in the mirror and frowned. The powder had done its job, which was the opposite of what Jemma had wanted.

“I believe my work here is done,” Eliza said. She bobbed a curtsy and rushed out the door.

Jemma grunted. “I’m surprised Grandfather didn’t tell her to bind my feet. After all, they’re too big compared to most women’s.”

“Your feet are perfect,” Anne said with a slight wince.

Jemma touched Anne’s shoulder. “Is your leg bothering you?”

Anne nodded. “It’s the horseback riding lessons. I think I overtaxed myself.”

Jemma nibbled her lip. “Perhaps you ought not go tonight.” She didn’t voice what Anne already knew: when her leg was bothering her, her limp became incredibly pronounced and could make even walking painful. If Anne had to dance...

“I’m going! So don’t you dare say a word, especially in front of Grandfather. He might say I cannot attend tonight because he’s afraid I’d embarrass him with my graceless gait. I refuse to be denied.”

“For goodness’ sake, Anne. Missing one ball will not be the end of your life. You will have opportunity aplenty to meet a man.”

Anne opened her mouth as if to say something, then clamped it shut. “I’m going. I must, and that’s the end of it. Besides”—she hiked up her dress and pointed at her new slippers—“these do help me tremendously. For all Grandfather’s coolness, it occurred to me how incredibly thoughtful this gift was.”

Jemma frowned. It was thoughtful, which was completely unlike him. “He must have an ulterior motive.”

A dark, mutinous look crossed Anne’s face, and she thrust out her chin. “You’ve become a judgmental, cold, tart-tongued shrew.”

Jemma gasped. It had been funny when Lord Harthorne had called her
Katherina
from
The Taming of the Shrew
because she knew he had been teasing her, but Anne was wholly serious. “I do believe that is the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Anne sighed. “Well, I’m sorry but it’s true. Just look how tart you were with Lord Harthorne. He paid you a compliment and you told him he had a beautiful gift for lying!”

Jemma winced. She did feel the teeniest bit regretful about that. Though, it was probably correct. He was man, after all. She shrugged. “He didn’t seem overly wounded.”

“What was he supposed to say? That you’re rather nasty? He’s a gentleman. And unless you are blind, surely you see how handsome the man is with his mahogany hair and dark, dazzling eyes.”

Mahogany hair? Dark, dazzling eyes? Anne’s language was so flowery, yet Jemma would have chosen those exact words to describe Lord Harthorne. She could picture his eyes and hair now—in exact detail—and
that
was the problem. It raised her defenses.
He
raised her defenses.

A gleam came to Anne’s eyes, as if she could read Jemma’s thoughts and understood that now was the time to strike. “And as for Lord Glenmore, you’ve judged him unworthy before you’ve ever met the poor man! You, sister dear, are the sort of old, lonely, bitter woman we used to feel so sorry for when she came into the bakery, except
you
are not old.”

Anne’s words stung, especially because Jemma worried that the
bitter
part was true. Will’s betrayal had changed her. Before he’d broken her heart, she’d believed Mother had just had rotten luck with Father and that Grandfather was your typical stuffy aristocrat who couldn’t move past the fact that his daughter had defied him. But after Will, she knew she’d been fooling herself, and that made her angry at Will, at Father,
and
at Grandfather. She didn’t want to be bitter for the rest of her life. She had to work to let that anger go, she knew. But that didn’t mean she was changing how she felt about men. She was not.

“Jemma?”

“I don’t want to be bitter,” she relented.

Anne quirked a brow. “And Lord Glenmore?”

Jemma shook her head. “Any man who would agree to court a woman he’s never met would never be the sort of man I would have considered for marriage, even
before
I became a shrew,” she said with a smirk.

Anne smiled. “I suppose I’ll have to take what you’ll give me.”

“Smart sister.” Jemma winked.

S
oon they were on their way to their first ball of the Season with their grandfather and their chaperone, Mrs. Featherstone. It didn’t take long to get to the Duke of Scarsdale’s home, and once they arrived, Grandfather turned to Jemma and waved a hand.

“Come, I already see Lord Glenmore.”

Jemma barely stifled her groan as she, Anne, and Mrs. Featherstone followed Grandfather through the thick crowd. Within moments, she found herself curtsying as she was introduced to Lord Glenmore and his father, the Marquess of Wynfell, under glittering chandeliers and surrounded by the swirling notes of a quadrille. When she came up from her curtsy, she searched out Lord Glenmore’s eyes and realized, with a start, that the small, beady things were focused on her bosom. She slid Anne an I-told-you-so look, but Anne wasn’t even paying attention. She had her head turned to the dance floor, and as Jemma tried to ferret out at what or whom her sister might be looking, Lord Glenmore spoke and she turned sharply back toward him.

“I’ll be pleased to court Miss Adair,” he said in a most lecherous tone, not bothering to take his gaze from her chest as he spoke.

Was the fiendish man talking to her, her grandfather, or his father? Regardless, her temper sparked to life like a raging river, and she opened her mouth to ask him if he always ogled women’s bosoms, but he drew his gray eyes upward to her face and curled his lips back in a feral sort of smile.

“I’m sure it won’t take us long at all to ascertain whether or not we suit.” A sneer pulled his lips even farther back as his gaze drifted slowly once again down to her bosom.

Jemma’s palm itched to slap the sneer off his face, but she could not openly cross her grandfather’s wishes in such a way.

“Excellent,” her grandfather and Lord Wynfell boomed as one.

Lord Wynfell clapped Grandfather on the back. “Let’s leave the young people to it, then, shall we, and retire to the card room? I’m told the Duke of Scarsdale is holding court in there as we speak.”

Jemma wasn’t surprised when her grandfather nodded his head quickly in the affirmative, waved Mrs. Featherstone over, and instructed her to keep an eye on Jemma and Anne. Grandfather likely could care less that Lord Glenmore was more interested in the size of her breasts than anything else, but
she
cared. The man had a wicked gleam in his eyes that spelled trouble. She’d place all the pin money she’d saved on the opinion that Lord Glenmore’s notion of getting to know her did not fall within the realm of proper English etiquette. And that was one bit of etiquette she liked very much, indeed.

As Grandfather and Lord Wynfell excused themselves, Mrs. Featherstone pointed to a chair behind them. “I simply must sit down,” she said. “I will chaperone you from the chair.”

Thank goodness Jemma had Anne. Her twin would never leave her alone with Lord Glenmore. She turned to give Anne a look that conveyed her desperation, but Anne still had her head turned to the dance floor. When Jemma touched her fingers to Anne’s arm, her sister swiveled to look at her, a beatific smile lighting Anne’s face.

Jemma peered over Anne’s shoulder and searched for what held her rapt attention. She passed her gaze over Lady and Lord Letterbee, Lady Emma, the Dowager Duchess of Darlington, and Mr. Ian Frazier, a notorious railroad magnate who had once fancied himself enamored of Sophia, or rather, in Sophia’s opinion, the large fortune she’d inherited when it was thought for a time that her husband was dead. Jemma started to move on and then snapped her gaze back.