Regina Scott (8 page)

He thought Samantha’s bout with Jamie would be telling. He was fairly certain now she had no designs on his son, but if he’d mistaken her motivation, surely he’d see evidence. A woman bent on capturing a man’s heart might defer to him, make it appear he was the stronger. On the other hand, a self-absorbed beauty might blame her loss on fatigue from the previous bout.

Samantha did neither. She fought, with grace, precision and enthusiasm. The clang of their blows echoed around the room. Will found himself edging to the right or left, grimacing when Jamie’s blade came perilously close to her shoulder, smothering a shout of triumph when she pushed the boy back with the flick of her wrist alone. She was fire, she was lightning. She was bold, undaunted. He’d fought men with less skill, less daring. Even the Janissaries would have quailed before her.

How could the spirit of a warrior have made its home in the body of a beautiful woman?

With a lunge Jamie penetrated her defenses and struck her square in the heart. She put up her blade with a laugh and pulled off her mask. The action must have caught her hair pins just right, for her tresses began to tumble in a shower of gold.

“Oh, well done, Jamie!” she cried, hair flowing down her back. “Please accept my apologies for thinking there was anything I could teach you.”

As Jamie removed his own mask, Will could see he was grinning from ear to ear. He swept her a bow. “Apology accepted.”

It was a courtly gesture, but Will couldn’t help thinking his son had it all wrong. Samantha, Lady Everard, could teach them both a great deal, if they were willing to learn.

But Jamie wasn’t finished. Flushed with his victory, he went down on one knee, blade tip on the floor, hands braced on the hilt like a knight before the queen.

“I hope I’ve proven to you my devotion and my ability to take care of you,” he said, gaze on hers.

No!
Will felt as if Jamie’s blade had thrust through his own heart. This couldn’t be the prelude to what Will feared. He started forward, to do what, he wasn’t sure.

“Jamie,” Samantha said. The tenderness in her tone hit Will with the force of a blow, stopping him where he stood.

“Samantha, Lady Everard,” Jamie said, chin up and eyes imploring, “will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

She bent and pressed a kiss to Jamie’s forehead, and Will felt physically sick. What was wrong with him? He’d decided she was a fine woman. He knew Jamie sincerely cared for her. Their lands and estates would benefit from the union. Everything said this would be an excellent match.

Everything but his heart.

She pulled back. “James Wentworth, I have never met a finer man. You have been my friend through thick and thin, and we both know there were a lot of thin times. I will always treasure your friendship, but I cannot marry you or anyone else, I fear. Please try to understand.”

With a nod of respect to Will, she snatched up her half boots and hurried from the room.

Will stood there, stunned. Why refuse Jamie? Why disdain marriage? She’d asked his son to understand, but Will found it impossible.

Nearly as impossible as the joy singing through him that she had refused.

Jamie climbed to his feet. “What was that?” he asked Will.

Will made himself shrug. “I have no idea,” he answered truthfully. “You cut a dashing figure, made a fine speech. The lady’s feelings and your own were evident.”

“Much good it did me.” Jamie tossed his blade aside. “Why did I even try?”

His son’s pain reached inside Will. For all a part of him wished he was the one girding up his courage to propose to this amazing woman, Will knew what was expected of him as father and follower of Christ. He strode to his son’s side and put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

“You love her. Go after her. Discover what concerns her and make it right.”

Jamie nodded. “Excellent advice.” He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Father.”

Will watched him stride from the room and told himself not to wish it was him instead.

Chapter Eight

S
amantha hurried through Kendrick Hall, intent only on escaping. The pain on Jamie’s face at her refusal cut sharper than any blade. Someday she’d explain her reasons to him. He might well be the only one who’d understand why she would likely never marry. But she couldn’t explain today, and never in front of Lord Kendrick.

The view down the paneled corridor was blurring, the lovely paintings and sculptures melting. She paused to dash the tears from her eyes. She was so tired of being the one to wound, to disappoint! But she couldn’t agree to walk the path others had laid out for her.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

The verse came readily to mind. Had it been the vicar who had quoted it yesterday or had it been in one of the readings? Either way she was no longer sure of the Lord’s path. All she knew was that she had to avoid the emotions that had caused so much pain over the years, particularly to her mother.

“Samantha.”

She closed her eyes at the sound of Jamie’s voice behind her, said a prayer for strength. Then she opened her eyes and turned to meet his gaze. A lock of dark hair had fallen over a pinched face, and his fists were tight at his sides as if he didn’t trust himself to reach for her.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

Samantha offered him a smile. “It’s all right, Jamie. You honored me with your proposal.”

“Yet you refused,” he said.

She nodded. “I must. I think of you as the brother I never had.”

“A little brother,” he said bitterly.

She put out her free hand. “A younger brother,” she corrected. “A charming, clever, wonderful younger brother of whom I’m terribly proud. But that is a far cry from what you should expect in a wife.”

He took a step closer, seized her hand and held it tight. “I don’t care. You’re the one I want. Can’t you see? I think about you all the time.”

Oh, but she knew that feeling. Once she’d thought the sun rose and set on her cousin Vaughn. But it had been calf-love, an all-consuming fire that burnt more than it warmed. When she’d seen the blazing light of his love for his wife, Imogene, and hers for him, she’d known what she felt couldn’t hold a candle to it.

She shook his hand to emphasize her words. “And I am truly honored you care for me so much. I could never have done enough to deserve such a friend. But that is what we are—friends. I ask you to respect that.”

“You ask too much.” He pulled away.

“Do I?” She cocked her head, eying him. “Then perhaps we define love differently. I believe the Bible calls it charity, and it is patient and kind, rejoicing in the right.”

“Enduring all things,” Jamie agreed with a prodigious sigh.

Samantha grinned at him. “Hoping in all things. If that is the love we have for each other, it will never fail.”

He raised his gaze to hers, dark eyes intent. “Are you giving me reason to hope you’ll change your mind?”

Samantha shook her head. “No, Jamie. I’m trying to get you to see that my feelings for you will never change. You will be my dear friend, always.”

He nodded slowly. “Then I suppose I must accept that.”

She hadn’t realized her shoulders were so tight until she felt the tension easing at his words. “Oh, yes, please! I’d like us to put this all behind us. We do have a summer party approaching, you know, and I believe you offered to help me.”

“An offer you also refused,” he pointed out, but she thought he stood a little taller, too, as if a weight had been lifted.

“How silly of me,” Samantha replied with a smile. “I can always use the assistance of my friends. My family will arrive any day. Will you come over and help me greet them?”

He shrugged. “I’m glad to help, but I have no idea what I can do to make them feel more comfortable here.”

She couldn’t keep the laughter from her voice. “Well, Jerome and Adele are bringing their children, and Vaughn and Imogene will have the twins. I’m sure we’ll need help in the schoolroom.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “Delightful. I barely graduate from school, and you want to put me right back into it.”

“Look at it this way,” Samantha said, a giggle slipping out. “You have the most recent experience of all of us. You’re practically an expert!”

He laughed at that, and she could only hope his heart was on the road to mending.

A shame she could not say the same for hers. She managed to fend off Jamie’s offer to see her to the door and made her way down the main stairs to the entry hall alone. She could not regret refusing him. Jamie deserved a wife who loved him as a man.

She’d once hoped she and his uncle might share that kind of love. Of course now she knew that his courtship had been initially motivated by the need to keep her cousin Vaughn off balance and off the trail of the traitor. The truth about his courtship had caused her to begin questioning whether a true love would ever be hers. The fortune hunters who had followed her had only magnified her concerns. All her life she’d lived by her emotions—loving quickly, feeling deeply. But it seemed where marriage was concerned, her emotions were not to be trusted. Her mother’s death had proven as much.

As a child she hadn’t understood what had happened to Rosamunde, Lady Everard. Samantha had been six when her governess, now wife to her cousin Jerome, had told her her mother had died. A tragic accident, Adele and the servants had said. Oh, how Samantha had cried. It had taken days for the word to reach London and her father to come to comfort her.

She thought he might scold her for crying. Mrs. Dallsten Walcott had already told her a lady didn’t carry on so. The vicar had murmured words about being strong. But her father had taken her in his arms and rested his platinum-haired head on hers.

“You cry, daughter,” he’d said. “If that makes you feel better, you cry all you want. Just know I’m crying with you.”

A tear slipped down now as she stopped at the foot of the stair.
And who will cry with me now, Papa? Especially now that I know it wasn’t an accident at all.

For her mother hadn’t fallen down the stairs as Adele had intimated. Her mother had committed suicide.

Just the thought of it still shook her. Sucking in a breath, she glanced around and sighted a padded bench in the corridor beside the stair. She went to sit on it, so heavily her skirts spread about her, and forced herself to change out of her fencing shoes. The laces of her half boots felt stiff under her fingers, her hands clumsy. She just wanted to go home. But somehow she’d lost where home was.

“Allow me.”

She straightened to find Lord Kendrick between her and the footman waiting to open the door. Like Jamie he still wore his fencing costume, the vest straining across his chest. But instead of the tormented look his son had given her, his green eyes were solemn, his hands hanging loosely as if he were ready to do anything she needed. He knelt in front of her and laced her half boots, quickly, efficiently. Somehow that only made her throat tighter.

“Are you all right?” he murmured as he rose.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “And so will Jamie. Thank you for your concern.”

“You don’t look fine,” he said. “Pardon my intrusion, but you look done in.”

All at once, she felt done in. The burdens she carried seemed to press upon her, threatened to shove her to her knees. “No, I...” she started, but the tears were coming again, and she couldn’t seem to stop them.

He sat beside her, slipped one arm around her as if protecting her from all her sorrows. The touch, the kindness, the unquestioning silence, was her undoing, and she found herself sobbing. She buried her face in his vest, trembling. His hand rubbed up and down her arm, offering commiseration, solace. She felt as if the darkness was fleeing from her, vanquished by his strength and allowing her own strength to rebound.

At last she pulled away from him, took a deep breath and tried to gather the shreds of her dignity.

“Forgive me,” she managed. “I’ve soaked you, and I don’t even have a handkerchief.”

“Not much room in a fencing vest for one,” he agreed, patting his chest as if to emphasize the point. “Shortsighted, really. I imagine more than one fellow has been tempted to cry after losing a match.”

The idea was so silly she choked a laugh. “Perhaps you should suggest it to your tailor. It will be a great innovation.”

One corner of his mouth turned up as he removed his arm from around her. “Ah, yes. I shall leave my mark on history as the earl who invented pockets in fencing waistcoats. We can call them Kendricoats.”

She found her breath coming easier and shook her head at him wryly. “You truly are a clever fellow, my lord.”

“Perhaps,” he said, gaze studiously on his hands resting on his buckskin breeches, “you could call me Will. You already call Lord Wentworth Jamie.”

She felt herself blushing. “A very kind offer, to be sure. But then, you are continually kind to me. But if you are to be Will, I must be Samantha.”

He inclined his head, then raised his gaze to hers. “It would be my honor. Just remember, Samantha, that you are an amazing woman. Please forgive anything my son or I might have done that would make you think otherwise.”

* * *

Will regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. He wasn’t sure why he’d left the exercise salon by the back stairs after counseling his son to make things right with Samantha. Some part of him had wanted to stand beside Jamie if he needed that support. Another part feared to find his son and Samantha in each other’s arms. He wasn’t sure how he’d react to that, but he’d promised himself to behave like the gentleman he believed himself to be.

Instead he’d found Samantha alone and looking so bereft he’d felt compelled to offer comfort. She’d stopped crying at last, the tears glistening on her fair cheeks like sea spray on pearls. She’d even given him a smile, her eyes shining with that light that called to him. Now she dropped her gaze, and one arm wrapped around her waist as if something inside hurt.

“You are neither of you to blame,” she murmured. “I have reasons for my choices. Please don’t press me on them.”

Did she know he longed to do just that? He wanted to know what kept a woman of her beauty, position and, by all accounts, income from marrying and marrying well. Of course some might have wondered the same thing about him. But he knew why he had no interest in marrying again. The marriage of a man in his position was meant to ensure the line, to unite families for security and prestige. He had an heir in Jamie. He needed no more prestige than being the Earl of Kendrick. And he was proud enough that he would not marry for income to secure the estate.

Now he eyed her, sitting in such a tight ball beside him, as if trying to huddle away from the things she did not want him to know. “It must be difficult being the keeper of so many secrets,” he said.

Her head jerked up, her eyes wide and panicked. “How did you know?”

Something inside him tightened. So, she did hide secrets. Why did that so disappoint him? Just because he tended to live his scandals in the open didn’t mean others were as oblivious to Society’s demands. He should simply be grateful she’d refused Jamie and so was no danger to his family. Her affairs were no concern to him now.

But he could not let the matter go.

“I spent nearly ten years on the diplomatic circuit, remember?” he answered her. “There, many things are not what they seem. A smile to the wrong person can mean a dagger in your back.”

She shuddered, and he wasn’t sure if it was from his words or the loss of warmth from his touch. Certainly he was already missing her closeness. He felt as if a cool breeze had blown down the corridor, past the paintings of his ancestors, the marble bust of his mother on a pedestal along the wall.

“My secrets won’t put you in danger,” Samantha promised, and rather primly too, her hands folded in the lap of her fencing gown. “They are my burden to carry.”

Why? She had cousins, family. Why was she alone responsible for the Everard miscellany? She might have inherited the title, but if her cousins were any kind of gentlemen, they would be helping her with the duties, just as his brother and Will had helped their father, just as Jamie was helping Will now.

“They have a saying in Constantinople,” he offered, leaning back. “What burdens one camel is lighter for two.”

She cast him a glance from the corners of her eyes. “By that you mean I should share my concerns with you. Thank you, but no.”

The dismissal was curt, but he should accept it nonetheless. Still something protested that she should not have to take this road alone, that he was meant to walk it with her. Wasn’t that his duty as a gentleman? Why have this experience, this knowledge of the world, if not to share it, to make life easier for another?

“I suppose you have no reason to trust me,” he ventured, keeping his gaze carefully away from hers and fixed on the far paneled wall. “We don’t know each other well.”

“Both true,” she allowed.

“Yet you’ve known my son his whole life,” he continued, crossing his legs at the ankles, “and I believe you were a great favorite with my father. He wrote of you frequently.”

“He did?” She sounded surprised.

Will found himself smiling, remembering. “My father was a dedicated correspondent. Being so far away, I found letters from home a great treat. It was the same for all embassy staff. We used to read the letters to each other, just to get the feel of being in England. His were particularly popular.”

“Why?” she asked, turning toward him.

He chanced a glance her way. She was obviously intrigued by his story, one leg bent at the knee so she could lean toward him.

“He had a way of making you feel as if you knew everyone he wrote about,” he explained. “Your friend Mr. Giles’s adventures put the other members of the embassy in stitches. And I think more than one of them hoped to come back and meet you.”

She blinked, golden lashes fluttering. “Me? Whyever me?”

Will shot her a grin. “A sweet young heiress, pretty, vivacious. What fellow wouldn’t fall in line?”