Suzanne Robinson (13 page)

Jocelin kicked his hunter. “Come on,” he shouted to Nick. “We can make it back before she does and be waiting when she comes down for dinner.”

“Can’t you ever leave women alone?”

“No.”

“I thought you was going to have that maid.”

Jocelin chewed his lip, for his discomfort had been growing since he’d encountered the skating lady. “I am, eventually.” He continued with reluctance. “I’ve got to try for this one too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she’s the first woman I’ve seen that I
don’t compare to Miss Gamp.” Jocelin leaned down and patted the neck of his hunter. “If you tell this to anyone, I’ll call you out.”

“Who am I going to tell?”

“Well, then, I’ve tried to forget about Miss Gamp. After all, a man has his needs, but … Hang it! I visited Miss Birch, and all I could do was criticize. Her waist was too small, her chest not full enough, her hips not wide enough, and damn all, she smelled of roses when she should have smelled like lemons.”

Nick reined in and stared at Jocelin. “Time was, women were in-betweens for you. In between our jaunts, in between politics.”

“Now I seem to exist in between ruminating about Miss Gamp and wanting her. Hang it, I haven’t even seen her clearly yet, and I can’t forget her. She’s eating me alive.”

They kicked their horses and rode slowly toward Stratfield Court.

“I know,” Nick said after a few minutes. “It’s ’cause you ain’t—haven’t had her yet. Come on, love. When’s the last time you had to work for a woman?”

“I don’t remember.”

“See?”

“But now there’s this skating lady.” Jocelin sighed. “Perhaps I’m recovering.”

“Then you can count on me to help with the medicine, old love. I’ll even distract that old relic and his wife.”

With their plans set, they returned to Stratfield Court. Eight o’clock saw them enter the drawing room side by side to join the rest of Richard Elliot’s guests. Besides young Thurston-Coombes, several eligible men and a few ladies formed the house party. Jocelin
suspected Elliot wanted him to realize his daughter was in demand, thus the other contestants.

He conducted a polite conversation with a dowager countess and her daughter who had just had a successful season in which the young lady had attracted and accepted an offer from one of Prince Albert’s gentlemen-in-waiting. The dowager had another daughter on the market and was inspecting Nick, who smiled at her and quoted Shakespeare. When the dowager failed to recognize the source of his wit, Nick lost interest and maneuvered himself and Jocelin over to join Thurston-Coombes.

As they talked, another group of ladies entered the room. Jocelin glanced up as they manipulated their crinolines across the threshold. Luckily there were double doors. The last woman to enter slid gracefully past the danger by allowing her arms to rest on the layers of petticoats and crinoline frame. She turned suddenly as she cleared the door, and the quick movement brought a surge of recognition to him. The skating lady.

He watched her walk. She almost glided, as if she were still on ice. To take his gaze from her body seemed impossible now that he’d recognized that pliant tread. She had a habit of movement in which she paused and quickly turned her head back over her shoulder to glance at people. Jocelin found himself watching the sway of her upper body above the cascade of her skirts. Many women encased in yards of petticoats and silk and corsets moved like carousel animals. This one moved the way a woman ought to move. He could barely perceive the undulating of her breasts as she walked.

What was he doing? He shouldn’t be staring at a lady’s chest. He was frazzled indeed to make such a
slip. The woman turned to glance over her shoulder and caught his gaze. He glimpsed wide, gold-brown-teal eyes, startled eyes. But she didn’t look away at once. She seemed transfixed, and as he drank in the several hues of her gaze, Jocelin felt himself stir. He began to ache, which brought a curse to his lips. He was losing his composure for the second time in but a few weeks. Hang it. He wasn’t going to plunge into rut over this one too.

The lady blushed and dropped her gaze, thus releasing him from the source of his growing discomfort. To his surprise, Richard Elliot bustled over to her, appropriated her hand, and led her to Jocelin and Nick.

He heard her name and nearly laughed. Miss Elizabeth Maud Elliot. The solid old spinster. Nick almost smirked at him, and he cast a warning glance at his friend as he bent over the lady’s hand. Then his mind whirled into confusion. He smelled lemons. He made small talk with the Elliots while desire flooded through him and his brain reeled.

She smelled like lemons. Shooting unobtrusive glances, he noted her slimness. Her long legs were concealed by the gown. Her chest was flatter than Miss Gamp’s, her hair the wrong color. Hang it! What was he thinking?

He studied the gleaming, dried-grass tawniness of her hair. This young woman, who cast down her eyes upon encountering his gaze, was no Miss Gamp. She was too slim, too graceful, too clean. His glance fastened on her hands. The nails were short, the fingers long.

He had felt the softness of her palm when he kissed her hand. But the lemons hadn’t been his imagination. He’d definitely smelled lemons. Perhaps
they used the same toilet water. Possible. After all, this was the granddaughter of a butcher. She might use the same scent as a maid of all work. Yes, that was the answer.

He smiled at some quip on the part of Richard Elliot. He managed to conduct a sensible conversation with the old man while Miss Elliot remained quiet. Exerting his will, he achieved a monumental accomplishment of taming his unruly desires. He’d done many things, but never had he swelled to readiness in front of a host and his spinster daughter. He wasn’t going to let it happen.

At last he was able to incline his head regally when the old man ushered his daughter over to grace the presence of the son of a baronet. In reality the introduction and conversation had lasted less than five minutes. Clever of the old blister. Elliot knew better than to thrust his daughter at Jocelin.

Nick interrupted his speculations. “Well, well, well. So Miss Elliot is our skating lady. I’ve been relieved of my task.” He dug his elbow into Jocelin’s side. “Adequate, old fellow. She’s quite adequate. Not a beauty, but then, you said you weren’t looking for beauty in a wife.”

“No,” Jocelin said faintly.

“But why?”

Jocelin was staring at Miss Elliot. She looked his way and caught him. Instead of glancing away, he held her gaze for a long moment, then smiled sweetly at her. She blushed and looked away. He turned his back to her. No sense in looking too eager. Bad strategy.

“What did you say? Why not a beauty?” he asked Nick.

He needed a distraction before he succumbed to lust again. “Because beautiful women tend to be like
that Wedgwood cup on my mantel. Excellent on the outside, old fellow, and empty of substance. They learn early that all that’s required of them is appearance, so they devote their entire beings to taking care of themselves. And deep inside they’re frightened that one day they’ll lose their beauty. And without that, who would want them? They’re right, of course, because no one wants to spend time pursuing a relationship with Wedgwood.”

“And besides,” Nick went on under his breath, “beautiful women can’t be trusted not to fall into traps set by chaps like you.”

Jocelin nodded in Miss Elliot’s direction. “We’re to be stunned by the lady’s musical accomplishments, and before dinner too.”

Miss Elliot seated herself at the piano that rested in an alcove. Resting her hands on the keys, she began a piece by Chopin. The room fell silent. She played the way she skated. He could feel the lightness of her touch, hear the delicacy of her interpretation. He exchanged surprised glances with Nick. Young ladies usually learned to play. He’d spent many a tortured evening enduring the efforts of some earnest debutante.

Elizabeth Maud Elliot’s playing mocked such dilettantes. As he watched her, he could see that she’d forgotten her audience. She sailed through complex chords, carried on the waves of her own passion for the music. When she finished, he found himself longing for her to continue. Guests crowded around her and offered congratulations. He held back, for he didn’t want to be one of the crowd.

Nick poked him again and hissed at him gleefully. “Just think what your father would say if you offered for Miss Elizabeth.”

“I have no intention of offering for her, for I doubt we’d suit. However, if by some fantastical chance I did want to marry her, I wouldn’t care what Father said. I’ve been thinking about it since Father forced me to, and I know what I want in a wife.”

“You do? You surprise me.”

“If I’m going to stop Yale from inheriting,” Jocelin said, “I’ll do it on my own terms. I may make Father suffer by appearing to consider tradesmen’s daughters, or even a woman of light reputation, but I’m not a fool. There are too many dependents upon a duke for him not to consider how his choice of a wife will affect them.”

Jocelin pulled his gaze away from Miss Elliot and looked at Nick. “I require certain attributes of a wife—softness, delicacy, modesty. A woman should concern herself with her household and children. She needn’t concern herself with matters outside her home. I don’t require great intelligence, just the ability to listen when I speak and the sense to be guided by me. And all the usual accomplishments she must have for entertaining and keeping me satisfied.”

“And she’s got to let you do what you want without interfering,” Nick said.

“Of course. In return, I won’t interfere with her domain.”

They nodded at each other, in perfect agreement.

“Here they come again,” Nick said. “You get to take her in to dinner.”

Nick was right. Jocelin found himself offering his arm to Elizabeth Elliot. When Mr. Elliot made a joke about the contrast in their coloring, she aroused his protective instincts by blushing and looking as if she wished she could dive behind a sofa. He smelled
lemons again and, in that moment, decided that he could make do with Miss Elliot if he couldn’t have Miss Gamp right away.

“I’m delighted to have been given the privilege of escorting you.” He leaned down and whispered to her. “And don’t mind your father. It’s only that he’s proud of you, you know. And he’s right to be, Miss Elliot.”

The young lady looked up at him, but glanced at the floor again. Her cheeks flushed again, and for some strange reason, the sight of that rosy stain aroused him. She glanced up at him and smiled uncertainly.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Her voice was soft, like her mother’s, but she finished her sentences. He loved the way she said “my lord” in that tremulous way.

“You’re welcome, Miss Elliot.”

They entered the dining room, and he pulled back her chair for her. She sat and looked up at him, giving him a smile that jolted him from his eyes to his toes.

“Liza, my lord. My name is Liza.”

S
he knew he’d be shocked by the drawing room. Trying not to stare as the viscount entered, Liza watched him pause, then recover his composure. She couldn’t blame him. After all, he lived in houses where Gothic arches belonged, because they’d been built five hundred years ago. Stratfield Court was new. He was looking at the ceiling, and she cringed. Fan vaulting belonged in cathedrals. It only made the drawing room seem like an ornate cave made by trolls with good architectural skills.

What was she doing worrying about whether this man found her father’s taste lacking? She needed to concentrate on maintaining her ladylike demeanor.
Until he came, she hadn’t had any difficulties. The moment he walked into the room, however, she’d begun to feel as tremulous as she pretended to be. And why? He behaved like the charming yet slightly aloof aristocrat he was, but when he looked at her, she saw the gunfighter. She saw the man who wore a gun with the nonchalance of a gentleman wearing his watch fob. She saw the man who paid no attention to her protests any more than he would to an enemy he faced in a gunfight.

With him looking at her with that ruthless gaze, she couldn’t keep her voice from quivering, her hands from shaking, or her cheeks from turning red. Since she was supposed to be a shy and demure spinster, all this discomposure worked to her advantage. To find herself acting like human jelly irked her and caused her to resent the viscount. She hated all this pretense. If she hadn’t suspected him of murder, she would have loved to revert to her old self.

He was ignoring her. On purpose. He’d made a mistake, though, for she knew better than to think he sought out her mother’s company for its fascination. Mama wasn’t interested in any of the things he was, not politics, or army reform or improvements in sanitation to prevent cholera. As he turned his back to her, Liza wished she could cast aside all propriety. She longed to march up to him and tell him she knew he didn’t want to marry the granddaughter of a butcher, that he was interested only in her father’s political support for his friend Asher Fox, and why didn’t he just come out and admit the truth, and by the way, was he a murderer?

He was coming to her! Just when she’d worked herself up into a fit of indignation, he was coming to her.