Tempted by a Lady’s Smile (7 page)

“Gemma,” her mother’s sharp tone cut across Gemma’s telling.

And it was then that Gemma registered the gazes of each guest present turned on her as though she were an oddity on display and, in this instance, she was…a display of her own making, borne of topics that were never appropriate for the breakfast table, or any table, for that matter.

Gemma retrained her stare on the eggs on her plate and as the guests returned to topics that moved beyond horse gestation, she shoved her fork around the plate and contemplated it. She could not swallow a single bite. Her stomach churned in a painful knot as she prayed for this moment to end.

Richard leaned close in his chair and it groaned in slight protest. Gemma braced for his coolly mocking words. “Do you know what I also find interesting about horses, Gemma?”

She hesitated and then, not allowing him the triumph of his amusement with her displeasure, bit out, “What is that, Mr. Jonas?”

“Horses cannot vomit or breathe through their mouths.”

Gemma stared unblinking at her plate. Surely he hadn’t just…? Then she snapped her shoulders back and glared at him. The boiling anger within was far safer than the humiliated embarrassment of her impolite discourse this morning. “Tell me, Mr. Jonas, do you delight in tormenting all young ladies? Or is that pleasure reserved for me?”

A frown marred his lips. “I didn’t—”

She angled her body in a way that they were directly facing one another. “But I find nothing kind in your taking pleasure in another person’s discomfort.”

He opened his mouth. But wanting to hear a single other word from his lips about as much as she wanted to listen to the clever prattling of Lady Thelma who occupied the seat beside the marquess, Gemma shoved back her chair. “I bid you good morning, sir, and hope you find something else to occupy your time other than taunting and tormenting young, more than slightly awkward ladies.”

Giving a toss of her hopelessly uncurled hair, she dislodged a strand and it fell flatly over her eye. Then, with her head held high, Gemma marched from the breakfast room. Her feet twitched with the urge to take flight, but where could young ladies steal off to escape any further notice or embarrassments?

T
he lady had thought he was making light of her.

Given their previous two exchanges, Richard could certainly understand just why Gemma Reed would come to that very opinion. And yet, as he guided his mount over the duke’s rolling property, that very low opinion she carried grated. For that exchange had singularly revealed more of anything real about the lady than any other words she’d uttered.

Until the morning meal, she’d been nothing more than any other lady present, hunting a future-duke and professing love based on flimsy words better reserved for a hound. Then she’d gone on one of her endearing rambles and she’d swiftly become a lady with interests…and what was more, she’d become a lady with an interest in horseflesh.

For all the shock and disgust etched in the faces of the assembled guests, Richard had been…his eye twitched. By God, he’d been captivated by the little minx in that instant. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. Only, the lady had seen him as judgmental as every other member of the peerage present.

And why shouldn’t she? You’ve done nothing but bait and tease her since the moment she stepped into your riding path a day prior.

Guilt needled at him and he urged Warrior onward. He scanned his gaze over the lush, green, rolling countryside. Where would a lady escape? No doubt the last person she cared to see in this moment was him. A memory of her as she’d been, with humiliated hurt blazing in her eyes, caused a knot in his belly. He far preferred the lady snapping and hissing like a cornered cat than the dejected, slumped figure who’d hastily fled the breakfast room.

Richard slowed his mount to a stop and Warrior danced in a small circle. He patted the horse’s damp coat and glanced in the direction of the lake. With a click of his tongue, he wheeled Warrior around and cantered on to the thick copse at the edge of the duke’s property. He guided Warrior to a stop and then, with reins in hand, walked the massive creature over to nearby brush and looped his reins about a thin oak. Patting him once on the withers, he strode over to the copse, and then hesitated.

What was the likelihood the lady was even here? He turned to go when a faint sniffling penetrated the morning quiet. Perhaps it was just the rustling leaves overhead. Or perhaps it was…

Sniff Sniff

That muffled sound of misery cleaved through him. Unhesitant, Richard entered the copse, moving deeper into the densely wooded area and then stopped. Gemma sat atop a boulder with her knees drawn close to her chest. The sight of her tucked against herself, with her shoulders bent, wrenched at something in him. He took a step forward and a branch snapped loudly in the quiet.

Gemma froze and then whipped her head around. “You.”

In the absolute absence of anger or outrage in that tone, he took another step forward. “Me.”

She dropped her legs over the edge of her sitting place and hopped to her feet. “I did not come here to be mocked by you. I have suffered through enough of your company these two days, Mr. Jonas.” A fiery glimmer lit her brown eyes and they sparkled with such spirit, words momentarily left him. She narrowed her gaze. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

And because he really didn’t care to examine why he’d been staring at her and just what she made of that look, Richard touched a hand to his chest. “Richard,” he corrected her.

“I beg your pardon?” Four little creases lined her brow.

“My name is Richard.” It defied propriety, and the cool dislike that had existed since their first meeting, but he wished to hear his name on her lips. He desperately wished to hear her wrap those two syllables in her lilting tone.
I’m going utterly mad. There is no else accounting for it.
“I did not come here to mock you.” Once again, guilt needled at him. For the lady was certainly entitled to her suspicious opinion where he was concerned.

“Do you mean you have not come here to mock me more than you have already done these past two days?” She shot an eyebrow up and guilty heat burned his neck. “No,” she scoffed. “I hardly need you to point out everything inappropriate in speaking on a horse’s gestation, at the breakfast table, no less,” she muttered that last part under her breath.

No there wasn’t anything appropriate in such discourse. It was, however, the singularly most interesting thing any woman of his acquaintance had uttered…including Eloise. For her love of riding, she’d feared horses, and certainly hadn’t known a jot about their teeth or gestational period. He’d
seen
only Eloise for so long, he’d failed to appreciate that there were any women with an interest in the equine. And there was something…really rather captivating about a woman with that shared interest. A smile pulled at his lips. Lest she see it and again believe he made light of her, Richard promptly schooled his features. “I understand I’ve given you little reason to trust me.”

“No you haven’t,” she shot back, and a strand of hair fell over her brow. An urge grew to take that lock between his fingers and test whether the tresses that shimmered in the sunlight streaming through the dancing leaves overhead were as satiny soft as it appeared. She shoved it behind her ear, stealing that opportunity from him. Gemma advanced. “First, you kissed me.”

Which he’d greatly enjoyed. He retreated a step.

“Then,” she stretched out that single syllable. “Despite knowing I mistook you for another gentleman…” Which he did not like at all, for reasons that he also did not know or care to examine. Color flooded her cheeks. “You allowed me to bare my heart’s y—” This would assuredly be an inappropriate place to smile. He fixed on thoughts of their kisses and the satiny smoothness of her skin. Desirous musings that would kill all amusement. He swallowed a groan. Mayhap that was not the safest direction, after all. “Furthermore, Mr. Jonas,” she continued as she took another step. “You allowed me to confess secrets I’ve shared with only my dearest friend.”

He scowled. In knowing she’d spoken of Westfield with another, made her declaration to the gentleman…something more. Something unpleasant, indefinable, roiled in his belly. “You urged me to remain seated.”

Throwing her hands up, she emitted an exasperated sigh. “Because I believed you were Lord Westfield.” Which made her interest in Westfield even
more
real, and he didn’t quite know what to make of the odd tightening in his chest at that truth. She jabbed a long, gloveless finger in his chest, drawing his attention to the digit. “Then you spoke of horse vomit.” This lively figure before him was so vastly different than the shy, hesitant lady in the breakfast room. He far preferred her spitting and sparkling to the subdued miss she’d been earlier. It was a crime that a woman with her spirit should ever be so silenced.

“I am a horse breeder.”

Gemma opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. “What?” She tipped her head at an endearing angle.

Richard encircled her slender wrist within his fingers and removed it from his person. “I am a horse breeder,” he said again. “I suspected a lady knowledgeable about horse teeth and the gestational period of the creatures would appreciate that piece of information.” For as direct and unflinching as she’d been, speaking amidst the assembled guests, there had been nothing that marked her as squeamish. Rather, she’d spoken with a zeal that had…intrigued him.

Some of the fight seeped from her tautly held frame. “A horse breeder?”

He didn’t believe it bore repeating a third time and, yet, for the lady’s benefit he nodded anyway.

She leaned up on tiptoe and peered at him. He shifted under her focus. Did she believe his profession should be stamped on his skin? Then, she smiled. A genuine grin devoid of mockery and, instead, full of wonder. “A horse breeder.”

That truth had been met with either disdain or disinterest from ladies of the peerage through the years. He didn’t know what to make of this slow, approving smile that, by the sheer honesty of it, contradicted all his earliest misgivings and suspicions of Miss Gemma Reed.

He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable with seeing her in any way other than the title-hunting schemer who sought to maneuver a meeting with Westfield. For if he’d been wrong about the lady in this regard, then she became a person he…well, a person he could very well like. Richard smoothed his palms down the front lapels of his jacket. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly. “I will leave you now.” He made a bow. “It was not my intention to force you to suffer through my presence any more than you already have.” He turned on his heel and started from the copse.

“Wait.” her softly spoken request brought him to a stop.

*

From their first meeting, with all the confounded, inexplicable fluttering caused by his kiss aside, Mr. Richard Jonas had been…well, a proverbial thorn in her side. A gentleman who, with his mocking grin and baiting, she really hadn’t much liked. As such, she’d quickly judged his whisperings in her ear a short while ago at the breakfast table as an effort to mock her. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d been…why goodness, he’d been trying to rescue her from abject humiliation.

He wheeled about to face her. This man she hadn’t much liked and she now stared at him through newly opened eyes. Towering over her and with his sharply chiseled features, he was, despite her first and hastily formed opinion—really quite handsome. Which mattered not as much as the discovery of this new and unexpected kindness in the gentleman. Richard arched a chestnut eyebrow up.

A guilty flush suffused her cheeks and she scuffed the earth with the tip of her boot. “I was of an erroneous opinion.” How coolly polite that sounded. She cleared her throat. “I believed you were making light of me and reacted defensively, and for that, I apologize.” How was it that she, who was singularly unable to string together two sentences amidst Polite Society, should speak so unabashedly before this man?

He took a step in her direction. There should have been an unease in being alone in his presence. Though a friend of Lord Westfield, she knew Richard Jonas not at all beyond a handful of meetings. Still, for that, there was an ease in being around him that she’d never experienced with any other gentleman. “And I judged you also in unfairness.”

His words yanked her from her inexplicable musings. “Mr. J—Richard,” she amended at the piercing gaze he trained on her.

“Given the purpose of the duke’s summer party and your own attempts to secure a private meeting with Westfield, I gathered your intentions were driven by nothing more than an interest in that respective title.” The wind whipped her hair and that recalcitrant strand danced before her eyes. He took in that limp lock a moment. “It has become apparent that I was incorrect in my suppositions and for that, I apologize,” he murmured. He closed the distance between them and the intense glint in his gray eyes momentarily stole her breath.

“I—”

He shot a hand out and with that slight movement went coherent thought. Richard collected that strand of hair and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, and there was such a beautifully sweet intimacy in that almost caress. For she, who’d long bemoaned the dullness of the hopelessly flat, refusing to curl, strands, felt almost beautiful for them in that moment. Then, as though she’d merely imagined the appreciation there, he tucked the strand behind her ear and let his arm fall to his side.