‘It seems to me you need someone to protect you.’

‘You’ll help me at a price, you mean?’ Jemma whispered.

‘It’s a price I believe you’ll be willing to pay. We suited once, you and I. In a basic way we suited very well indeed. Do you remember how I could make you want me?’

He closed the space between them in a single, prowling pace. She was tugged back against him and his mouth slanted hot and hard on hers, demanding, yet breathtakingly seductive.

‘You may name your terms. I’ll be attentive and generous in every way, I promise,’ he added with gentle, laughing coercion. ‘As my mistress you’ll have carte blanche. Anything your heart…or body…desires.’

Her lashes fluttered, her eyes focused, and she glimpsed what moments ago she’d been blinded to. He was watching her scientifically, to gauge whether she would let him ruin her.

‘I have an answer for you, sir,’ she choked, knocking again at his hand as it sought to bring her back to him. ‘It is no. A man as egotistical as you may find it hard to believe, but I find you quite resistible. And please be assured that being degraded by you is not, and never will be, a price that I am willing to pay.’

Chivalrous Rake,
Scandalous Lady
Mary Brendan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARY BRENDAN was born in North London, but now lives in rural Suffolk. She has always had a fascination with bygone days, and enjoys the research involved in writing historical fiction. When not at her word processor, she can be found trying to bring order to a large overgrown garden, or browsing local fairs and junk shops for that elusive bargain.

Novels by the same author:

WEDDING NIGHT REVENGE*

THE UNKNOWN WIFE*

A SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE*

THE RAKE AND THE REBEL*

A PRACTICAL MISTRESS†

THE WANTON BRIDE†

THE VIRTUOUS COURTESAN**

THE RAKE’S DEFIANT MISTRESS**

Regency Rogues

Ripe for scandal. Ready for a bride.

A roguish gentleman can be devastatingly attractive to a genteel lady, especially when she’s already had a taste of loving him, and regrets losing him.

In CHIVALROUS RAKE, SCANDALOUS LADY the heroine is unwilling to succumb to a rejected suitor’s offer to be his mistress, despite being sorely tempted to do so. The vengeful rogue has a fiancée, and the heroine has a secret that should remain hidden if she is to salvage what remains of her reputation.

The second book in the duet, DANGEROUS LORD, SEDUCTIVE MISS, finds the heroine under threat from a gang of local ruffians. Then she is unexpectedly reunited with the hero many years after their youthful romance ended in a bitter parting. But is he a villain too, and does he present a greater danger…to her heart?

I hope you enjoy reading about how the couples overcome scandal and heartache to eventually find love and happiness.

Chapter One

Quality loved to tattle, Jemma Bailey knew that. She knew too that her parents’ disastrous marriage had provided ample reason for her and her sisters to suffer spite and speculation. But over time the tabbies had grown bored of worrying at an unresponsive prey. One of their victims had gone overseas; the other had escaped their clutches for good by shuffling off this mortal coil. The couple’s two elder daughters had married and now lived blameless lives in the shires with their husbands. Jemma was the youngest girl, and the one least affected by her parents’ mésalliance as she’d been but nine years old when her father was granted a divorce. She had remained single and had kept house for her father until he died, whereupon she’d been astonished to learn that her parsimonious papa had been far flusher than he’d let on. He’d left her a tidy amount of cash together with his brace of properties.

* * *

For the past two years Jemma Bailey had lived as a young spinster of independent means, spending a good proportion of the year in a neat town house on the out-skirts of Mayfair. When the tawny beauty of the countryside beckoned she would set off with her housemaid to her small estate in Essex. In London she socialised with people of moderate means, and she’d mellowed into accepting that her parents’, and her own, behaviour had cast her to the fringes of polite society.

* * *

As far as she was aware, years had passed since a Bailey had transgressed. Jemma therefore felt at a loss to comprehend what might recently have occurred to cause such lively conversation to cease the moment she’d entered Baldwin’s fabric emporium. Such grandes dames as those Jemma had caught whispering about her were usually too lofty to notice her quiet, modest existence. Eyes that were long-lashed and an unusual, deep shade of green flitted over the female assembly. Flustered gestures and colouring cheeks were everywhere as the ladies picked and stroked at lengths of cloth to cover their confusion at her sudden appearance. A slight figure at the back of the group stepped towards her with a blush and a constrained smile. It was Jemma’s cousin Maura Wyndham. The young women were of similar age, and in their prime had gone about together. Maura continued to enjoy inclusion in social circles that now were denied to Jemma, but they remained on friendly terms and visited one another quite often. Jemma sent a speaking look at her cousin. She was dismayed and not a little annoyed to think that one of her own kin had been involved in tattling about her behind her back.

‘Shall I go out and come in again?’ Jemma suggested in a dry undertone once Maura was within earshot.

Maura quickly linked arms with Jemma and turned her about so they were heading towards the bolts of cottons and away from the knot of mothers and daughters busying themselves amongst the silks and satins.

‘I’m sorry you came in and caught us,’ Maura began breathily, ‘but I’m not sorry I was in that group and heard what I did.’ She slanted Jemma an earnest look from wide eyes. ‘I was going to come straight to see you and warn you of a ridiculous rumour that will certainly be doing the rounds by this evening. We…’ she took a glance back over her shoulder towards the ladies’…we all agreed, even Lucy did, that it must be the work of a mischief-maker, though why anyone would bother doing any such daft thing—’

‘And will you ever tell me what that daft thing is?’ Jemma interrupted close to her cousin’s ear. She gave Maura a faint, encouraging smile. Her indignation was mounting, and she was impatient to know what had been said about her.

Maura cleared her throat, and her tongue-tip slid nervously over her lower lip. ‘Did you notice Lucy Duncan amongst the ladies?’ she asked.

‘I did,’ Jemma confirmed evenly.

‘She told us…but it’s not her fault really as she was just repeating a conversation she overheard between her brother and one of his cronies. So you can’t blame her except for being indiscreet. I wish she’d only told me so I could have privately spoken to you…’

‘Spoken to me of what?’ Jemma implored whilst raising her expressive jade-green eyes heavenwards. She knew Lucy’s brother, Philip Duncan, of course, because the fellow had offered for her hand in marriage when she’d been a débutante. Jemma had always thought Philip had taken the rejection reasonably well at the time; she hadn’t imagined he’d brood on it for five years before retaliating and slandering her to his friends.

‘Philip Duncan has been boasting that you are trying to extract from him another marriage proposal.’

A hoot of genuine amusement escaped from Jemma and was swiftly smothered by a shapely, gloved hand. ‘I don’t for one minute believe that he would broadcast anything so utterly idiotic and false,’ she spluttered through muffling fingers.

‘I’m only repeating what Lucy said.’ Maura sounded quite miffed that her courage in divulging the grave news had been rewarded with hilarity.

‘I’m not disbelieving you,’ Jemma said gently as a few of her fingers lazily tested the quality of striped dimity. The other hand was busy wiping mirthful tears from her eyes. ‘Some misunderstanding has occurred. I haven’t clapped eyes on Philip in months, and last time I passed him in Pall Mall he was no more than polite. He was escorting Verity Smith and looking quite her lapdog too. Any hankering he had for me is very much in the past.’

‘Apparently that’s what he said to Graham Quick,’ Maura blurted. ‘Lucy heard Philip telling Mr Quick that you are the one hankering and chasing after him.’ Maura had noticed that a dangerous glint had replaced the humorous twinkle in Jemma’s eyes. Quickly she sought to defuse her cousin’s temper. ‘I don’t know what Lucy’s brother is thinking to invite such a fellow in to his lodgings. Mrs Duncan and Lucy often visit him there. Philip was furious when he discovered his landlady had let Lucy in alone and she’d been loitering in his hallway, listening to every word they’d said.’ Maura paused, added with an excited shiver, ‘Lucy nearly came face to face with Graham Quick! When she heard him coming she had to hide in a cloakroom till he’d gone. But Philip guessed she’d been eavesdropping all along.’

Jemma knew what had prompted such a thrill in her cousin. Graham Quick was an infamous reprobate and shunned in polite society. Most young women only knew of him by reputation and had never met him in the flesh. Their parents and brothers made sure of that. The fact that Philip Duncan had mentioned her name, let alone discussed her with such a blackguard, had stoked Jemma’s disgust to such a degree that she felt rather bilious.

‘Lucy said Philip mentioned having received a letter. It invited him to renew his proposal to you. By all accounts he thought it comical. He showed Mr Quick the letter and said he had no intention of rescuing you or any other…’ Maura’s fluid, whispered account came to a halt as her teeth sank in to her lower lip.

‘Or any other…?’ Jemma prompted, with a fierce frown, her eyes shining with suppressed temper. She was very aware of the group of women close by.

‘Or any other uppity chit destined to be an old maid abandoned on the shelf,’ Maura recited on a regretful sigh. She shot Jemma a sympathetic look. ‘As if you would be interested in Philip now! He’s going bald and he’s grown too fat to get his waistcoat buttons done up properly, whereas you are still as trim and lovely as ever you were at seventeen.’ Maura patted her cousin’s slender arm in a show of solidarity. ‘Why, you’re not yet twenty-three and could outshine any of the girls out this year.’

Her cousin’s extravagant compliment did nothing to ease Jemma’s sense of outrage. Her fingers had stiffened on the crisp fabric beneath them. The healthy bloom in her cheeks had reduced to two high spots of wrathful colour on a complexion that resembled parchment. ‘He said what? He did what? How dare he talk about me! How dare he even mention my name to a vile libertine such as Graham Quick!’

‘You might not like Mr Quick, but he seems to admire you,’ Lucy blurted thoughtlessly. ‘By all accounts Lucy heard him praising your figure and its…best points.’

‘Did he, indeed!’ Jemma’s soft mouth thrust in to a rosy knot. ‘I have to tell you I don’t regard that as a compliment.’

‘You didn’t send Philip Duncan a letter, did you?’

Such an audacious act was outside the role of any gently bred young lady, yet a shade of doubt had tinged Maura’s tone and drawn a wintry look from Jemma. Maura’s timid hazel eyes flinched away from her cousin’s stormy stare.

‘I did not,’ Jemma enunciated through perfect pearly teeth perilously set on edge. ‘Send him a letter?’ she scoffed. ‘Propose to him? The man must be addled in his wits.’

‘He had a letter. Lucy saw it being waved about. I don’t think he is lying about that. Someone is being very mean, aren’t they?’ Maura chewed anxiously at her lip. ‘Who would do such a vile thing?’

‘I don’t know, but unfortunately now I must find out.’

Maura knew that her cousin Jemma had a formidable temper once she was roused to action by a sense of injustice. She cast an anxious glance back at the ladies she’d recently been with. Thankfully, the older women had decamped, probably to regroup in the shop across the street where they might continue to savour this latest tale unobserved by its central character. Only Lucy Duncan and Deborah Cleveland remained and now seemed more interested in shopping than gossiping as they unravelled shimmering sapphire satin to cascade over the counter.

The two young ladies also drew Jemma’s ferocious feline gaze. As she frowned in their direction it was Deborah Cleveland who raised her flaxen head and met her stare. She could tell that the young woman was attempting to signal with her eyes that she was sorry for what had gone on.

Tension tightened Jemma’s stomach. She had always thought Deborah very pretty and had no reason not to like her. In fact, on the rare occasions they’d met in the past they’d exchanged a few cordial words that had hinted at a fledgling friendship, but Deborah was several years younger than she was. At eighteen, an heiress, and one of this season’s top débutantes, Deborah inhabited a different world to Jemma. Deborah had just become engaged to a handsome and most eligible bachelor. She was accordingly very popular and much fêted by the beau monde despite the fact that many of the young ladies striving to be her friend were envious that she’d netted such a catch. The most eligible bachelor, now spoken for, was another reason why Jemma and Deborah might elect to keep at a polite distance.

Jemma had received several proposals during the Season she’d made her come out. Philip Duncan had been just one of several gentlemen who’d offered for her and been rejected. Few of her suitors had made any lasting impression on her; in fact now, just five years later, Jemma struggled to recall all of their names.

But one had intrigued and very much attracted her. When a novice socialite of just seventeen, he had drawn her in to a glittering, sophisticated world now denied to her. He’d taught her to dance properly, given her the confidence to converse with his aristocratic friends and relatives. Her little inexperienced gaffes were never mocked, but gently corrected or smoothed over. When she’d nervously enquired if he’d heard the scandalous talk about her family, he’d mildly replied that her parents’ problems were not hers. Utterly relieved that he knew, but had elected to dismiss the Bailey stigma as irrelevant, she’d abandoned herself to enjoying being with him, aware that other débutantes watched, green-eyed, whilst he lavished on her his amusing, charismatic company. He’d made her laugh…and sigh when he’d taken her out to the garden during Lady Cranleigh’s ball. There had been other occasions too when he’d managed to manoeuvre her, quite willingly, into a seductive setting, but she’d remained faithful to Robert, her faithless sweetheart.

So she’d rejected Marcus Speer’s proposal too and gone home to Essex unattached with her father’s disapproval growling in her ears. Now Marcus was betrothed to Deborah Cleveland. No doubt later today he would be told by his fiancée of an amusing bit of gossip she’d heard whilst out shopping with her friends. Jemma swallowed the painful indignation that threatened to close her throat and eject water from her hot eyes. She had done nothing shameful and didn’t deserve to be laughed at by anyone. She could not bear that he, of all people, might find her risible. Would he believe her so desperate now to get a husband that she’d stoop to sending a letter to a fat, balding fellow, known to keep company with the worst kind of people, to beg him to renew his proposal? Shaking off Maura’s restraining fingers, she marched towards the young women, determined to impress on them both that there was no truth in any of it, no matter what Lucy had overheard her brother telling his repulsive friend.

* * *

‘Sir…please, sir…you must attend to some of your pressing affairs. It will take but a quarter of an hour of your time. If you will only join me in the library, we can clear the worst of it.’

Marcus Speer strode on into the house, his handsome features tautened in preoccupation. Adroitly he relieved himself of his coat and hat without slowing his pace. The butler fielded those garments wordlessly and made off towards the cloakroom with them.

Marcus’s secretary, Hepworth, was less easily dispatched than Perkins had been. He doggedly bore being ignored and skipped behind his master, trying to keep up with his long stride whilst repeating his pleas to make him deal with his correspondence. ‘Some social invitations for this very evening must have urgent replies,’ he huffed.

Marcus came to a halt and pivoted about with a frown. ‘What?’ His thick dark brows were knit together in a mix of irritation and concentration. He had just arrived home from visiting the Earl of Gresham, his uncle, who, having relapsed overnight, was now deemed by his physician to be on his deathbed. The Earl had been called an old fraud before when he’d clawed his way back to health from a lung infection virulent enough to see off a man half his age. But on this occasion his nephew, and Dr Robertson, had offered no gentle banter to encourage the septuagenarian to stop coughing and take a spoon of gruel. It was plain to see that the Earl of Gresham had taken his last meal and was close to taking his final breath. He was mortally ill and drifting in and out of consciousness. Dr Robertson had sent Marcus home to rest. In his professional opinion he estimated that his patient might battle on for a day or two yet, for his pulse was still quite strong. He’d advised Marcus to return to Grosvenor Square in the morning, and if he were needed sooner at his uncle’s bedside to be with him at the end, he’d swiftly summon him.

So it was a deep and sombre melancholy rather than bad manners that had made Marcus ignore his secretary’s pleas to go with him to dictate some correspondence. Marcus cast a look down on Hepworth’s sparse pate. The man pushed his spectacles up over the bridge of his nose and myopically returned his gaze.

‘Just fifteen minutes of your time, sir, and we can at least deal with those matters pertaining to the next few days.’ Hepworth’s tone was wheedling.

Marcus gave a brisk nod and, turning on his heel headed towards the library. Whilst they walked he started on the business in hand the quicker to get it over with. ‘With regard to any social invitations that fall within the next fortnight, you may decline all on my behalf.’ He stooped to retrieve a document that had fluttered to the floor despite Hepworth’s contortions to catch at it.

‘I have that, sir. All to be declined.’ A look of enlightenment suddenly crossed Hepworth’s features and his mouth drooped sadly. ‘Oh…your uncle, sir…beg pardon, I omitted to ask how he is,’ Hepworth whispered, aghast. ‘He has rallied before and I’ve always believed the Earl to be indestructible, you know.’

A half-smile softened Marcus’s thin lips at the genuine distress in Hepworth’s tone. As the Earl of Gresham’s rightful heir, Marcus understood that he now had important matters to attend to. He’d been quick to slip away from the sick-room in order to begin the inevitable business with undertakers and lawyers. It wasn’t his inheritance or the ambition of having a title that had hastened his departure from Grosvenor Square, but the need to escape the distressing truth that he was soon to lose someone who’d treated him as a son. He’d been unashamed to love the Earl in return. No man ever had a better guardian and mentor.

A combination of Marcus’s innate pride and ambition and his uncle’s guidance and excellent connections meant that by the time he was twenty-five he’d achieved wealth, status, and popularity. With his thirty-second birthday only a few months away all he’d lacked until now was a title and a wife. Soon both would be his, yet he desired neither. Slowly he became aware that his secretary’s bleak gaze was still fixed on his face. ‘There is no hope this time,’ he told Hepworth gruffly. ‘He is dying.’ He cleared his throat to continue. ‘Dr Robertson has sent me away for the Earl is slipping in to a coma. He thinks that I should return in the morning, although he cannot say for sure how long he has.’

Hepworth bowed his head, shook it, and murmured his regrets. He had clung to the hope that the old boy might surprise them all by springing back to life as the weather became more clement. It was early April and outside gloriously mild and bright for so early in the year. The daffodils had been showy for weeks beneath radiant light and cloudless skies. In contrast the atmosphere within this grand mansion on Beaufort Place was depressingly gloomy and grave.

Having entered the library, they headed for the large table and took their customary seats: Marcus at the head of the table and Hepworth positioned to one side of him. Briskly Hepworth spread out papers on tooled leather. He sorted them into piles. ‘Those I have an answer for,’ he muttered to himself, putting a stack of gilt-edged invitation cards to one side and flattening them with a pat.

He came to one letter and unfolded it. ‘Ah…this one…’ He coughed and a finger worked inside his cravat to ease it from his flushing neck. He did not relish broaching this subject. ‘Umm…it seems a delicate matter, sir, and I would have left it to you to open had I known the nature of its content.’ He pushed the paper over leather towards his employer. ‘It had nothing on the outside to mark it as personal, I’m afraid.’

Marcus idly picked up the paper, quickly scanned it, let it drop, and for a moment made no comment. His expression remained inscrutable, yet, as though in disbelief at what he’d seen, he stared into space before snatching it up again and rereading it. Aware that Hepworth was discreetly regarding him over the rims of his spectacles, he let the paper fall back to the table. ‘I think it must be a joke in very poor taste. You may ignore that one. I will personally deal with the matter.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ Hepworth agreed with a sage nod whilst diplomatically keeping his eyes on the documents he was shuffling.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, and true to his word to be expedient, Hepworth had all the instructions he needed for the time being and told his employer so. Politely he took his leave and exited the room, quite aware that once he had gone his newly betrothed master would remain a while and again study the shocking note from Theodore Wyndham that invited Mr Speer a renewal of a marriage proposal to his cousin and ward, Miss Jemma Bailey.

Chapter Two

A rustle of skirts disturbed the quiet in the hallway. Marcus turned his head to glimpse a shimmering banner of chestnut hair waving behind a willowy figure dressed in blue. His harsh dark features became cruelly sardonic. He might not have seen Jemma Bailey in some while, but he’d immediately recognised her before she’d slipped out of sight. So the shameless chit was here, too, and so eager to discover if she’d hooked him that she’d been patrolling the hallway to spy on his arrival. Moments after she’d disappeared from view Marcus heard a door click softly shut as she concealed herself. His eyes remained riveted to the far end of the empty corridor as he battled with an urge to go after her, drag her from her hiding place and demand to know what in damnation she thought she was playing at. She’d turned his life upside down once before, and he wasn’t about to let her do so again.

‘Mr Wyndham will see you now, sir.’ The butler had returned and, by repeating himself, drew Mr Speer’s narrowed silver eyes from glaring into the distance. Manwell led the way to a room adjacent to the bottom of the stairs and, conscious of the hostility crackling in the atmosphere, promptly withdrew. A moment later he crept back, putting his head to the mahogany panels. After a moment of intense concentration, as he strained to listen with his good ear, he realised he was being observed by one of the parlourmaids. Shooting upright, he stalked off.

* * *

‘Please, sit down, you will feel calmer in a moment.’ Maura tried to gently ease Jemma down into the chair by the window in her bedchamber.

Her cousin resisted any such attempt to be seated or to be calm and continued to stamp a channel in the rug’s pile as back and forth across its width she went. Her face and manner betrayed her anguish, but failed to fully describe the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that kept her fists curling and uncurling at her sides. Her eyes were tightly closed to prevent tears of rage and mortification from again dribbling on to her cheeks.

‘How could he do this to me!’ Jemma gritted out for what seemed to be the hundredth time. ‘That my own kin should humiliate me in such a way is…is insufferable! Abominable!’

Maura’s hands were agitatedly twisting in front of her. Up until a short while ago she had maintained that there must be some mistake or misunderstanding. Her brother surely could not be guilty of such underhand behaviour. Of course, Theo had made no secret of the fact he wished to see his cousin Jemma wed before she got much older, or much poorer. But to go to such lengths as to try to arrange a match behind her back was indeed outrageous, as was his choice of prospective bridegrooms. Contacting spurned suitors from Jemma’s past was undeniably embarrassing for her.

In her brother’s defence Maura conceded that Theo had a point in thinking Jemma ought to pay more attention to getting herself a husband and children and less to squandering her time and money on charities for ruffians. Since Jemma had had her heart broken by her childhood sweetheart she’d shown no interest at all in a romantic involvement or a family of her own. ‘Perhaps my brother believed it all to be for your own good.’ Maura knew her loyalties were divided, so she decided she might as well side with her closest kin. ‘I expect he hoped to help you,’ she ventured diffidently, then shrank beneath Jemma’s violent green gaze.

‘Help me?’ Jemma ejected the phrase in a strangled gasp. ‘He wants to help himself, and well you know it. He’s so desperate to get his hands on what is mine that he is careless of making me appear the most ridiculous creature in the whole of London.’

A crimson stain spread from Maura’s neck to the roots of her mousy brown hair. It was well known in the family, and probably in wider circles, too, that upon marriage Jemma would forfeit her inheritance to the next male heir. Theo was the beneficiary and would take two properties and whatever else Jemma had left from John Bailey’s original bequest.

Niggling doubts over her brother’s motive had pricked at Maura’s consciousness as soon as she’d learned more about the sorry affair that afternoon. But she’d chased them away. Theo would never stoop to act in so mercenary a fashion. He had simply grown impatient and impulsive because Jemma refused to encourage any gentleman to court her.

‘I should not have run away.’ Jemma marched across the room to swiftly snatch at the door handle. She held on to it while attempting to steady her breathing and boost her courage. ‘I should go back downstairs now and tell Mr Speer that I had no hand in this. What will he say, do you think?’ Trepidation trembled her tone. ‘I cannot believe that Theo didn’t know of his recent engagement,’ she cried. ‘If by some chance he did miss seeing it gazetted, Mr Speer could have remedied his ignorance in a letter. He didn’t need to come in person to tell Theo what a fool he is. Oh, why is he here?’

‘I remember he was very much taken with you. Perhaps he has come to offer for you after all.’ Maura’s tone veered between disbelief and optimism.

‘Of course he has not!’ Jemma disabused her pop-eyed cousin in a croak. ‘He is going to marry Deborah Cleveland.’ Her cousin’s blunt suggestion had made Jemma’s heart leap to her throat. Maura had touched on a very raw nerve by forcing her to acknowledge an idea that had already wormed its way into her own mind.

A poignant yearning had gripped Jemma’s insides as soon as she’d heard the butler announce Theo’s visitor. What if he had come to agree to her guardian’s outrageous proposal? It was a thought that had refused to be ejected until the moment she’d caught a glimpse of him as she’d fled to the stairs.

Jemma cast her mind back to the terrifying sight of Marcus in the hallway. He had thankfully been too far away for her to properly read his expression, but every prowling pace he’d taken over the stone flags had impressed on her that he too was very angry indeed. Her stomach churned with the nauseating certainty that Marcus might believe, as had Philip Duncan, that Theo had been acting with her encouragement when he’d written those letters inviting gentlemen to renew their proposals to her. She’d had that awful information just an hour or so earlier, from the man himself.

Following a frosty confrontation with Lucy Duncan in the fabric warehouse, Lucy had been ashamed and repentant at having spread gossip about Jemma. However, she was adamant she had not told lies and had offered to take Jemma immediately to her brother so Philip might vouch for her honesty. At the lodging house they’d found Philip about to climb into his gig. Ushering them in to his lodging house hallway so they might be private, he’d rather sheepishly admitted that he had shown Graham Quick a note he’d received from Jemma’s guardian. Jemma had demanded he go and get it so she could see the revolting evidence, but Philip had said he’d already thrown it on the fire. As Jemma had turned to leave he’d found the grace to mumble he was sorry for mentioning the matter to Graham Quick. Moments later he’d diluted his apology by adding that the message had clearly implied it came with her full agreement.

Following that awful revelation there had been nothing Maura could say that would deter Jemma from immediately confronting Theo about what he’d done. At the Wyndhams’ town house in Hanover Square they’d found Theo looking very smug. Without a hint of remorse he’d told his enraged ward that he’d not only sent a letter to Philip Duncan, but to every one of the fellows he could bring to mind who was still unwed and had offered for Jemma in the past. In all, four letters had been sent. He’d even had the cheek to try to turn the tables on her and put her in the wrong. In a martyred tone he’d added that she’d put him to some considerable trouble by not dealing herself with the matter of getting off the shelf.

Before Jemma could properly express her disgust and outrage Mr Speer’s arrival had been announced by Manwell. That information had stunned Jemma into silence. A moment later she’d bolted with just one horrifying thought in her mind: she had discovered the identity of another recipient of her guardian’s scandalous letters.

‘Mr Speer has simply come to tell Theo what he thinks of him…and me…’ Jemma finally told Maura on a heavy sigh. ‘One cannot blame him for that.’ A moment later her spirit had again rallied. ‘I wish he had just discarded the stupid, stupid letter and forgotten all about it as Philip Duncan did.’

* * *

‘Ah…do come in, Speer. Glad to receive your message and your prompt visit, sir.’ Theodore Wyndham’s voice held a high note of confidence as he continued to nonchalantly pose against the high mantelpiece with an arm slung along its marble shelf.

Theo now appeared so indolent that it would have been hard to imagine a more docile individual. Never would one have guessed that just moments ago this gentleman had been simmering with temper whilst listening to his ward violently berate him for interfering in her life.

Jemma had discovered, sooner than Theo would have liked, his scheme to get her married before she completely ran through the Bailey inheritance. She’d turned up like a whirlwind, moments before Marcus Speer was due, making Theo fret that she might erupt in hysterics just as the fellow arrived. He’d been worrying needlessly. When his butler had announced Mr Speer’s presence in the hallway it was as though an invisible hand had dashed a bucket of water over her. She’d drawn a shuddering breath, taken on a ghastly pallor, then quietly fled from Theo’s study via the connecting door to the library as though the hounds of hell snapped at her heels.

Now, as Theo watched his very welcome visitor close the door, then begin to bear down on him with a startling speed and purpose, he surged upright and fiddled at the knot in his cravat. He could tell, before a conversation had passed between them, that he’d misjudged this man’s reaction to his bold suggestion. Speer’s swift steps cracked against the boards like percussion pistol shots and his expression looked lethal. Marcus’s refusal to return a greeting, or say anything at all, added to the air of menace emanating from him, and Theo strove not to betray by look or manner his alarm and disappointment.

So far he’d received just one reply; it had come from this gentleman and had been delivered just hours ago. From its few lines he’d only been able to glean that Marcus demanded an audience that very afternoon. Theo had been happy to grant him his wish and had, whilst pacing to and fro excitedly awaiting his arrival, persuaded himself that the fellow was eager because he still harboured a tenderesse for Jemma despite the fact that, in five years, she’d turned from a saucy minx in to a tiresome bluestocking.

Along with the rest of the ton, he’d seen gazetted Marcus Speer’s engagement to Deborah Cleveland. Theo had dismissed it as an irrelevance. His letters had been ready, and he’d despatched every last one. Now, with Speer within striking distance of him, he belatedly paid heed to two vital facts: the fellow had a far superior height and breadth to his own and was renowned as a talented pugilist and, secondly, Deborah Cleveland was, undoubtedly, younger, sweeter, and richer than was his cousin Jemma.

* * *

‘How do I look?’ Jemma asked breathlessly as she pulled her coat this way and that to straighten it. Her hands next darted to her abundant locks to try to bring some order to the ruffled chestnut waves. ‘Am I presentable? Are my cheeks stained with tears?’ Jemma was of above average height for a young woman and of necessity dipped her head to gaze at her reflection in the glass on the dressing chest. Watery jade eyes were rapidly blinked to clear them and briskly she rubbed at her complexion with her fingertips to erase any sign that she’d been crying. Her appearance had suffered during the past hours due to her acute distress. But now, having conquered the worst of her shock, and brought her wrath under control—for the time being, she certainly had not finished with Theo!—she was ready to set another gentleman straight on the matter of her guardian’s shocking plot, and her lack of a part in it.

‘I don’t think you should do that!’ Maura whispered with a throb of foreboding. To her mind Jemma was still in a stupor over it all and not thinking straight. Having listened, drop-jawed, to Jemma’s determination to loiter somewhere outside in Hanover Square in order to ambush Mr Speer as he left the house, Maura could only foresee such an action bringing more trouble down on her cousin’s head. She could sympathise with Jemma’s need to immediately set the record straight, but such a highly irregular scene was bound to be spotted by a chinwag who later would gleefully pass on what they’d witnessed.

Graham Quick had no doubt already passed on in the gentlemen’s clubs what Philip Duncan had told him. Soon those fellows’ wives would know too that negotiations were underway to get Miss Jemma Bailey a husband. If it was reported that Jemma had accosted a gentleman known to have once offered for her, and one who had recently become engaged to another lady, her name would be mud. The Clevelands were an important and popular family at the heart of the ton. Jemma would be labelled a shameless hussy who was trying to steal Deborah’s fiancé. She would be cut dead by everyone, and her disgrace would haunt her for very many years.

‘If you think waiting quietly outside to state my case the greater risk to the Bailey name than making a scene within these walls I shall simply go back to Theo’s study and say what I must now. It will be a nasty argument with your brother, I promise you. If Theo is made to look a fool in front of his visitor, so be it. He deserves all that is coming to him.’

‘No! You must not do that! It would never do to act so disrespectfully.’ Maura gulped in panic. ‘Theo is your guardian…your family, after all.’

‘Indeed he is,’ Jemma agreed bitterly. ‘Yet he has shown me no respect or consideration in acting so sly and underhand.’

Now that Theo had started scheming to arrange a marriage of convenience for Jemma it would be wise to leave it to him alone to finish it, so Maura thought. People would consider it an appropriate duty for a guardian to try to arrange his ward’s future security by marrying her off, especially when the woman in question had her début a good few years behind her. Maura relayed that advice to Jemma, then let out a doleful sigh when it simply caused her cousin to frown and violently shake her head.

‘Oh, you’re too late,’ Maura cried joyfully, interrupting her cousin who had been ready to quit the room. Maura had been standing close to the window and, twitching the curtain aside, she peeked at the top of a dark glossy head and impressively broad shoulders as Marcus swiftly descended the stone steps and strode off.

‘He is gone already?’ Jemma cried in disappointment. She darted to the window and craned her neck to check for herself that her quarry was on the move.

Maura’s sigh of relief that the immediate threat was removed only fired Jemma’s determination to impress on Marcus the truth. Now that she felt more composed, she regretted having let shock and humiliation cow her. She ought to have stayed in Theo’s study instead of scampering away like a frightened little girl. She’d had more courage at seventeen, she inwardly scolded. Then she’d brazenly borne the brunt of her papa’s chastisement, and the disapproval of the ton. She’d deserved both, too, for she’d believed her heart, her loyalty, belonged to another man when she’d flirted outrageously with Marcus during that heady Season when she’d made her début. She had led him on, taken everything he had offered as her friend and suitor, and now, older and wiser, she felt thoroughly ashamed of her selfish behaviour.

This time she was innocent of any wrongdoing, yet she had crumpled and cravenly run away instead of immediately mounting her defence and protesting against the injury done her. She should have stayed and made her scheming guardian admit that he’d acted without her knowledge or consent. She should have made it clear that she had no intention of entering a marriage of convenience with any man, no matter how convenient it might be for Theo that she did so.

With Maura’s groan of dismay echoing in her ears Jemma impulsively darted to the door. Within a moment she was down the stairs and out in to the street, heedless of Manwell’s dropping jaw as she sailed past him in a whirl of chestnut curls and swirling blue skirts.

Once on the pavement she squinted against the sunlight. She pivoted on the spot, hurried many yards one way, all the time looking here and there, then retraced her steps and rushed in the opposite direction. She paused on the corner and looked about. Of Marcus there was no sign, and he would be easy to distinguish amongst the strollers out enjoying the spring sunshine. With his lofty height and devilishly dark good looks he was an outstanding specimen of a man.

* * *

Marcus watched from the opposite side of the street as Jemma searched for him. And he knew it was he she was after as she flew hither and thither. She was retracing her steps along the pavement towards the Wyndhams’ house and he wondered if she would mount the steps and go in again. His mouth twisted cynically as he wondered whether Theo Wyndham had, as a last resort, sent her out to try to lure him back. She passed the Wyndhams’ door and kept to a slow pace, her head lowered as though she was both disappointed and distracted by her own thoughts. His narrowed silver eyes kept her in their sights as he moved a little away from the parasol his mistress seemed intent on twirling over them both whilst they stood beside her barouche.

‘Will you come with me to the theatre tonight?’ Lady Pauline Vaux repeated. A delightful dimple appeared in one cheek as she tilted her head to give Marcus a persuasive smile.

‘I’m afraid I can’t. My uncle is now mortally ill. I await some bad news from his physician,’ Marcus told her.

He made to hand her back into her transport, but it seemed Lady Vaux was not yet ready to say farewell to her lover. She murmured her sympathy at knowing that the Earl of Gresham was on his deathbed. The fact that Marcus was soon to become an aristocrat, and a good deal richer, was neither here nor there to her. He’d made it plain at the start of the liaison that he’d never marry her, so there was no status to share, no future son to groom to be worthy of his earldom. As for the rest, Marcus was already rich and powerful enough to satisfy any young impoverished widow’s yen for a pampered life.

Earlier that afternoon Pauline had been visiting her friend, Cressida Forbes, who lived on the edge of Hanover Square. Having quit her friend’s company after a delightful episode taking tea and sharing gossip, she’d travelled just yards when she’d clapped eyes on Marcus striding along and instructed her driver to stop the barouche. Having beckoned him, but failed to persuade him to get up with her, she’d alighted to delay his departure and try to charm him in to escorting her to the theatre. But he’d seemed too stern and preoccupied to talk or tell her much about his reason for being in the vicinity. Once or twice Pauline had glanced about to see what had taken his interest for it seemed something was causing him to stare off in to the distance.

‘I shall come and see you soon,’ Marcus cut in to Pauline’s musing, making her dimple her thanks at him. Taking his mistress’s arm, he guided her firmly towards the barouche and helped her alight. He raised a hand in salute as the conveyance pulled off steadily into the traffic. Then his eyes swooped to the willowy female figure, some way off now. Crossing the road, he started after her.

Chapter Three

A strange sensation prickled at Jemma’s nape, making her absently scuff her fingers over it. She half-turned, sure she was being fanciful in imagining someone was following her. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a tall male figure, darkly dressed. Her heart vaulted to her throat, and she came to a spontaneous halt before twisting fully about. In petrified silence she stared at Marcus Speer as he continued his lazy powerful pursuit of her. Instinctively she wheeled about and hastened on. The next instant she was inwardly berating herself for having so obviously betrayed her fright at the sight of him. Beneath her aching ribs her heart continued thudding erratically, making her softly suck in air. Slowly she brought some order to the chaotic thoughts whirling in her head, and her pace became less frantic.

A short while ago she had wanted to find him, had flown from Theo’s house like a wild hoyden to look for him in the street. Now he was deliberately…temptingly…within reach. An awful suspicion occurred to her that he might have observed her fruitless efforts to ambush him in Hanover Square. He was close enough for her to have read his expression. It was mortifying to acknowledge that he’d every right to that slanting, sardonic smile. By touting her about to any fellow who’d take her as a wife, Theo had made her seem weak and risible. She’d not helped disperse that perception by cravenly turning tail not once but twice this afternoon in Marcus Speer’s presence.

He knew she wanted to speak to him so he was presenting himself to her on a plate, taunting her to swallow her pride and approach him. Indignation ignited fire in her veins, strengthening her composure. She put up her chin, took a deep breath and, confident her blush was fading, pivoted about. Purposely she marched towards him and halted just in front of him. She flicked up her face to boldly meet his gaze. Immediately her eyes darted aside. She hadn’t been prepared for the overwhelming effect being this close to him had on her. Silver eyes that looked forbidding yet achingly familiar had been ruthlessly watching her mouth making the first words she had uttered to him in almost five years emerge in a strangled gasp.

‘Why are you following me?’

‘Why were you looking for me?’

‘I was not!’ The spontaneous lie sent a fresh burst of betraying blood to stain her skin, and her eyes to swerve back to glance on his.

‘Were you not?’ he drily enquired.

‘You were just at my cousin’s house,’ she rushed on, hoping to cover her confusion.

‘So were you.’

‘Surely you arrived in a carriage? Why are you not in it instead of dogging my footsteps?’ She recalled attack was said to be the best form of defence and certainly it seemed to be boosting her confidence and courage.

‘As you were spying on me and saw me arrive, Miss Bailey, I suspect you know I arrived on foot in Hanover Square.’

‘I was not spying on you, sir. And I certainly was not awaiting your arrival,’ Jemma fumed in righteous anger.

‘What a happy coincidence then that we both were within your guardian’s house when I told him, amongst other things, that I won’t marry you,’ Marcus drawled. ‘I imagine he passed that message on, and that’s why you were outside searching for me to try to change my mind.’ An insolent grey gaze slipped over her lush figure. ‘I’m intrigued to know how you intended to persuade me to do that.’ His voice was sultry with amusement, his eyes darkening dangerously behind long, concealing lashes. ‘If you use the right approach, Miss Bailey, I might hear you out.’

A fiery blush raged from Jemma’s throat to her hairline. She’d winced on hearing his scornful rejection; now she visibly flinched for a second time. How dare he mock her so! Any thoughts she’d had of offering her apologies for Theo’s despicable behaviour were expelled from her mind. This hateful brute now owed her an apology for speaking to her, looking at her as though she were some dockside wench!

‘I think I must put you straight on several things, sir,’ she finally blurted in a suffocated voice. Her fingers formed fists and were held rigidly quivering at her sides. ‘Firstly, indeed it was a coincidence that we were at the Wyndhams together, but a happy one…never! Secondly, I’ve not received any report from my cousin of the outcome of your visit. I do not require one, for it is neither here nor there what you said to him. Theo has had the disgraceful impertinence to attempt to meddle in my life, but I will not allow him to do so. I shall decide if and when I marry.’ Jemma drew a deep breath and threw back her head to slam her eyes on his impaling steely gaze. ‘I was at his home just now to impress on him that fact and for no other reason that concerns you. Secondly,’ she uttered on a shuddering breath.

‘Thirdly…’ Marcus corrected softly.

‘What…?’

‘I’ve heard your second point,’ he reminded her with studied solemnity. ‘You weren’t aware of the outcome of my visit…’

‘Umm…oh…yes…thirdly…’ Jemma stuttered. ‘Thirdly…’ she resumed in a muted tone, the wind temporarily sucked out of her sails. A darting glance at his cynical expression soon had her temper again simmering. ‘Thirdly,’ she snapped icily, ‘there is nothing of which I care to persuade you except perhaps this: I find your arrogant assumption that I wanted to extricate a marriage proposal from you most unpleasant. I believed I had already made it clear some years ago that I had rejected you as a husband. Nothing has happened since to change my mind. Good day, sir.’ Jemma had managed just one triumphant pace away from him when a firm grip on her wrist arrested her, spinning her neatly around.

‘Are you sure nothing has changed your mind?’ he taunted softly. ‘Wyndham seemed quite taken with the notion of having a Countess in the family. He implied the idea appealed to you, too, now you’re slightly less immature.’

‘Let me assure you it does not,’ Jemma hissed, whitening with wrath at his insulting implication that she was ambitious for a title and childlike to boot. ‘And let me assure you of something else. My guardian is also quite taken with the idea of laying his hands on what is mine,’ she informed him acidly. ‘It makes no difference to him if I marry a noble or a nobody, just as long as he has the marriage lines as proof that he can legally claim my property.’ With a wrench she had her wrist from his grip. A phantom touch of firm fingers tingled warmly on her skin, making her rub in irritation at the spot. ‘I believe, sir, that in your arrogance you assume you are the only gentleman who received a letter from my guardian.’ She could tell by the hardening of his features that he had not heard rumours in clubs about the others, nor had Theo put him wise to it. A harsh little laugh bubbled in her throat. ‘You may or may not recall that you were just one of many gentlemen who offered for me five years ago. Every one of those fellows who lacks a wife has been invited by my doting cousin to renew his proposal.’ Jemma elevated her shapely little chin, looked up boldly into eyes that were glittering dangerously. ‘I fear I must go on to dent your ego, Mr Speer…’ she sighed with mock regret ‘…but say it I must: there is nothing special about you.’

‘Except perhaps that I am no longer unattached, and well you and Wyndham know it,’ Marcus returned quietly.

His answer was calm, and undeniably correct, yet oddly it disturbed Jemma more than a scathing outburst from him might have done.

* * *

Marcus could feel his temper rising, as was a part of his anatomy over which, it seemed, he had no control when in this little vixen’s vicinity. She could infuriate a saint with her acid tongue, and he was tempted to haul the infuriating chit against him, but whether to kiss her or throttle her he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been so close to her in five years, but he remembered well enough how she could stir his blood with just a saucy smile or a deliberately subtle scuffing of her skin on his. Once she’d captivated him to such an extent he’d risked ridicule when she’d rejected him. Inwardly he’d pined for her for a year; outwardly he’d seemed to become polite society’s most predatory rake.

But he could admit to himself what he’d been keen to keep from others. At the time a girl barely out of the schoolroom had brought him to his knees—quite literally—he’d proposed in traditionally humble pose. Then she’d gone home to her swain to find a broken heart awaited her in Essex. When he’d heard about it he’d briefly felt a sense of malicious satisfaction that she’d tasted her own medicine. But much as he might have wanted to continue using the balm of vengeance, it had lost its efficaciousness, leaving him simply feeling bereft. He’d hoped her father might bring her back to London during the following Season. But she’d not appeared, and he’d wondered whether he might find the humility to travel to Essex and propose for a second time.

During those twelve dark months when his moods were unpredictable and his business dealings neglected, his uncle Solomon had watched quietly from the sidelines, keeping his own counsel on the matter of Miss Jemma Bailey. But Solomon had had no hesitation in taking him to task over bad business deals and impatiently had guided his nephew’s investments back on course. Thus it had been left to Marcus alone to decide whether to swallow his pride and follow his heart or to salve his wounds in customary male fashion. His pride had won. He’d stayed in town and submerged his sorrows by carousing nightly with licentious friends and promiscuous women. After two years had passed he’d been sure he’d forgotten all about Jemma Bailey. At Christmas time, he’d travelled through Essex to see his mother and new stepfather in Norfolk and not once had it occurred to him during that trip to take a minor detour from his route and go past Thaxham House, John Bailey’s small estate. His healthy ego had helped him survive his first disastrous encounter with falling in love. He’d been determined not to appear a maudlin fool in front of his family and friends. Thankfully he had not. And now he was over her.

* * *

Jemma fidgeted as the tense silence between them lengthened. She’d been very rude and regretted it. Yet she wasn’t sure why she felt guilty when his implied insults had equalled her spoken ones. A moment ago she’d been ready to sweep away from him, feeling victorious. Now something about his attitude held her quiet and still. Instinctively she knew what was in his mind. He was brooding on what had happened between them five years ago.

She glanced about. Passers-by were starting to take an interest in them. Sidelong glances and sibilant whispers alerted her senses to potential trouble. The last thing she wanted was to stir more gossip.

‘Shall we walk and talk, Miss Bailey?’ Marcus had also become conscious that they were under observation. With studied gallantry he offered Jemma his arm. ‘It might be wise if we do not appear to be involved in a tiff in the middle of the street.’

Jemma hesitated but a moment later nodded. She knew he was heading home, and so was she. Her small town house on Pereville Parade was not fashionably situated, whereas his mansion on Beaufort Place was in a prime spot. But they had to walk in the same general direction before their paths diverged. It would be silly for one of them to stay a step or two in front or behind to avoid the other’s company. She knew too that it was sensible advice to maintain an appearance of civil acquaintance rather than one of being at loggerheads. Her small fingers hovered over the crook of his arm as a poignant feeling fluttered in her chest. Once she’d adored having the feel of his clothed muscle beneath her hand when they’d danced or promenaded. Yet all the while she’d felt so terribly guilty that she’d found him attractive for she’d believed Robert to be patiently awaiting her return to Essex so they might elope.

‘What did you say to Theo?’ Jemma forced her eyes up to his and her mind away from painful memories. She looked at him, really looked at him, and the ruggedly hewn, handsome features close to her made icy fire streak through her veins. He looked only slightly older than he had at twenty-six. There were a few silver threads in the thick blackish hair springing back at his temples and the grooves bracketing his thin yet sensual lips seemed a mite deeper than when last she’d studied his face. Her eyes diverted to the long firm fingers close to her own and unwanted images of being intimately touched by them made blood fizz beneath her skin. She’d been wanton—at such a tender age, too! It was little wonder that a moment ago he’d looked at her, spoken to her with such lustful amusement. He hadn’t forgotten her lack of restraint either.

She hadn’t been wholly to blame! The excuse ran back and forth in her mind, calming her embarrassment. She’d been a naïve young débutante under the spell of an older, more experienced man. He’d known exactly how to tease a response from her on those nights she’d allowed him to take more liberties than any young innocent ought. Had her papa known what he’d done to her beneath intoxicating moonlight on midsummer evenings he’d have called for his pistols. She recalled the whispered cautions from envious young friends when Marcus had invited her to step outside for a little air at the Cranleighs’ ball: He’s a rake…a terrible flirt…tell him no…he’ll break your heart. In the event he had, but she’d had no one to blame but herself and circumstances had forced her to lick her wounds in private.

At seventeen she could have been married to the dashing heir to an earldom. Instead she had yielded to her conscience and gone dutifully back to Essex and to Robert Burnham, whereupon she’d had her loyalty tossed back in her face. But by then it was too late to contact Marcus and humbly say she’d changed her mind. She’d known him only a matter of a few months but during that time she’d learned enough about his character to understand he’d refuse to be her second-choice husband.

Within a week of returning home she was thankful she’d not written to him, abasing herself with pleas and promises and the laying bare of her soul. She’d had a letter from her cousin Maura describing the latest tattle doing the rounds. It had concerned Marcus and a new opera dancer who had been the toast of Drury Lane. It seemed to Jemma that for many months after that first awful communication every letter she received from her cousin contained a fresh tale of Marcus Speer’s debauchery.

Finally Jemma had accepted that he hadn’t fallen properly in love with her, as she had with him. He had never told her he loved her, and now she knew why that was—for him it had been just an infatuation and he’d settled too quickly on her to fill the role of his wife. She’d thanked her lucky stars she had not married a man who would doubtless betray her with a string of mistresses before they’d reached their first wedding anniversary.

A dispiriting truth had then settled on Jemma: Marcus would never come, in true romantic style, to Thaxham House and rescue her from her sorrow and loneliness. He would, at some time, be an Earl, but he wasn’t the noble hero of her wistful dreams.

As though Marcus could guess at her memories his mouth tilted into half a smile and a smouldering grey gaze was slanted at her softly skewed mouth.

‘I thought it was neither here nor there to you what I said to your guardian.’ His smile deepened as she looked away with a regretful frown. She’d been so lost in her private thoughts that she’d forgotten she’d announced herself uninterested in the outcome of the heated meeting he’d had with Theo. ‘I said nothing to your cousin that could be repeated to a demure young lady.’

‘In sending those letters Theo acted outrageously and without my knowledge or consent.’ Jemma’s voice was hoarse and forceful, her cheeks burning. His mocking levity made it clear he considered her far from demure. If he was hinting at her wild behaviour at seventeen, he’d a right to his scorn. But she wouldn’t have him think her a brazen hussy now because she had designs on trying to steal him from his fiancée. ‘Do you believe me?’ Jemma gazed earnestly at him.

‘Why should I?’ Marcus enquired casually. ‘From past experience I would say you hardly inspire me to put trust in you.’

It was out! The first heavy hint from him that he had not forgotten or forgiven how she’d led him on like a common tease. Annoyingly she felt spontaneous tears start to her eyes. She swung her face aside so he might not see them.

Marcus slanted a look down on the top of a bonnet from which tumbled an artless array of thick chestnut curls. He felt the embers of desire within him become hotter. She looked little different to how she had as a teenage débutante. Perhaps her figure was fuller and her face slimmer, honed to classical perfection. But her little gestures, the tone of her voice, the success she’d had in rousing him, enticing him—those bittersweet things seemed the same. She was beautiful, spirited…and he realised with some irritation that he still wanted her.

Marcus dragged his eyes from Jemma’s alluring presence as a familiar sight at the edge of his vision drew his attention. Beneath his breath he cursed. From the moment he’d read Wyndham’s astonishing letter this afternoon, thoughts of his mortally ill uncle had been pushed to the back of his mind. Now he could see a carriage bearing the Gresham crest slowly patrolling the street as though the coachmen were searching for someone. He knew they were looking for him. Dr Robertson had sent for him earlier than he’d expected and he’d been away from home when the message had arrived. He’d told Perkins, his butler, he’d be visiting Wyndham and would be no more than one hour. The coachmen had doubtless been despatched to Hanover Square to find him.

A feeling of deep remorse washed over him, yet still, to his shame, he felt reluctant to quit Jemma’s side. Abruptly he removed her arm from his. ‘I think we must continue this conversation another time, Miss Bailey.’ He executed a curt bow. ‘Unfortunately I have pressing matters to attend to.’ With that terse farewell he forced himself to take two crisp backward paces so a space was immediately between them. A moment later he’d stepped past and was striding towards the carriage, raising a hand to hail it as he went.

‘Indeed, there is no need to talk further about any of this, sir.’ Jemma felt mortified to be so abruptly abandoned. But he was moving with such speed and purpose she could tell that the sharp words she’d sent after him had gone unheeded. A knot of sorrow tightened in her stomach. She had a feeling that if they’d continued walking and talking just a little longer perhaps they might have gone their separate ways more contentedly than they’d come together. As it was, nothing about the situation had improved. Pulling her bonnet brim low to shield her hot, watery eyes, she plunged her hands into her coat pockets and moved swiftly on.

Chapter Four

Marcus paused on the threshold to his uncle’s bedchamber to dart an astonished enquiring glance at the physician. A glimmering hope that his uncle had made a miraculous recovery was dashed as Dr Robertson slowly shook his head. The prognosis was the same despite the fact the Earl of Gresham was once more conscious and propped up on a sumptuous array of satin bolsters and pillows.

On one side of the bed, ensconced in an armchair, was an elegant, elderly lady. Marcus had expected Mrs Paulson would still be here. She had been sitting quietly embroidering in the very same position when he had quit the sickroom earlier that day. He gave her a nod and a wonky smile, hoping that it adequately conveyed that her constant presence pleased him.

Victoria Paulson had been his uncle’s mistress for three decades and was a similar age to Solomon. At times Marcus had wondered whether, if the couple had come together sooner in life, when Victoria was young enough to bear children, she might have given Solomon a son. They would then have married to legitimise the union and the child, and the course of his own life might have taken a very different turn.

Having pressed Solomon’s hand and returned Marcus a hushed greeting, Victoria rose from her chair and left the gentlemen alone.

Solomon’s exhausted smile for his nephew was curtailed as a cough rattled out of him. On hearing his master gasping, a servant sprang forwards, thrusting out a beaker of milk. Solomon flapped feebly at the fellow. ‘If you’ve got nothing stronger to offer me, then go away,’ he wheezed and tugged a burgundy velvet coverlet against a chest that was pumping erratically. ‘Might as well let me have a brandy,’ he threw peevishly at Dr Robertson. ‘Ain’t as if it’s going to kill me.’

Dr Robertson relented, gesturing to the footman to carry out his patient’s request. At that Solomon found enough energy to weakly grin and brush together his dry palms.

Marcus swiftly approached the dais at the centre of his uncle’s bedchamber upon which was set a huge four-poster bed. He stopped with one hand splayed against a square mahogany post, feeling as awkward and apprehensive as he’d been at eight years old when introduced to his noble guardian for the first time. Instinctively he knew that this was to be their final meeting in this life.

Solomon beckoned him closer with a fragile-looking finger but, when Marcus immediately extended his hand, it was gripped with surprising strength.

‘You look much improved, sir,’ Marcus began. ‘Perhaps cognac is not wise as you are a little better.’

The old boy exhaled a breathless chuckle and set free his nephew’s fingers. ‘Looks ain’t everything, y’know,’ Solomon imparted in a droll whisper. ‘I’m still dying. I’m still able to appreciate a good brandy, too.’ Marcus’s hand had dropped to rest on the velvet coverlet and he gave it a fond pat. ‘Don’t look so miserable, m’boy. I’m ready. I’ve had a good innings. I saw off three score years ‘n ten eight years ago. That’s six years more’n Patricia achieved.’ An increased glitter appeared in his sunken black eyes as he recalled his spinster sister. Patricia had pre-deceased him just last summer despite being in fine fettle up until two weeks before her maid had discovered her dead in bed. ‘And it’s a deal more years than your father saw.’

Marcus bowed his head, nodding it slowly in acknowledgement of the sorrow they shared at Rufus Speer’s unconscionably early demise at the age of thirty-two.

His father had been a military man and away on campaign for a good deal of Marcus’s early childhood. Major Rufus Speer had been killed in action a few days after his only child’s eighth birthday. Thereafter, Rufus’s brother, Solomon, had taken Marcus under his wing and treated him like an adopted son. It was widely held that Solomon Speer, Earl of Gresham, had felt it unnecessary to marry in order to produce an heir. In his eyes he’d had one since the day his younger brother had died with a Frenchman’s bullet lodged in his chest.

‘I know I’ve said it before,’ Solomon whispered, ‘but he’d have been mighty proud of you, m’boy.’

‘He’d have been equally proud of you, and grateful for what you’ve done for me, as I am,’ Marcus returned simply. ‘I should have told you that more often than I have.’

‘Don’t get maudlin on me.’ Solomon clucked his tongue in mock irritation. He gave the hand resting on the bed another affectionate pat. ‘As for Rufus…I would have expected as much from him had our stars been swapped. He was a good brother. He wouldn’t have let me down. So, like it or not, I had no choice but to take you on and make the best of things.’ Solomon’s doleful tone was at odds with the twinkling eyes that settled with paternal pride on his beloved nephew.

Marcus mirrored his uncle’s wry grimace. Solomon was requesting that the full extent of his dues stay, as ever, unuttered. No fuss, no fanfare, no expression of the great affection that bound them as close as father and son. If that was how Solomon wanted it to be to the end, so be it. Marcus simply wanted to grant this finest of gentleman everything he desired during their precious final moments.

The branched candelabra set on a dressing chest was throwing wavering light on his uncle’s face, highlighting the patches of feverish colour on his parchment-like cheeks. As Solomon sank back further in to his downy pillows, Marcus could tell that his little show of strength, his lively conversation, had sapped his vitality. A piercing glance at the doctor, grimly vigilant, answered Marcus’s unspoken question. His uncle was unlikely to rally from unconsciousness a second time.

‘Had a visitor this afternoon—no, I had two,’ Solomon corrected himself with a flick of a finger.

Marcus found a suitable spot on the bed and, careful not to disturb his uncle, perched on the edge. He felt tightness in his chest and a lump forming in his throat, but he would not allow mournfulness to mar what little time was left. There would be days a-plenty to indulge his grief. ‘Let me guess on that,’ he said, mock thoughtful. ‘Munro came to chivvy you in to letting him have the chestnut while you’re still able to sign the sale sheet.’

Solomon’s desiccated lips sprang apart in a silent guffaw. Finally he knuckled his eyes and gasped, ‘The old rogue would, too—he knows I’m about to pop off.’ He wagged a finger. ‘Don’t you sell that little mare to him either, when I’m gone,’ the Earl instructed his heir with feigned anxiety. ‘Cost me a pretty penny and it’s your duty now, y’know, to maintain the Gresham reputation as the finest stables in the land.’

‘And so I shall,’ Marcus promised and gripped at his uncle’s hand to lend him support as he fidgeted and tried to draw himself up in bed.

Once settled again, Solomon opened his beady eyes and regarded Marcus with brooding intensity. ‘Cleveland came to see me this afternoon; so did Walters.’

Marcus knew that his future father-in-law was an acquaintance of his uncle’s. So was Aaron Walters, who was also the Earl’s stockbroker. Aaron was known as a stalwart of White’s club and an incorrigible gossip whilst in his cups within its walls. Marcus had a feeling that his uncle was about to recount to him something of interest that Walters had told him. He further surmised he might have an inkling of the tale’s content. But Solomon approached the matter of the gossip surrounding Theo Wyndham’s outrageous letters from a different tack to the one Marcus had been anticipating.

‘I know I said that before I turned up me toes it’d be nice to know you’d continue the Gresham line…What I didn’t expect was that you’d settle on the first pretty lass you bumped in to at Almack’s.’

‘And nor have I done so,’ Marcus replied lightly. He was aware that beneath his uncle’s heavy lids his old eyes were fixed on him.

The footman appeared and gave the Earl a glass half-filled with brandy. A moment later the servant and the doctor discreetly withdrew to a corner of the room, leaving uncle and nephew in private.

‘You courted Deborah Cleveland for a very little time…Could’ve filled it to the brim…’ he tacked on whilst rotating his glass to eye its mellow contents from various angles. Despite his grumble he sipped, smacked his lips in appreciation, then nestled the glass in a gnarled fist curled on the coverlet.

‘I knew straight away she would be suitable.’

‘Suitable…?’ Solomon echoed quizzically.

‘Yes…’ Marcus corroborated mildly. ‘Do you think she is not?’

‘I think it is not for me to say what a man needs in a woman with whom he must share his life and his children.’ Solomon took another careful, savouring sip of brandy.

‘Is Gregory Cleveland having second thoughts about marrying his daughter to me?’ Marcus asked. He recalled that his uncle had said the Viscount had visited the sickroom earlier and wondered if doubts had been voiced about the match. Marcus knew without any conceit that he was worthy of being regarded as a good catch, but so was Deborah Cleveland, who would bring her husband a large dowry and equally impressive connections to his own.

‘Gregory seems pleased as punch with the arrangement; he says Julia is equally delighted and eager to have you as her son-in-law.’

Marcus nodded, his mood little altered on knowing that his in-laws thoroughly approved of him. He was, however, glad to know his uncle hadn’t been bothered by any aspect of the forthcoming nuptials. His relief was short-lived.

‘Yet something is not right,’ Solomon murmured, his lids falling over sunken, watching eyes.

‘Perhaps the Clevelands suspect Deborah might change her mind.’ It was a level statement, no hint apparent that Marcus had a suspicion why his fiancée might want to do so. Neither did the possibility of her crying off seem to bother him.

‘Cleveland said nothing of the sort to me,’ Solomon answered. ‘Do you think the lass might get cold feet?’

‘My offer was accepted quickly. Perhaps a mite too quickly.’ Marcus shrugged, added mildly, ‘She is very young; perhaps she would have liked to enjoy more of her début unattached with her friends and the gallants doing the rounds of the balls and parties. I don’t want to spoil her fun. A betrothal of about a year is quite acceptable to me if that’s what she wants.’

‘You sound besotted by your lady love,’ Solomon offered drily. ‘Cleveland did say he hoped you might find the time to turn up and join them at another of the grand functions soon.’

Marcus smiled at the irony in his uncle’s weak voice. So the Viscount had made a little complaint after all—damn him!

When his engagement had first been announced, Marcus had shown his commitment to it by accompanying Deborah and her family to several notable occasions. But once they had been properly established as a couple he’d discreetly withdrawn to the company of his friends and his mistress. He had little liking for the vacuous social whirl that was a part of the annual London Season. Usually he would not be seen dead in such a place as Almack’s ballroom, but this year it had proved its point even to a hardened cynic such as he. He had found his future bride there. With that in mind he realised he would be grateful if Deborah remained satisfied with the arrangement between them. He hoped never to again set foot in the place.

About a month ago Dr Robertson had confided in him that the Earl would probably not see Michaelmas. Marcus had immediately set out to find himself a wife of whom he was confident his uncle would approve as the mother of future Gresham heirs. Deborah was the daughter of a gentleman Solomon liked and respected. His intention had been to content his uncle by starting the process of continuing the Gresham line with a lady of quality.

‘So you’re happy, then?’ The Earl casually swirled the amber liquid in his glass.

‘Do you think I’m not?’

‘I remember a time when you were not,’ Solomon said softly. ‘Strangely I was reminded of that time just this afternoon, by Aaron Walters.’ Again his uncle’s hooded gaze fixed on him. ‘Tell me, did you receive one of Wyndham’s strange letters that begged for marriage offers for his ward?’

There was a slight pause before Marcus murmured an affirmative.

‘I sent a message that Dawkins was to look for you in Hanover Square if you were not at home,’ Solomon informed him. ‘I thought you might head straight off to Wyndham’s house to have it out with the chump.’

‘He’s always been an idiot.’ Marcus’s muttered contempt emerged through splayed fingers supporting his chin.

‘Maybe so…but he’d have been your kin had Jemma Bailey agreed to marry you.’

‘I recall I thanked my lucky stars she’d had the decency to refuse,’ Marcus said exceedingly drily.

‘Eventually you might have done that,’ Solomon gently reminded him. ‘But for a long time I think you considered the lass worth the burden of her strange family. I never gave you my opinion on that child, did I?’

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Marcus said mildly.

‘Maybe it does,’ the Earl differed in a hoarse whisper.

Marcus could see his uncle again tiring as his bony head slumped back to be bolstered by plump pillows. ‘That’s all forgotten,’ he soothed, gripping at Solomon’s hand in emphasis. ‘I simply went to see Wyndham to tell him that I thought his impertinence and his timing atrocious. I wouldn’t want Deborah or her parents to be upset by ludicrous gossip. Wyndham claimed he’d not seen the engagement gazetted.’

‘Did you land him a facer?’ Solomon croaked, his eyes alight with mischief.

‘Nothing quite so severe—he’s smaller than me.’

Again the Earl wheezed a laugh. ‘The gossip has it that Miss Bailey was in on it.’

‘The letter made it seem that way.’

‘Do you think she was?’

‘No,’ Marcus answered. ‘I think Wyndham lied about that too.’

‘He sent four, you know.’

‘Do you know who were the other recipients?’ Marcus immediately asked.

Solomon gave him a look that bordered on being smug. ‘I do. And my guess is that one of those fellows will take up the offer. Walters tells me she’s still a beauty, if a bit stand-offish and getting on in years.’

‘She’s only twenty-two,’ Marcus mildly protested, making more brilliant a knowing glint in his uncle’s dying eyes. Marcus looked at the ceiling, casually repeated, ‘So which other gentlemen have been approached to take Wyndham’s ward off his hands?’

‘Matthew Hambling and Philip Duncan are contenders. Neither, so I hear, have a notion to take on a wife at present. But Stephen Crabbe has my money on getting past the post. I remember the two of you nearly came to blows over the girl.’

Marcus glanced away to where the doctor was sitting in a chair, his head bowed towards the hands clasped in his lap as though he was dozing.

‘I don’t think she had a hand in it either,’ Solomon remarked. ‘Wyndham’s after her inheritance, you know. She’ll be penniless before the ink dries on the marriage lines. And if Crabbe thinks Wyndham’ll settle a dowry on her he’ll be disappointed.’

‘I know he only wants her money.’ A mirthless smiled moved Marcus’s mouth. ‘Yet Theo Wyndham is arrogant enough to think he’s concocted a convincing tale of onerous moral duty.’

‘I rather liked Miss Jemma Bailey.’ The earl’s quiet opinion drew Marcus’s eyes immediately to him. ‘I liked her mother too and never held with all that scandal-mongering talk about the Baileys years ago. Eccentric, indeed they were. But one cannot condemn a couple for wanting to escape the hell of a bad marriage.’ Solomon fingered the rim of his glass. ‘Do you recall when we visited Paris some years ago and spotted Veronica Bailey strolling by the Seine with her Count?’

Marcus nodded.

‘It was the first occasion I’d seen the fellow close up. Handsome devil, wasn’t he?’

Again Marcus gave a nod.

‘I thought he had a look of you about him,’ Solomon suggested. ‘Different colour eyes, of course.’

‘Are you saying you think he took an interest in my mother, too?’

Solomon guffawed so abruptly it made him cough, but he flapped away the doctor who’d sprung, startled, from his chair.

‘You always did make me laugh, you know, m’boy.’ He sobered, took a deep breath. ‘I think you know what I mean so I’ll say no more on it. I recall that Veronica was a good-looking woman and still in her prime when she went off with him. I can understand why John Bailey felt so bitter.’

‘He was hardly in a position to moralise considering he’d kept Mrs Brannigan in comfort before and after his marriage to Veronica. The tragedy of it was for their daughters rather than for them. When Jemma Bailey made her début she was not always wanted everywhere because of the scandal they’d caused.’

‘I recall you tried to compensate for that by showing everybody just how much you liked her. You took very little notice of the family’s calamities or its sullied name.’

‘It made no difference to me what problems her parents had had. It was she I—’ He bit off the words and finished quietly with, ‘It made no difference to me.’

‘Ah…but it would make a difference to a lot of people—people who marry for status and convenience rather than love,’ Solomon said forcefully, leaning forwards to emphasise his point. The exertion made him collapse back on to the pillows, and with a start Marcus was on his feet, his soothing fingers at his uncle’s face, moving back the wispy white hair from his forehead.

Silently the doctor had come up behind. He tried to ease the glass from his patient’s rigid grip, but the Earl refused to let it go.

‘Pull me up!’ Solomon insisted weakly, trying to use his elbows to manoeuvre upright in the bed. ‘I’ll finish m’drink before lights out or be damned.’

Marcus gently eased his uncle’s wasted body up to nestle on feathers once more.

‘Off you go now,’ Solomon sighed out. ‘Robertson will see to me.’

‘I’ll stay…’ Marcus croaked, attempting to swallow a burning lump lodged in his throat. He knew the time now was very near.

‘No!’ Solomon gasped. A smile quivered on his purplish lips. ‘No,’ he repeated gently. ‘Some things a man must do by himself. Dying…choosing a wife…’ He gulped back the small amount left in his glass and, satisfied, gave it over to the doctor. Then he lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Go…’ he told Marcus on an exhalation. ‘Marcus!’ the faint, urgent cry arrested his nephew at the foot of the bed. ‘From the moment you came to me,’ Solomon ejected the words with difficulty, ‘your future happiness was the purpose in my life.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Now our journey together is done…I go on alone.’ He panted rapidly, striving for the breath to finish, ‘But you know where happiness lies…’

A groan of pain seemed to issue from deep within his uncle’s being and it made Marcus instinctively rush back to clasp one of his freckled hands in support.

‘I shall make him as comfortable as I can,’ Dr Robertson promised gravely. ‘Please, you must go or he will fret and try to struggle on if he thinks you still here. Mrs Paulson will stay until the end.’

Marcus nodded, his eyes feeling gritty and afire with grief. He stooped to kiss his uncle on both sunken cheeks, then in instinctive obeisance he lowered his forehead to touch together their brows.

Chapter Five

‘If it wasn’t for the respect I had for the old Earl I’d go right now and offer the new one his choice of weapons.’

Theo Wyndham continued gingerly fingering the bruise on his neck. It had been almost a week since Marcus Speer had turned up in Hanover Square and gripped him by the throat whilst informing him in awful tones what he thought of him, and what he’d next do to him if he had reason to return.

The gentleman to whom Theo had directed his remark was lolling against the window frame, ogling a housemaid’s swaying posterior as she scrubbed the step of a house opposite. Theo’s ludicrous boast caused Graham Quick to snort in derision, but his attention remained riveted on the girl’s jiggling buttocks. Finally he turned to slant Theo a laconic glance. ‘I suppose you do know that Speer has winged at least three fellows who’ve annoyed him.’ Graham’s heavy-lidded eyes dropped to the livid mark on Theo’s neck. ‘God only knows where he’d aim in your case.’ After a last leer at the buxom servant, who was on her way to the side of the house with her bucket, Graham turned to face Theo with an impatient sigh. ‘It takes you an age to get ready, dear chap. Are we off to White’s some time this afternoon…or not?’ A pinch of snuff was deposited on the back of a foppish white hand and immediately sniffed into a fastidious nostril.

In Graham’s opinion Wyndham was fortunate not to have on his person a more severe sign that he’d incensed one of the gentlemen he’d solicited to marry his cousin. Graham unashamedly flouted convention, yet he wasn’t sure even he would have found the effrontery to solicit proposals from fellows who had suffered the ignominy of being spurned by a saucy schoolgirl. In a drawling tone he told Theo so.

‘Nothing wrong with a fellow trying to get his ward wed,’ Theo testily defended himself. ‘It’s my duty, like it or not, to get her settled before she gets any older. Besides, there was only one of them took it badly.’

‘And with good reason, considering he’d just announced his betrothal to the sweetest heiress imaginable,’ Graham interjected ironically. ‘Miss Cleveland has a very tempting dowry.’

Theo’s complexion turned florid and he muttered something about being unaware of any of that. The stale lie only served to elicit another snigger of disbelief from Graham.

In exasperation Theo tugged this way and that the linen he was winding about his neck. At last he seemed satisfied that the intricate bow at his throat hid the worst of the damage and he turned from his reflection to give Graham a smug look. ‘This, I think…’ he waved a note he’d picked up from the desk ‘…adequately proves my point. The chit needs a husband, and I’ve got her one.’

‘I wonder if Miss Bailey will agree with you on that,’ Graham suggested with a hint of malice. ‘You might march her down the aisle, but you can’t make her say her vows. Besides, Stephen Crabbe has his pockets to let. Have you settled on her a juicy portion?’ At Theo’s sullen silence he goaded slyly, ‘Come, tell me—perhaps if the price is right I might be interested in her too.’ His idle remark seemed to amuse him and he erupted in a guffaw. ‘’Spose you’d want me to lend you that cash, too, just so you could give it back to me to take the wench off your hands.’

‘I wouldn’t wish you on any female, let alone my own kin,’ Theo replied scathingly, ignoring the reference to the loans he’d chivvied out of Quick.

Graham grinned. He revelled in his reputation as an insatiable libertine. He found Wyndham a tiresome dolt and a constant drain on his pocket. But Theo had got himself an odd notoriety and Graham liked to be in the thick of things, so had become chummy with him. Unwittingly Theo had managed to worm his way to prominence by creating a drama and casting himself as a central character. Once the debate in Mayfair’s clubs and salons over whether Wyndham had impertinently interfered, or sensibly intervened, in his ward’s life ceased, he would drop him like a hot brick.

Theo was also aware that employing desperate measures to get the Bailey inheritance had turned up a wondrous benefit. He’d gained a little in popularity. He had realised the situation wouldn’t last, so was intending to milk his moment for as long as possible. With that in mind, he released the note advising him that Stephen would be happy to be re-introduced to his ward with a view to making an offer. It floated back to his desk to rest atop the one his ward had sent to him earlier in the week. That communication had arrived the day after Jemma had confronted him at home like a deranged harpy and contained no welcome news. She had not spared his feelings or her adjectives describing her disgust at his behaviour. She had also made it plain she had no intention of succumbing to any plot to get her wed. Theo frowned; Graham Quick had touched a raw nerve when he taunted him that he could not force the obstinate minx to marry against her will. But there was always a way, and he would set his mind to finding it in due course. For now a pleasant afternoon spent holding court at White’s beckoned.

* * *

It was no surprise to Jemma when her maid, Polly, announced that Miss Wyndham was pacing back and forth in her parlour awaiting an audience. Maura had been a visitor to Jemma’s home on Pereville Parade every day since the furore erupted over Theo contacting her spurned suitors. As far as Jemma was concerned the whole idiotic matter was unworthy of such attention, and she was becoming irritated that Maura would not let it wither naturally away.

Jemma had been potting seedlings in the small conservatory set at the back of her neat town house. Now she wiped the soil from her fingers on to a cloth and with a sigh set off towards the parlour to see her cousin. Usually Jemma was pleased to have a visitor, but she suspected Maura would again want to hear the details of her meeting with Marcus Speer, and she had nothing new to tell her. Neither did Jemma want to be constantly reminded of that episode. Since it had occurred, every thought of Marcus made an ache of unbearable poignancy ripple through her. It was impossible not to remember their tense conversation without the memory of his lazy lustful look rushing heat and colour to stain her cheeks. It did so now and she put a cool palm instinctively to her skin to soothe it. Her mind darted to recall how, when a little less hostile to one another, they’d walked side by side as civil companions, if not friends, and she’d felt her uneasiness starting to evaporate. She’d been sure he’d believed her when she’d said she was unaware of Theo’s disgraceful behaviour. But, only a few minutes later, and without any warning or proper farewell, Marcus had abruptly walked away and not once looked back. The memory of having been so rudely abandoned still made her inwardly squirm in indignation.

* * *

Within five minutes of having joined Maura in the parlour Jemma’s ivory complexion had darkened in annoyance. Just as she was about to screw up the paper she’d scanned in disbelief her cousin deftly whipped the letter away from her quivering fingers.

‘No, you mustn’t do that!’ Maura gasped and thrust it back in her pocket. ‘I must put it back where I found it before Theo returns.’ She gave Jemma an apprehensive look. ‘I looked for him in his study to ask for my allowance, but he’d gone out. I lingered, thinking he might return. Then I saw this and on impulse took it to show you.’ She shot a look at Jemma that begged a comment on her selfless bravery.

Jemma was still too distracted by what she’d read to remember to thank Maura for warning her that Stephen Crabbe was preparing to renew his offer to her.

‘I hope Theo’s gone to his club, then he’ll come back drunk and go straight to his chamber. I must put this back. If he realises it’s missing, there will be dreadful trouble.’

* * *

Maura led quite an uneventful life. She knew her gay society friends—apart from Deborah Cleveland, who was genuinely kind—tolerated her presence in their heady circle because their sweet looks and vivacity were heightened by her lack of such charming qualities. She had therefore found this family drama oddly exhilarating for, like her brother, she was enjoying a temporary elevation in status because of it. None the less, she was already regretting having impulsively taken the letter. The reason she’d gone to Theo’s study was not to speak to her brother—although she had planned to soon corner him about handing over her overdue allowance. She’d headed there hoping to see a very different gentleman.

Earlier that day, from the top of the stairs, Maura had overheard a visitor arrive and state his name to Manwell. Immediately she had been scandalised. Her brother had few friends and Maura knew that this reputedly wicked philanderer was not one of Theo’s usual cronies. As one transfixed by a dangerous reptile, Maura had settled silently on to a high step to spy on devilish Graham Quick through the banisters. Of course she’d heard of him, but never actually seen him as he socialised, for the most part, in places and with people innocent young ladies knew nothing about.

She’d observed a man of below medium height with an excessively spare frame, flamboyantly clothed, who was blessed with blond good looks. Being a young woman of plain appearance with no experience of stirring interest, let alone passion, in a gentleman, she’d found watching him, unobserved, whilst wondering, acutely thrilling. As she’d gazed down on the top of his flaxen head, she’d recalled hearing a whisper that even the members of the Hellfire Club couldn’t match Graham Quick for depravity.

After a moment the object of Maura’s frenzied imagination had tipped back his blond head to inhale snuff and spotted her. With a sly smile he peremptorily beckoned her to come to him.

From the moment he’d seen her Maura had been petrified. That thin, demanding finger had finally jerked her to her senses and she’d jumped up and fled in a jumble of skirts with her cheeks aflame and his rough chuckle following her along the corridor.

The sanctuary of her room had done nothing to calm her; in fact, once a safe distance had been put between them, Maura had begun to relish her adventure and to find Mr Quick irresistibly interesting. He’d looked wonderfully handsome with his fair face and angelic curls and nothing like a wicked libertine. She’d known that Theo’s visitor, once received, would be shown to his study and had, after a while, boosted her courage sufficiently to decide to go there on the pretext of needing to speak to her brother on a matter. But she’d tarried too long and by the time she’d tiptoed with hammering heart to timidly tap on the door, they’d gone out.

‘I suppose I ought to go home now,’ Maura murmured morosely. She still felt disappointed at having missed the chance to satisfy her curiosity about Graham Quick by seeing, perhaps conversing with him, at close quarters. She also now felt quite miffed that, having sped here to warn Jemma that the plot to marry her off was progressing very fast, she’d not even been offered a cup of tea for her trouble.

‘Oh…I’m sorry, Maura. Will you take tea?’ Jemma belatedly recognised her cousin’s mood and offered her hospitality.

‘Yes, please,’ Maura said immediately and sat down.

Having given the order to Polly for a tray of tea and cinnamon biscuits to be brought to the parlour, Jemma returned to giving the awful matter at hand her full attention. ‘I ought to write to Mr Crabbe and let him know that his prettily stated intentions towards me are unfortunately unwanted.’

‘No!’ Maura shot to her feet. ‘Please don’t do that. It will give the game away that you have seen this letter. Then I will be in trouble, for Theo will guess I have meddled in it.’

With an unsteady hand Jemma pushed back the stray wisps fallen against her pale forehead. Her fingers remained tangled in those chestnut tresses as she slowly walked to the window and stared sightlessly out on another glorious spring day. She certainly did not want Maura to pay for being a good and loyal friend to her, but neither did she want Stephen Crabbe to remain under any illusion that she might agree to marry him. She had hoped that the two gentlemen who had received a letter from Theo—and whose responses she had not known—would have had the sense to treat the matter with the contempt it deserved. Then the whole stupid affair might have faded away with no need for her to do anything at all. But now it seemed she had no option but to quickly state her case before Mr Crabbe paid her an unwelcome call.

Five years ago she’d stirred gossip because she had trifled with Marcus Speer’s affections and led him on like a common tease. Then she’d deserved the opprobrium for her silly flirtatious behaviour. On this occasion she’d done nothing to encourage a suitor’s attention. Once she’d broadcast the truth of the matter, her guardian’s motive would be rightly judged to be claiming the Bailey inheritance. As much as Jemma didn’t relish seeing Maura upset by her brother’s greed being exposed, she could see no other way to proceed.

Jemma’s troubled thoughts were interrupted as Polly arrived with the tea tray. Having settled on the sofa opposite her cousin, and handed Maura her tea, Jemma was surprised to hear a tap at the door and see Polly again hovering on the threshold.

‘A gentleman caller, Miss Bailey,’ Polly announced in her soft Devon burr.

The hand that clutched a teacup froze halfway to Maura’s mouth. Swiftly it was deposited back on its saucer, rattling together the crockery. ‘It’s Theo,’ she hissed, pupils dilating in fright. ‘He must have discovered the letter is missing. He’s guessed I’ve taken it to show you. He’s come to get it…and me…’

‘Shh, it is not him,’ Jemma soothed, quickly standing up. Polly was familiar enough with her mistress’s guardian to have announced him by his name.

‘Who is it Polly?’ Jemma’s heart had plummeted to her stomach. Had Stephen Crabbe come to visit without the courtesy of first sending a card, and before she had properly decided how she must attack such a delicate matter as rejecting him for a second time?

‘It’s a Mr Speer, Miss Bailey,’ Polly announced, her eyes suddenly alight with admiration, her lips compressed to hide a smile. ‘He’s waiting in the hallway. Shall I show him in?’

‘No!’ Jemma blurted in a gulp. ‘That is…yes, of course. Please show him in. No, one moment…’ She again arrested her servant’s departure, but gave Polly an apologetic look for the confusion. ‘Ask him to wait just a moment, please.’

Polly nodded and slipped away to do as she’d been bid. As she skipped along the corridor towards the vestibule she inwardly chuckled. She’d be in a dither too if such a grand-looking man came a-calling on her unexpectedly.

‘What do you think he wants?’ Maura whispered, her eyes as round as the saucers on the table. Now she knew that her brother had not come in high dudgeon to chastise her she looked quite comfortable perched on the edge of her chair, and agog with curiosity. ‘Surely he is not still furious at having received Theo’s letter? Do you think that he is here to again quarrel with you?’

‘I…I don’t know,’ Jemma croaked. And that was the truth. She had no idea why he’d come. The last time she’d been in his company his parting words to her had been that they should finish their conversation another time. She’d imagined it to be just an empty phrase tossed at her as a substitute for a proper farewell. She felt quite light-headed at the prospect of receiving him at home without knowing the purpose of his call. She knew too that she regretted having delayed her cousin’s departure with the offer of refreshment. Of course it was best for her reputation that she did not see him alone but—etiquette be damned!—she would sooner hear whatever it was he had to say in private. Closely following that thought came another to reassure her. Marcus Speer was a sophisticated gentleman. He would refrain from discussing anything of a delicate nature in front of Maura.

After a moment Jemma realised that she would be no better prepared to deal with the situation after ten minutes of brooding on it than she was now. In fact, it would be bad manners to make him wait. She recalled the glimpse she’d had of him pacing impatiently in the hallway of Theo’s house. She guessed Mr Speer was not a man who gladly wasted his time, and she didn’t want to annoy him for no good reason. Quickly Jemma went to the door, opened it and gestured to Polly, hovering in the vicinity, that she was ready to receive him.

Chapter Six

‘Will you take tea with us, Mr Speer?’

In her willingness to appear genial, Jemma realised she had barely allowed him to set one expensively shod foot in to the room before bursting out with her offer.

‘Thank you. I’d like that,’ Marcus replied lightly and, having allowed Polly to scuttle beneath his braced arm to fetch another cup and saucer, he proceeded to close the door.

Jemma then received a smile that made it clear he knew she was flustered by his unexpected visit. His amusement, though veiled, was aggravating enough to subdue some of her nervousness. ‘I should like to introduce you to my cousin, Miss Wyndham,’ Jemma plunged on thoughtlessly. A moment later she realised that an introduction was surely unnecessary.

Five years ago, for some weeks, Marcus Speer had paid regular calls to this house. Then her papa would receive him in his study and the two gentlemen would pass the time of day over a tipple before she was allowed to greet her visitor. Her father’s sister, Aunt Cecily, would then act as chaperon whilst Marcus sat with the ladies to politely take tea. There had been occasions when the weather had been clement and they’d gone for a drive in his fancy phaeton. She remembered how she’d adored feeling the breeze catching at her bonnet as he set the horses to such a brisk trot that her elderly aunt would clutch doublehandedly at the side of the vehicle, her eyes clamped shut, her lips shivering in silent prayer. Delving into her store of memories, she recalled that Maura had enjoyed at least one exhilarating trip sitting beside her. Her cousin would have been present, too, when Marcus and his friends joined their party at an evening gathering. More recently her cousin had been invited to socialise in the Cleveland’s elite circle. As Deborah’s betrothed, it was likely that Marcus would accompany his fiancée and his future in-laws.

‘I believe we have already met,’ Marcus said amiably, confirming Jemma’s thoughts. ‘How are you, Miss Wyndham?’

His greeting to Maura had sounded relaxed and sincere and that pleased Jemma. Theo’s despicable behaviour didn’t seem to have coloured Marcus’s attitude towards all the Wyndhams. Of course, what he really thought of her she had yet to discover.

‘I’m very well, sir, thank you. Deborah has invited me to go with her party to the concert at Vauxhall later this week.’ It was rattled out breathlessly before Maura had fully recovered from the little curtsy she was making.

‘How charming,’ Marcus replied. ‘Do you like the pleasure gardens?’

An immediate nod answered him. ‘But I haven’t been for years, not since I made my come out. We were a small group on that occasion. Jemma was there, and Uncle John and my papa and Aunt Cecily. We—’ Maura dipped her head in Jemma’s direction, too engrossed in telling her tale to heed a cautionary glint in her cousin’s eyes ‘—we made our débuts during the same season, but were not as fortunate as Deborah has been in finding a husband…’ Her voice faded away. Maura’s enthusiasm to spin out a conversation with this handsome paragon had made her forgetful of how badly things had ended for Jemma, and for Mr Speer. ‘It’s a long time since we went to Vauxhall,’ she mumbled awkwardly, then gulped from her cup.

‘A very long time,’ Jemma endorsed with forced nonchalance. ‘I barely recall it.’ That fib caused Jemma to immediately blush and Marcus to slowly smile at his shoes.

Oh, she remembered that scented summer evening beneath the twinkling lights strung in the trees. And, from his sardonic reaction, she knew that he recalled the sultry night too.

With the assistance of his friend Randolph Chadwicke, he’d managed to manoeuvre her away from her friends and into one of the secluded walkways. He’d led her by the hand to a shadowy spot where boughs of whispering leaves almost disguised the sighs of secret lovers, but through the dense dark hedges could be glimpsed fragmented silhouettes. In her tender inexperience, it had seemed incredibly exciting, also reassuring to Jemma, to know that just a few feet away other young ladies were being wooed by handsome gallants. She felt her breath catch, her pulse accelerate with the memory of the sensual delight that Marcus had awoken within her.

Swiftly she began to collect the teapot and used china and put them back on to the tray. But the stimulating thoughts bombarding her consciousness would not be put to flight. She felt her breasts begin to throb, her legs to weaken and put a hand to the table as she swayed into it for support. She’d too generously allowed him to take liberties on that occasion just as she had at the Cranleighs’ ball.

‘How is your friend Mr Chadwicke, sir?’ Jemma turned from shuffling cups to blurt that out. ‘I don’t recall seeing him in town for quite a while.’ The question had been spontaneous, designed to eject memories of her bodice buttons being slowly slipped from their hooks and his fingers gliding inside…Of course the distraction was ill devised. The steady intense glitter in his silver eyes, the hard smile, made it clear he knew what was on her mind and how it had led her to remember his friend.

Marcus felt the tightening in his loins as he sensed anew tender flesh swelling to fill his palms, tasted again the sweetness of her novice kisses, her tongue-tip touching his with alternating ardency and wonder. He thought of Randolph too, and his welcome assistance in creating a diversion that evening. Then he wondered if the two of them might manage to remain friends for much longer…

‘I danced with Mr Chadwicke earlier in the week,’ Maura chirped up helpfully. It seemed to her that Mr Speer was taking rather a time to find an answer to Jemma’s simple question about his friend. ‘He was at Almack’s on Wednesday. He made a point of coming over and speaking to us. He danced with Deborah too. Oh, he is so charming.’

Marcus dragged his mind from memories that were making him feel increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Indeed he is,’ he drawled. ‘There, you have your answer, Miss Bailey,’ he said in a voice roughened by lust. ‘It seems Randolph is doing well.’

‘That is good to know,’ Jemma murmured, casting about in her mind for an innocuous topic of conversation. She could not find one. But she knew the matter of his betrothal stalked silently between them. The closest Marcus had come to referring to his fiancée was when he’d said that she and Theo were aware he was no longer unattached.

Now, with several mentions of his future bride’s name hovering in the air, Jemma knew she should say something to acknowledge Deborah’s position in his life. She would hate him to think that his impending marriage bothered her in any way. ‘I must offer my rather tardy congratulations on your betrothal to Miss Cleveland, sir.’ It was a light remark coupled with a sweet smile and then the tea tray, replenished with a fresh set by Polly, who’d whizzed discreetly in and out, again had her attention. Belatedly she recalled having offered him refreshment. She snatched at the pot and watched the stewed brew stream out of the spout. Jemma frowned at it; she feared the beverage might now be unpalatably strong and cool. She handed him his tea anyway with a polite, ‘Please do sit down, sir, if you would like to.’

Marcus took a seat and then a sip from his cup. His expression gave nothing away, but he placed the cup and saucer down on the table and looked at Jemma with rueful humour far back in his eyes.

‘Are you going to Vauxhall Gardens with the Clevelands later in the week, Mr Speer?’ Maura looked hopeful of hearing an affirmative.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Marcus replied.

‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ Maura’s small mouth twisted in disappointment. She peeked under her lashes at Jemma as though expecting her to contribute something to the conversation.

‘Will you be going to Vauxhall with the young ladies, Miss Bailey?’ Marcus asked.

‘I won’t, sir. I have been invited to the Sheridans this week,’ she truthfully told him, but omitted to pinpoint the exact day.

Mr Sheridan had dealt with her father’s bank affairs and had given her guidance on financial matters since John Bailey’s death. Once in a while he and his wife invited her to their neat villa outside Marylebone to enjoy cosy at homes with their growing family.

Jemma was sure she’d detected a hint of challenge in what had seemed to be an idle enquiry from Marcus. When he relaxed back in his chair, and continued regarding her steadily, she knew for sure he was keen to gauge her reaction. Jemma felt her indignation rising. He was obviously aware that invitations to join the Clevelands’ lofty circle did not come her way. Her parents’ openly adulterous marriage and subsequent divorce had put paid to her and her sisters becoming popular as débutantes. Never the less Monica and Patricia had found husbands to love them. But neither of her sisters had added to their infamy by acting like shallow flirts in their youth.