“You kiss very well.” She looked him over with an air of mingled defiance and interest. “I presume you do other things well, too.”
Wanting her, watching her, imagining her in her bed—that had been gut-wrenching. He had known he could never have her, yet at the same time he’d felt alive as he had not for too many years. Now she offered herself, and the primitive in him surged to the forefront, struggling against the feeble bonds of culture. “I may, but I don’t debauch virgins.”
“Think of what my life will be, married to someone like Lord Jenour-Redmond or Mr. Murray.” She caught his hand.
The warmth of her palm, the clasp of her fingers weakened his resistance. “Perhaps the suitor tomorrow will turn out to be your true love.”
“No, he won’t. I haven’t seen him since I was twelve, but a more self-conscious, righteous prig I never met.”
Harry couldn’t imagine a man like that with this creature. “Is he wealthy?”
“Very rich. And titled. And old. He is probably ten years older than I am.”
Harry didn’t like that little whiplash of scorn in her voice. Harry was almost ten years older than she was.
“He disapproved of my every frolic. He was hard, cold, and indifferent, and he grew a stupid little beard, like a goat’s, only sparse and blond. I wager he dyed it, for his hair was quite black.”
Harry stirred uneasily in his seat. “Where does he live?
“His largest estate is in Somerset. He’s by far the worst of all my suitors, and he is …Edmund Kennard Henry Chamberlain, Earl of Granville.”
Five
Harry choked on his drink, coughed. He stared at Jessie, feeling as if she’d buried an ax right between his eyes. His head throbbed, his jaw stood askew.
Jessie anxiously examined him. “Are you all right?”
Taking his first clear breath, he managed, “Edmund Kennard Henry Chamberlain, Earl of Granville?”
“Yes.” She looked even more anxious. “Do you know him?”
“Know him? Know him?” He was him. But he didn’t remember this young lady. He swore he did not.
She took his incoherent amazement as confirmation of her own beliefs. “You do know him, and think him as obnoxious as I do.”
Obnoxious? Him? He was not… He had never been…well, perhaps there was that brief period when he was young, but he didn’t remember Jessie.
Yet it was no accident he was here. At the resort. Now. When she was also in residence. Slapping his palms on the table, he placed the blame squarely on the one woman who deserved it. “Damn you, Mother!”
Jessie inched her chair back just a little. “Excuse me?”
The other diners stared, examining him as if he’d quite lost his mind. The young groom looked nervous, as if he knew very well he was unable to fight Harry, yet equally unable, as a gentleman, to stand by when a lady was abused.
As if Harry would ever hurt a hair on Jessie’s head. Harry shot the groom a killing glance, and lowered his voice. “You’ve met Lord Granville?”
“I said I had.”
“Ten years ago. I doubt you’d recognize him after so long.”
Jessie straightened indignantly. “I would so! I’ll never forget that scowl. He always stroked his beard, like this”—she did a savage imitation of the younger, pompous Harry—“and he wore a stupid cap. He hadn’t a care for his dress, and even came to the dinner table with mud on his boots!”
Harry made a weak clucking sound. Yes, there had been a time…but he still didn’t remember this lush maiden with lambent passion in her eyes.
“Papa said the young lord had picked up stupid affectations while at school.”
He had. “It happens.”
Jessie didn’t care. “But just last week, when Papa said that Lord Granville was one of my suitors and I reminded him of his disparagement, he claimed Lord Granville was undoubtedly older and wiser now. I don’t want to destroy any illusions you may have about your gender, Mr.Windberry”—she called him “Mr. Windberry” again—“but in my experience men do not get wiser, they get more eccentric and spoiled as the years progress.” She leaned forward with fire in her eyes. “Until by the time they are forty, they have raging gout and big bellies and false teeth and baseborn mistresses spread halfway across England.”